Adalah petitions Israeli Supreme Court demanding exception for Arab meat importers from the state’s Kosher Meat Law
On 18 May 2016, Adalah on behalf of the Ahmad Effendi Meat Company and other Arab consumers submitted a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court against the Economy Ministry asking for Arab meat importers to be exempted from the state’s meat law, which makes importing meat contingent on obtaining a kashrut certificate from the Chief Rabbinate. Adalah argued that the law is tantamount to religious coercion of the Arab population.
Demanding compliance with the Kosher Meat Law results in a significant economic burden on Arab meat importers and consumers. According to official data, the cost of meeting kosher standards and complying with the requirements for obtaining a rabbinate certificate (Kashrut) amounts to about 110,400$ per month.
Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zaher, who filed the petition, asserts in the case that because of the procedures for obtaining the kashrut certificate, “Arab citizens must consume meat … the method of slaughtering, the parts that are permitted for eating, and the taste of the meat … are forced upon them because of the implementation of Orthodox Jewish rules or rules of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and they become hostages to these kashrut laws.”
Adalah argued in the petition that the law violates the right to dignity of Arab citizens: “The violation of freedom of religion and freedom from religion, when it involves a national and religious minority, is 10 times as serious as when it does not take into account the needs of this group. [The law results in] the religious coercion of the minority, strengthens the message to the group that it has an inferior status and that its needs are not taken into account,” the petition stated. “This message is a hurtful message, and violates the constitutional right to dignity in contravention of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.”
The petition highlighted a number of examples, in which the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel is exempted from compliance with certain laws. For example, the law against raising pigs does not apply in communities where the majority of residents are Arab Christians; and the Matza Law permits the sale of leavened products during Passover in places where most residents are not Jewish. Most recently, Radio Al Shams, an Arabic-language radio station with 300,000 listeners was allowed to broadcast on Yom Kippur, exempting it from the radio broadcasting law, in the wake of an Adalah petition.
The petition also asserts that the law violates the employment rights of Arab citizens in general, and those of the Ahmad Effendi Meat Company in particular, citing examples from abroad of laws exempting minorities in order to allow them to conduct their lives according to their religious faiths.
In 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the right of Orthodox Jews to get an exemption from a law that prohibiting building on the balconies, and thus which prevented them from building a “sukkah” on Succot.
In light of the above, Adalah demanded that the Supreme Court order the Ministry of the Economy to exempt Arab businesses from the Kosher Meat Law.
Case Citation: HCJ 3986/16, Ahmad Effendi, et al. v. Ministry of the Economy (case pending)
Read the petition in Hebrew, here
