A few months ago, signs were plastered across haredi neighborhoods in Jerusalem—including one directly in front of my apartment building—declaring that “Anyone who enlists (in the IDF), will eat treif.” Whether these billboards are intended to be literal or hyperbolic, at a minimum, they reflect an assumption that kashrut in the army is significantly substandard. In reality, the kashrut standards maintained in the army are often higher than those of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and, in fact, often rival those of the mehadrin kashrut agencies, something which the mehadrin kashrut agencies attest to themselves.
The IDF has always provided kosher food to its soldiers, but the past decade has seen the IDF undergo a quiet revolution in this area. Under the leadership of IDF Chief Rabbi Eyal Krim and former IDF Rabbinate head of kashrut Rabbi Chaim Weissberg, kashrut standards have seen unprecedented advancement. To learn more, I sat with the most recent head of the IDF Rabbinate’s kashrut division, Rabbi Neria Rosenthal, who served in the position throughout the war until his retirement this January. In fact, some of what is written here is being published for the first time.
For starters, as more religious people draft to the army, the IDF Rabbinate receives greater resources to enhance the kashrut standards of military food provisions. Back in 2019, it expanded its kashrut workforce, deploying additional supervisors to military facilities and food contractors. The IDF Rabbinate recruited rabbis with specialized training to oversee specific kashrut domains including imported products, green vegetables, and ritual slaughter. The military completed this transition in 2022, implementing a policy ensuring all meat served throughout the entire military meet glatt kosher requirements (chalak). On army bases with haredi units, all meat is glatt kosher l’mehadrin, supervised by higher-level kosher certification agencies. Even on those bases, for soldiers who request the highest civilian kashrut standard, Badatz Eidah Haredit, that is provided as well.
After years of investing in strengthening the relationships between the IDF Rabbinate and other army branches, the army’s logistics division eventually consented to having the IDF Rabbinate approve all food items—from oil to meat to spices. Every food shipment entering an IDF base undergoes meticulous inspections, one of which is a kashrut inspection. IDF rabbis personally verify kashrut certifications and conduct thorough examinations of incoming supplies. This vigilance has proven effective. “Just weeks ago,” Rabbi Rosenthal said, “an entire truckload of pasta was rejected after inspectors discovered bug infestations during their routine checks. And the inspection does not stop there—all foods considered to be at risk for bug infestation are inspected thoroughly in the kitchen.”
What’s more, if this were to reoccur multiple times, the supplier knows their entire contract is at risk. Why? This gets to the underlying factor behind much of the higher standards: the leveraging of economic influence. Since the war began, the IDF has been the largest food consumer in Israel, feeding nearly 500,000 people per day! Even in peacetime, the IDF is one of the country’s largest food consumers. As such, when choosing its culinary contractors, the IDF Rabbinate requires high standards, yet faces no resistance. After all, any company wants to land this mega contract.
On the other side of the coin, even after a contract is signed, if a company starts cutting corners or is found to be remiss in one of its kashrut requirements, the IDF Rabbinate can cut the contract immediately, knowing that other wholesalers will be more than happy to fill the gap. In fact, this represents a significant benefit over civilian kashrut, even high-level kashrut, because when a civilian kashrut agency suspects negligence, it is liable to tolerate the issue longer than it should since the kashrut agency itself has an interest in not losing business. Rabbi Rosenthal relates that this phenomenon has actually raised kashrut standards across Israel, as many of the IDF’s suppliers also supply civilian customers, and due to the IDF Rabbinate’s insistence on various standards, those civilian customers benefit from the higher standards as well.
This commitment to high standards extends to produce as well. The IDF sources produce from two specific companies, and part of the contract is that IDF rabbis supervise them all the way from the planting stage, ensuring optimal methods are employed to minimize bug infestation.
Importantly, it isn’t just the IDF Rabbinate saying its own food meets a high kosher standard. Many of the most-respected kashrut agencies in Israel, widely recognized as reliable certification, even according to haredi standards, have issued their stamp of approval. This includes the Orthodox Union (OU), Rav Yosef Efrati, Rav Machpud, and Chasam Sofer-Petah Tikvah. My neighbor—a haredi fellow who enlisted in November 2023 and has since served 300-plus days of reserve duty—has arranged meetings between leading haredi rabbis who, after being presented with the IDF Rabbinate’s standards, offered their stamp of approval as well. This includes Rav Yosef Chevroni (dean of Chevron yeshiva), Rav Yitzchak Ezrachi (dean of Mir Yeshiva), Rav Yitzchak Zilberstein and Rav Berel Povarsky (both serve on the Moetzes Gedolei Torah), Rav Yitzchak Grossman, and Rav Asher Weiss.
I asked Rabbi Rosenthal if he could point me to sources in Shulchan Aruch or later commentaries for the stringencies he refers to. “We don’t follow the Shulchan Aruch,” he said wryly. “Many of the standards we enforce go well beyond what the Shulchan Aruch requires.” For example, he notes that every army base has a separate meat kitchen and dairy kitchen. What’s more, there are separate meat and dairy fridges. There is no law in the Shulchan Aruch requiring meat and dairy food to be cooked on different stoves, and there is certainly no halachic requirement for cold meat and dairy foods to be stored in separate fridges. Yet the IDF Rabbinate insists on these standards out of an abundance of caution.
Another major area of change, which took effect this past year, is the severing of the chain of command between IDF Rabbinate kashrut supervisors and base commanders in charge of the kitchen. On large bases, where an IDF rabbi is stationed full-time and the kashrut supervisor is subordinate to him, there is no problem. However, on small bases, the kashrut supervisor is subordinate to the commander in charge of the kitchen. This is problematic from the perspective of Jewish law, as circumstances will arise where the kitchen commander has a direct interest in something being done against the kashrut standards—be it convenience, less work, or something else—and the kashrut supervisor will be bound to follow his commander’s orders, thus undermining his role as a kashrut supervisor.
After extensive efforts, Rabbi Rosenthal reports, that policy was finally changed so that the kashrut supervisor reports to a senior commander on the base. As well, a kashrut supervisor who sees intentional disregard of the IDF’s kashrut standards can report it to Rabbi Rosenthal, who can then cut that kitchen commander’s purchasing power until corrective action is taken. This establishes mirtat, a concept in Jewish law which recognizes external deterrents as a basis for trust in adherence to established guidelines.
Here, too, the IDF’s system is now advantageous in relation to civilian kashrut in Israel, where, surprisingly enough, kashrut supervisors are employed by the restaurant or hotel that they supervise. Imagine the scene in a hotel kitchen: The kashrut supervisor sounds the alarm regarding a kashrut issue, only to be informed politely that if he’s not quiet, he’ll be out of a job. Certainly, one hopes the kashrut supervisor will act with integrity, but the financial pressures are not conducive to it.
For the IDF, adherence to high kashrut standards enables everyone to eat together in the mess hall and, thus, is a fulfillment of its foundational value of reut, roughly translated as a deep sense of camaraderie. For Rabbi Rosenthal, though, the kashrut standards are not just about a commitment to kashrut-observant soldiers; they represent a commitment to the security of the country. “An army marches on its stomach,” Rabbi Rosenthal said, quoting Napoleon. “If any soldier enters combat or guard duty on an empty stomach, or worrying about how much of their next meal will meet their kashrut standards, their alertness and capacity to focus will be affected, leaving them ill-equipped to fulfill their mission properly.
“Thus, ensuring a high standard of kashrut across the IDF is an essential component of the IDF’s ability to fight, and fight effectively.”
Chaim Goldberg has semicha from RIETS, a graduate degree in child clinical psychology from Hebrew University, and he enlisted in the IDF this summer through the Shlav Bet Haredi program. In civilian life, Rabbi Goldberg teaches Torah at various yeshivot/seminaries and practices psychology. On the side, he writes for Jewish publications across the globe and at chaimgoldberg.substack.com
