Rabbinate forces Israeli Arabs to sell land to non-Jews for sabbatical year, Haaretz, 8/29/2007
August 29, 2007 7:51 am Israeli Religious RightSale is a legal fiction that allows the land to be farmed and the produce sold to Jews during the sabbatical year
The beginning of the Jewish sabbatical year is just two weeks away, but the kashrut certification bureaucrats are breaking new records for the absurd: Kashrut supervisors from the Chief Rabbinate are forcing Israeli Arabs to sign a document that gives the Israel Lands Administration and the Chief Rabbinate the right to sell the land to a non-Jew as a condition for continued kosher certification for their produce. If they refuse to sign, they were told that the wholesalers to whom they sell their goods will also lose their kashrut certification.