The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals last Thursday ruled that New York’s Kosher Law Protection Act was constitutional.

The case, going back to 1996, originally contested an earlier form of the Kosher Act. Commack Self-Service Kosher Meats, the plaintiffs, under Conservative supervision, stated that requiring inspection and labeling of food marketed as kosher used religious doctrine to determine its kashrut. They said that that violated the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 2002, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. The New York State Legislature then passed the Kosher Law Protection Act of 2004 requiring that foods sold as kosher have to be labeled as such and the certifiers identified without defining its kashrut or allowing state inspectors to decide the product’s kashrut. Commack in turn challenged that, saying essentially that it is a church-state issue and that the law is vague. The court disagreed and upheld the law, citing that the law simply requires identification of the product as kosher and who and what process is behind the kashrut of the item thus leaving the decision of its kashrut in the eyes of the consumer. The law is primarily to protect consumers against fraudulent claims of kashrut.

“It helps the kosher consumer,” explained Nathan Diament, Executive Director for Public Policy of the Orthodox Union. “You have a complement to kashrut certification organizations like the OU that are working from a halachik angle to ensure that food sold as kosher is kosher halachikly. It allows the state to back it up, not halachikly, but makes sure consumers are not defrauded; it’s a fraud protection statute. The new version is a disclosure statute. It requires you to make known to the customer who is certifying it kosher. It gives the consumer the ability to have more information to make an informed decision. It’s good for everybody, anyone who’s interested in kosher food.”