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NPR, where Ms. Gradstein worked for years, is known to be a lefty outlet. And Linda Gradstein has been writing extremely biased stories for years which put Israel in a bad light. That seems to be her claim to fame. A singular specialty of hers is publicizing Jews who are seeking to buck traditional authority bodies of Orthodox Judaism and ridiculing said bodies as stodgy and unyielding, not "modern". Writing so-called "dirt" about them, taken out of context. Well baby, that iron clad refusal to change is why Judaism, B"H, is still around and kicking after 5,000 years and lots of other religions petered out. Satan is always on duty, 24/7, trying to tempt Jews to relax their practices, a micro millimeter at a time. It's not such a big change. Just this little step. Go on, it's the modern thing to do.

Gradstein and her ilk are agents of Satan. They themselves, not fervent believers, use the pulpit of their news stories to attack what they personally reject to try to justify their position. I've seen their kind before, and tossed their lies right back in their face. Gradstein has written stories praising circumventing the Israeli Rabbinate for kashrus, praising a couple seeking to push their wedding rites and procedures right up to the net of Jewish law, and I'm sure, if I spent the time, I could find more stories by her praising people who are pushing the traditional envelope of Jewish law. She really should work for Hillary. That would be right up her alley, spreading lies and biased shadings on stories.

Yeah, I know. She’s a real peach.

She does bring up a point about regarding that we have multiple hechshers in the US, but doesn’t explain how we handle it. You can walk into any shul kitchen and see a posted list of which hechshers are allowed and which aren’t, or ask your rabbi.

This is one of the ways rabbis communicate with each other and purge the corrupt, presenting Jews with a choice. A rancher in Idaho can’t afford to pay for a hechsher from a Brooklyn rabbi if the halakhic interpretation is an inspection every three months. The rancher instead works with a local rabbinic authority and complies with USDA regulations.

There’s the conflict between two separate ruling authorities. There will always be some sort of debate between the two in civil matters, and it’s up to the individual to exercise free will and make the decision to buy the meat with whatever hechshers they agree with.

No one disagrees how an animal should be killed and butchered for consumption as Torah is very specific about that.

The problem the rabbinate has is that’s it’s constantly presenting its decisions in an extreme manner. The ultra orthodox don’t eat raw fish while modern orthodox don’t have that halakha, so does that mean the civil Israeli government should ban all sushi bars?