A French criminal court established a precedent in religious jurisprudence yesterday by ruling that cheating in kosher provisioning was equivalent to a criminal swindle in the quality of publicly offered merchandise.
The court found two Tunisian butchers guilty and fined each 100 francs ($20) on charges of having sold non-kosher meat as kosher. The Paris Jewish Consistory was granted one franc, symbolic of damages in the case.
The ruling marked the first time in France that such misrepresentation was considered a criminal offense. Until the ruling, the only defense of the Chief Rabbinate against such abuses was publication of the names of offenders on a blacklist.
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