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| Coca-Cola bottles in Palestine |
Recently, Palestinian bottled Coca-Cola products, were seen in Jewish neighborhood stores as they are cheaper than the Israeli bottled Coca-Cola products.
Now, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel has issued a warning to the Israeli public against using Coca-Cola products manufactured in the West Bank town of Beitunia near Ramallah. The soda bottles were sold alongside strictly kosher Coca-Cola drinks, which have been manufactured in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak for the last decades.
Rabbi Yaakov Sabag, director of the Chief Rabbinate’s Kashrut Department, and Rabbi Rafi Yochai, chief of the Kashrut Fraud Division, in a joint released statement said: "We recently discovered marketing of four-pack Coca-Cola of which each bottle carries an Arabic name with no kosher certification. This product is selling at a reduced price and has created confusion among the Israeli Jewish consumer, as the Coca-Cola brand is known to be kosher in Israel. An investigation has revealed that the product is manufactured in the town of Beitunia, near Jerusalem without kosher supervision."
Despite the fact that the drink itself is probably kosher due to strict quality control of Coca-Cola, the rabbis warned not to sell the products in Jewish stores in order not to confuse kosher consumers who might buy other well-known brand name products made in Palestine. Also, the machines used to bottle the Coca-Cola could be used to bottle non-kosher items.
Coca-Cola Israel said in a statement that it had nothing to do with the production of the drink in the Palestinian Authority. "There is no need to mention that all our products are under the supervision of Rabbi Landau and the Tel Aviv Chief Rabbinate," the company said in a statement.