California and 16 other states with kosher laws like New York's may scramble to make changes. Not that California kosher consumers will notice, according to several kosher overseers.

California law "has been so lax that any person who claims they are a rabbi and kosher can get away with it and defraud the public," said Rabbi Levy Zirkind, the Fresno-based rabbinic administrator of the Vaad Hakashrus kosher overseeing organization. "Laws have been on the books for years and years, and they have never had any teeth in them."

Rabbi Yitzchok Feldman, spiritual leader of Palo Alto's Congregation Emek Beracha and a Vaad overseer, concurs. "There will be zero effect in California one way or another," he said.

— Joe Eskenazi