City employs Jews to fine other Jews who work on Shabbat
Thousands of Ashdod residents come out against controversial legislation designed to keep Jewish-owned businesses from opening on Saturday
Tamar Pileggi is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The Ashdod municipality is reportedly employing Jewish inspectors to enforce the closure of stores on Shabbat, in keeping with controversial legislation passed earlier this month that would grant the interior minister the authority to shutter businesses operating on the Jewish day of rest.
Last week, the city published a tender seeking non-Jewish inspectors who could issue fines on Shabbat, but according to a Sunday Hadashot news report, the Ashdod municipality has for at least three weeks been sending Jews out to enforce the new law.
Pictures of the fines levied on local businesses in recent weeks uploaded to social media show they were issued by inspectors with typically Jewish names like Maimon, Edry and Dahan.
Dozens of local residents took to social media over the weekend to point out what they said was hypocrisy on the municipality’s part.
“The Ashdod municipality sends Jewish inspectors on Shabbat to enforce the law banning work on Shabbat,” one Twitter user wrote. “If you need to summarize the stupidity of the Israeli government, this is the example to use.”
Store owners told Army Radio on Sunday that Jewish city inspectors came to their premises on Saturday to issue them with fines. “I am 1,000 percent certain” that the inspector delivering the fine was Jewish, said the manager of a women’s fashion store in the city, expressing astonishment at the irony of a Jew being employed by the municipality on the Sabbath in order to fine businesses for employing Jews on the Sabbath.
The religious status quo is a fragile combination of national legislation and municipal bylaws, shaped over several decades, and it is supposed to strike a balance between the needs of Israel’s religious and secular communities.
On January 9, a controversial law granting the interior minister the power to close stores on Shabbat passed in the Knesset by a razor-thin majority, after the ruling coalition overcame internal divisions to muster the needed votes.
The law grants the interior minister, currently ultra-Orthodox Shas party head Aryeh Deri, the power to oversee and reject local ordinances relating to whether businesses may remain open on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest that runs from Friday evening until Saturday night.
After the legislation passed, Deri had said he would not enforce the legislation, which caused outrage among secular communities.
But last week, an ultra-Orthodox lawmaker was heard boasting that hundreds of non-Jewish inspectors were being trained to enforce the closures on Shabbat. In recordings obtained by Hadashot TV news, United Torah Judaism’s Moshe Gafni noted the sudden enforcement could anger some, and urged those in the room to stay quiet about the new inspectors.
On Saturday, thousands of Ashdod residents protested the law, accusing the municipality of discriminating against its secular residents and engaging in “religious coercion.”
“We came to take Ashdod back for Ashdodians,” demonstrators chanted, according to Hadashot. “We aren’t against the religious, but we say to the ultra-Orthodox members of Knesset: ‘Get your hands off Ashdod.’”
The city, which has a large number of residents from the former Soviet Union, has seen an increase in its ultra-Orthodox population in recent years, leading to political tensions between the two groups over issues pertaining to religious observance.
MK Yair Lapid, whose opposition Yesh Atid party has long campaigned against religious influence in the public sphere, arrived at the rally in a show of support for the protesters and called for the law to be nixed.
“We came here to Ashdod because this insulting mini-markets law must go,” he said, referring to the legislation’s unofficial name. “Ultra-Orthodox coercion can’t run the State of Israel.”
Lapid also said he would cancel the law if his party wins the next elections. Recent polls have put Yesh Atid neck-and-neck with Likud.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman also traveled to Ashdod to show support for the secular residents by visiting an outdoor shopping area in the city.
His Yisrael Beytenu party, whose supporters include a large number of secular Israelis from the former Soviet Union, opposed the law, despite being in the coalition.
“Those who say the mini-markets law won’t change anything are wrong and misleading. This [law] will create an even bigger divide in the nation,” Hadashot quoted Liberman as saying. “Just as I respect those who go to synagogue on Shabbat, I expect them to respect those who go to buy coffee.”
Ultra-Orthodox parties heavily criticized Liberman for making the visit to Ashdod on Shabbat, accusing him of inflaming tensions between religious and secular Israelis.
In a strongly worded statement, the United Torah Judaism party called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take action against Liberman who “incited against large communities and the sanctity of the Sabbath, hoping to make political gains from inflaming tensions between different groups and deepening the rift within Israeli society.”
