Jerusalem chief rabbi calls for canceling Eurovision to ‘prevent disgrace’
Rabbi Aryeh Stern says Israel should give up the right to host the music competition rather than desecrate Shabbat
Jerusalem’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi has written to Culture Minister Miri Regev asking her to cancel next year’s Eurovision song contest, the Kikar Hashabat website reported Monday.
Rabbi Aryeh Stern wrote that he understood that the competition would take place on a Saturday night and would therefore involve desecration of Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath.
“I decided to ask you in advance to do everything to prevent this disgrace,” wrote Stern.
“In my opinion, I think that it is better that the State of Israel gives up the right to host the show if it will involve the desecration of Shabbat.”
Stern concluded by saying “it will be a great act of sanctifying God’s name if everyone knows that the state is giving up something important due to the sanctity of Shabbat.”
In response, the Culture Ministry told Stern that Regev was not overseeing the Eurovision, and said he should direct his complaint to the “relevant authorities.”
In May, Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, who heads the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, sent a letter to Regev, Communications Minister Ayoub Kara and Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, asking them to prevent any desecration of Shabbat during the contest and the events surrounding it.
Since the victory of Israel’s Netta Barzilai in this year’s contest last month, Regev has vowed that next year’s event will be hosted in Jerusalem, or will not take place in Israel at all.
However, a senior Finance Ministry official on Sunday told the Haaretz daily that the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds is the only site in Israel that meets all of the Eurovision’s production requirements.
A tender will soon be published to host the event, and the Ynet news site reported Sunday that the cities of Eilat and Haifa will offer themselves as venues for the competition, along with Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The European organizers of the song contest last week officially named Israel as the host of the event, and said they had kicked off preparations for the competition with representatives from Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan.
The announcement put an end to uncertainty over whether Israel would follow the tradition of hosting after winning the previous year. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the contest, was reportedly concerned about it being politicized by Israeli ministers and about a government initiative to split Kan into two separate bodies, which would make Israel ineligible to host Eurovision.
The Times of Israel Community.