Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid rails against the so-called mini-markets bill at the weekly Yesh Atid faction meeting.
“More than anything, this is a hurtful law,” he says of the measure that would shutter shops on Shabbat. “It tells people how to live their own lives.”
Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid heads a faction meeting at the Knesset on January 1, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Lapid says the law does more to damage the sanctity of Shabbat than it does to guard it.
“Shabbat is meant to bring people together. This does the opposite,” he says emphatically.
The bill, sponsored by Aryeh Deri, chair of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, would grant his Interior Ministry the power to oversee and reject local ordinances relating to whether business may remain open on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest that runs from Friday evening until Saturday night.
“They will not teach us what Shabbat is. We also light Shabbat candles at home, but they cannot be allowed to come into people’s houses and decide how they live,” Lapid concludes.
— Raoul Wootliff
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