From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
Right-wing lawmakers applaud Supreme Court for ruling on Yom Kippur prayers
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Right-wing and religious lawmakers welcome the High Court of Justice’s ruling requiring the Tel Aviv Municipality to allow an Orthodox organization to hold public gender-separated prayers in the city over the upcoming Yom Kippur holiday.
“The High Court was right when it overturned the Tel Aviv Municipality’s unfathomable decision to prevent Jews from praying in public according to the tradition of Israel on Yom Kippur,” tweets New Hope MK and Minister Gideon Sa’ar.
“To stand for this simple and important thing in the only Jewish country in the world against the arbitrariness of a governmental authority is not only the right judicial decision, in my view, it’s a sanctification of God’s name.”
The court’s ruling is the “most logical, most Jewish and most democratic” response, states MK Moshe Gafni of the ultra-orthodox United Torah Judaism party. “Although the decision is limited to certain prayers and a certain year, I praise this precedent which is completely rare in the court for everything related to religious issues and the religious and ultra-Orthodox public.”
“Tel Aviv will remain Tel Aviv” even after the ruling, states National Unity MK and former Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana, calling social cohesion during wartime an “existential need.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calls the ruling “the natural, correct and most appropriate decision” and says that the justices “did well to put the Tel Aviv Municipality in its place.”
