Rivlin apologizes for proposing changes to religious status-quo

President Reuven Rivlin issued an apology to ultra-Orthodox Jews on Thursday after saying that religious matters should be decided on a local level rather than a national scale, drawing criticism from Haredi leaders.

The president on Wednesday had suggested that religion-state matters — such as Shabbat, keeping kosher, and gender separation — should be based on the discretion of the local population.

“Kosher, hametz [leavened bread on Passover], Shabbat and the separation of genders could be determined at the local level, at the municipal level and even according to specific neighborhoods, but not at the national level,” Rivlin said. The president opined that “when we are discussing Israeli society on Shabbat as a national question, we are dragged into the zero sum game between the ‘state of Tel Aviv’ and against the ‘state of Bnei Brak.'”

The president’s apparent call to change the longstanding status-quo on religious matter riled some members of the ultra-Orthodox community, including Shas party leader Aryeh Deri, who termed the comments “serious” and said they did “not contribute to a unifying discourse.”

Rivlin apologized on Thursday, saying he had sought “to express my honest concerns about the difficult disputes on matters of religion and state with the intention of making peace” between Israeli Jewish communities.

“To my regret, the tensions were exacerbated and for this I am sorry and apologize,” he said.

The president also stressed that he supports the existing status quo.

“I said in the past and I will say it again: More than the Jews have kept the status quo, the status quo protected them,” said Rivlin, paraphrasing a famous adage on Shabbat. “I believe that on a national level we cannot harm the status quo… certainly not on such an important issue such as the Shabbat which keeps Israel a Jewish state.”