Israel and Shabbat

The Knesset passed into law last week, the controversial so-called "Shabbat law", also labelled by some as the "minimarket law".  This new law requires local municipalities to first get the approval of interior minister before allowing stores in their municipal area to open on Shabbat.  Given the fact that the current interior minister is Shas leader Arye Deri, the immediate expectation is that such approval would generally be withheld, forcing stores across the country to be closed on Shabbat.  And furthermore, the extent to which stores are allowed to be open on Shabbat or not, will seem to depend upon who occupies the seat of the interior minister at any moment in time.

The issue of Shabbat in the Jewish state is a complex one.  The religious community will always wish to see the Shabbat respected to the fullest as set out by Jewish law.  This dictates, amongst other things, that stores will be closed from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday each week, and similarly on religious holidays.  Aside from the issue of violating Jewish law by opening stores on the holy Shabbat, the religious community also argues that the opening of stores on Shabbat forces people to work there on Shabbat.  These workers, they believe, would be better off spending Shabbat at home with their families resting, rather than being forced to work.  On the other hand, there is a substantial secular community living in Israel which prefers to have greater choice as to when they shop for their groceries and other items.  Many of them work long hours during the week, and find it impossible, difficult or inconvenient to do their shopping after work during the week.  For them, shopping on Shabbat is preferable.  Why should they not have the right to choose for themselves when the best shopping time is for them?  What about those people whose work during the week does not afford them enough to make a living, and who welcome the additional work hours at double time that the law allows on Shabbat?

Does Israel, as a democratic Jewish state, have the right to impose Jewish law on its citizens?  Does it really want to impose Jewish law?  How important is the observance of the Shabbat to the Jewish nature of Israel?  Israel's Jews are a mixed bunch.  Some are observant, and some are not.  Most of them are fiercely proud to be Jewish and to live in the Jewish state, and each expresses their Jewish identity in a different way.  The statistics show that between 20% and 30% of the Jews in Israel consider themselves to be ultra-Orthodox or Orthodox.  On the other end of the spectrum, around 40% of Jewish Israelis consider themselves to be secular.  So the balance of power rests with those who consider themselves to be traditional.  From this, we can see that there is no obvious single view that emerges concerning the importance of Shabbat observance.  This was reflected in the law that was in force until now, that allowed each municipality to choose for itself what its policy regarding store-opening on Shabbat would be.  This was also borne out in the High Court decision that confirmed this method of deciding.  Each municipality can decide, according to the demographics of its local area, whether stores will be open on Shabbat or not.  Some decide yes, others decide no.  Some have a mixed policy of forcing stores in certain areas to close, while allowing stores in other areas to be open.  One thing that remains certain is that there will also be those who disagree with whatever happens in their local vicinity.  There is no possible way of satisfying all the people in any particular locality.

The authorities have previously intervened in some ways in order to impose some element of Shabbat observance in Israel.  El Al, Israel's national airline does not fly on Shabbat or on Jewish holidays.  Banks, supermarkets and many other facilities are prohibited from opening on Shabbat.  All hotels in Israel that wish to be certified by the Ministry of Tourism, are forced to serve food that is kosher.  This requires a certain level of observance of Shabbat.  Much of Israel's public transport does not operate on Shabbat.  It seems to me, however, that this has extended a little too far with the government passing the recent Shabbat law.

It seems that Interior Minister Arye Deri also feels the same.  Despite his personal views that Shabbat should be observed, he has pledged not to exercise the power that the new law gives him to enforce Shabbat observance.  Instead, he has indicated that he will allow each municipality to decide for themselves as they have done before.  This view does not, however, remove the possibility that a future interior minister may exercise his power under the law in one direction or the other.  For this reason, the law seems to me to be a step too far.

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, the law has become mixed up in Israeli party politics.  Essentially, the enactment of this law has served to give Health Minister Yossi Litzman a path back to his ministerial position, after resigning from the government over his opposition to work being undertaken on Israeli railway infrastructure on Shabbat.  Now that the new Shabbat law is on the statute books, he can prove to his party and electorate that he has forced a change to the government policy on Shabbat, and is justified in returning to the government.  The illusion seems to hide the reality in this case.

The often remembered Ahad Ha'am quote says, "More than the Jews have kept the Shabbat, the Shabbat has kept the Jews".  There is no doubt that Shabbat observance has been a central tenet around which Jews have focused during the thousands of years of exile, and which has helped to maintain some element of identity and unity.  It is interesting that, during the years of exile, Shabbat was observed out of free will, and not out of being forced on anybody.  It seems to me that it is desirable to continue the observance out of free will, now that we have a Jewish state that enables this more than at any time during Jewish history.  Forcing it on anybody seems counterproductive. 

The real question is whether Shabbat observance and the traditional Shabbat atmosphere in Israel can survive the law, or whether the law will potentially force people away from it.  I have no doubt that free will is much stronger than laws that are imposed.  The Shabbat is no exception.

Justice for Deri

The District Court in Jerusalem ruled at the end of last week that Aryeh Deri should not be allowed to run in the upcoming election for Mayor of Jerusalem in November. This ruling is a victory for the rule of law and a defeat for corruption, so endemic in all levels of Israeli political life.

Deri, a former leader of the Shas Party and former Minister of Internal Affairs, was found guilty in 2000 on several charges of bribery. He was sentenced to four years in prison, which was later reduced to three years. He ultimately served two years of this sentence before being released in 2002.

When Deri was sentenced, the law that prevents citizens convicted of crimes involving moral turpitude from serving in a public position provided for an exclusion period of 6 years from the day of their release from prison. By the time Deri was released, the 6 year period had been extended to 7 years. This change formed the basis of Deri's appeal to the court, as a 6 year ban would have allowed him to run in the 2008 election. He put forward the argument that he should be subject to the laws in place at the time that he was convicted and sentenced. Any subsequent change to this affected him retroactively, and retroactive punishment is a concept not supported in law.

In dismissing Deri's petition to the court, Judge Moshe Sobel found that Deri was sentenced to 3 years in prison. If he had served his full term of imprisonment, even the previous period of 6 years would have prevented him from running in the upcoming election. His early parole, the judge ruled, could not have been foreseen. More important than this, the judge found that a crime of moral turpitude is not consistent with the moral level appropriate to holding public office. " Only when enough time has passed to blunt the impression created by a crime, will public confidence in elected officials be guaranteed", wrote Sobel.

Arye Deri was born in Morocco and arrived in Israel at the age of 9 years old. After receiving Rabbinical ordination, Deri was one of the founder members of the Shas party in 1984 under the leadership of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Deri's charisma was precisely the type of attraction that the party needed in its quest to assist and uplift Israel's religious communities that originated in Arabic Middle Eastern countries. The party saw this population sector as downtrodden and abused by the Ashkenazi European elitests, who have dominated the country's Knesset and upper echelons of society since independence in 1948. Shas set about giving this underdog community pride, assistance and representation at the highest levels. Grass roots organisations were established to provide practical daily help to the working class people by providing daycare, religious learning institutions for children and food programs at highly subsidised rates. This, in turn, provided the popularity to allow the party to hold as many as 17 seats in the Knesset in the 1999 elections. As is the case with many of the minority parties in the Knesset, Shas has managed to extract significant value from successive governments in turn for agreeing to join the coalition. Inevitably, its power in the coalition has significantly exceeded its number of seats.

Unfortunately, no fewer than 6 Shas Members of the Knesset have been convicted of crimes involving bribery, forgery, fraud and obstruction of justice to name a few. This seems wholly inappropriate for any Knesset member, not least one that represents a party that bases its ideology on religious adherence to Jewish law.

Whilst fully supporting Judge Sobel's decision, I only half agree with his judgement. I don't believe that there is any amount of time that can pass to guarantee public confidence in elected officials after being convicted of a crime of this nature. In this respect, I agree with Haaretz's Ze'ev Segal when he writes, "Weighing the possibility of changing the existing law, so a public official who has been convicted of a serious crime involving government corruption (one that naturally carries with it a mark of moral turpitude) is permanently prohibited from holding a senior public position, is seemingly in order."

Adopting a lifetime ban from public positions will certainly give a crime of moral turpitude the appropriate level of seriousness and weighting that it requires. Whilst it is true that people can change their ways and rehabilitate themselves, the question is whether the public can afford to have people like Deri back on their books to risk further inappropriate behaviour. I believe that, for elected officials, it should be "one strike and you are out".