The Jerusalem Municipality has pressed charges against four non-kosher city restaurants and a mini-market for selling Chometz over Pesach – as reported HERE on YW.
The controversial lawsuits, coming a year before city mayoral elections, raise anew the delicate question of how Israel should maintain its Jewish character while protecting personal freedoms and avoiding religious coercion.
A largely unenforced 1986 national law bans the public display of Chometz for sale or consumption during Pesach.
The law, which has rarely been enforced except was suddenly brought back to life this year after the five Jerusalem businesses were each given nearly NIS 13,000 in fines for selling Chometz over Pesach.
The unusual trial of the five businesses got under way Thursday at the Jerusalem Municipal Court with attorneys for the owners saying that the case could set a nationwide precedent.
“We are just trying to make a living in peace, and, as usual, city hall is giving us a hard time,” said Allison Larov, the Toronto born co-owner of the city’s downtown Chili’s Pizza, which was one of the five businesses sued by the municipality after nearly eight years of operation.
Attorneys for the defendants repeatedly stressed in their opening arguments in the small, unusually crowded municipal courtroom Thursday that the law specifically bans the display of leavened products, and not the sale of leavened products.
(Source: Jerusalem Post)
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9 Responses
this is wrong we must never forget that we are in golus.
Selling chometz on Pesach as well as busses running on Shabbos are fundamentals of Judaism and cannot be disregarded in a Jewish state, no matter what religious freedom says. Sending women to the back of a bus is a different story and represents private chumras. In that case it would be impinging on freedom of religion if certain chumras were made mandatory.
What is wrong? Choose any number of answers below:
1. Jews violated the d’Oiraiso of bal yero’e u’bal yimotzeh.
2. Israeli citizens violated a state law.
3. The Government is (finally) prosecuting Israeli citizens for violating a state law.
4. The state law itself. If the answer is yes to this one, then change the law. It doesn’t make the Government’s action wrong.
5. Israel (the alleged “Jewish State”) has a law based on Jewish Law (Torah).
6. Other (specify).
It is clearly stated in SA EH 21:1 that a man may not travel behind a woman.
well, baki, then let him find private means of travel or walk instead of enforcing his beliefs on others en create a chillul hashem, as we have seen happening in the past.
I think the SA is using the term “lahaloch”, which means “walking”. This reading fits the context.
There are varied points of view versus religious coercion, and what does the end result produce?
harav shlomo zalman auerbach zats”l paskened that these days one may walk behind a woman. (kol sheken sit behind her). It used to be that women were very modest and hardly ever showed in the street so men wouldn’t dare look straight at hem. But when walking behind the woman the men would glance at them. these days that men have no bushe looking staright at women and have no interest looking at their backs there is no problem walking behind them. This tshuva is printed in his sefer.
you left out a very important part of his psak that he only said it bimakom mitzva.