During the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, 1 Teves, Shas leader Aryeh Deri pounded on the table and confronted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as the ministers were discussing stores operating on Shabbos in Tel Aviv.

The prime minister is seeking to avoid championing the battle to compel the stores in Tel Aviv to close their doors on Shabbos despite promising chareidi parties to do just that in coalition talks. The prime minister agreed the issues of stores operating on Shabbos would move from the local government level to the cabinet level.

While Deri insisted the prime minister must safeguard the Shabbos status quo, the prime minister maintains this is not the status quo but a change since the stores in Tel Aviv have been operating on Shabbos for years. Hence a national government move to compel their closure is a shift in the status quo.

Deri and other chareidi MKs feel that the prime minister is afraid to move ahead as promised for doing so will elicit a harsh response from the secular parties such as Yesh Atid.

An argument resulted between Netanyahu and Deri and eventually, the prime minister remained silent while Deri angrily exclaimed “Shabbos is not a political party”, adding if the current situation is permitted to continue, shomer Shabbos small business owners will lose their livelihood. At one point Deri shouted he will not remain in a government that lends a hand to chilul Shabbos.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)