Tel Aviv – As the Knesset moves to pass legislation to reign in commerce on Shabbat, municipalities in the Tel Aviv area have started moving in recent days to bypass the government by promoting local bylaws to block religious coercion in their cities.
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The so called ‘Mini-markets Bill’, which was tabled by Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, was ratified in a first reading on the Knesset floor two weeks ago. The measure proposes to alter the approval process for local bylaws: Currently, local bylaws are assumed to have been ratified by the government unless the interior minister expresses reservations within 60 days. The new measure would reverse that situation by requiring an active stamp of approval by the interior minister before a city bylaw could go into effect.
The new law, which will not apply to Tel Aviv, which enjoys the protection of a Supreme Court ruling authored by former Chief Justice Miriam Naor, who said in her final decision as an active judge that the Tel Aviv mini-markets would be allowed to remain open on Shabbat, will be presented to the Knesset for a second and third reading by the middle of January and is expected to be ratified.
The Tel Aviv example will not serve as a precedent for the High Court of Justice to strike down the current legislation because the ruling was given on technical grounds – the fact that more than 60 days had passed by the time Deri challenged the bylaw allowing mini-markets to operate on Shabbat, not on a principled argument to remove veto power from the interior minister.
In order to thwart the effort, city councillors and mayors in Givatayim, Ramat Gan, Rishon Lezion and Herzliya said Tuesday they would try to pass city bylaws to allow commerce in their cities on Shabbat before the mini-markets bill becomes law.
Interior Minister Deri, however, said Tuesday that the efforts will amount to naught, citing existing laws giving the interior minister the right to freeze local bylaws for judicial review. Deri declined that the haredi parties were trying to coerce religious observance in the public sphere, but added that important principles are at play in the current give-and-take, namely the relationship between the national government and local municipalities.
“What if the city of Givatayim decided they were going to drive on the left? Would you say the city council had the authority to make that decision?” Deri asked interviewers on Army Radio. “Or what about medical issues: Would a local city hall have the right to take approval of medical cannabis out of the hands of the health ministry and say, ‘no thanks, we’ll take care of this issue locally’?”
Legal experts and political observers said that even if Deri nixes the local bylaws, there is still a value to the local measures, if only to serve as a loud declaration of opposition to the new legislation.
“The move to pass local bylaws is an unprecedented revolt on the ground,” said Rabbi Uri Regev, founder of Hiddush, a non-denominational group dedicated to promoting religious freedom and diversity and a lawyer by training. “That will create public pressure on politicians to listen to the will of the people – a poll we commissioned this month showed that 72 percent of Israelis oppose haredi diktats and would support allowing limited commerce to be conducted on Shabbat.
“Unfortunately, our politicians are likely to continue ignoring public opinion because it is politically expedient for them. I suppose the greatest irony about that all is that the same politicians who accuse the Supreme Court of being ‘out of touch’ with the will of the people are in actual fact the ones who are completely detached,” Regev told TPS.