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Closed on Shabbat?
Yossi Klein Halevi
(April 17, 1997)The shouting between secular and Orthodox gets ever shriller. Warnings are swapped of "pogroms" and "Khomeinization." And, for the first time, the dispute over the nature of Sabbath in the Jewish state is moving from localized conflicts to a nation-wide struggle.
The clean white walls of Ramat Aviv Gimel's apartment buildings, many with penthouses on their roofs, rise high above the Mediterranean Sea. Below, the constantly swept streets are lined with parked Saabs and BMW's and an occasional Jaguar; couples in sweatsuits walk German shepherds in manicured parks. Here there are no mere cafes, but "bistros" - named after sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe and Fabio. Shimon Peres lives in the neighborhood; Yitzhak Rabin lived nearby. What Jerusalem's Me'ah She'arim enclave is to ultra-Orthodoxy, Tel Aviv's Ramat Aviv Gimel is to secular Israel: its inviolate cultural capital. But now Ramat Aviv Gimel - perhaps best known for a mildly decadent TV soap opera by the same name - has become the unlikely front line of Israel's ongoing "Shabbat war." The focus is a new shopping mall being built here by the Africa Israel real-estate and development company, which initially intended the mall - or at least its restaurants and movie theaters - to be open on Shabbat. Late last year, ultra-Orthodox businessman Lev Leviev (see box, page 22) became the dominant shareholder in Africa Israel, and determined that the mall would be closed on Shabbat, and all its restaurants kosher. In response, Tel Aviv deputy mayor Dan Darin has threatened to bar Africa Israel from future building in the city. Mayor Roni Milo has spoken of organizing a "Shabbat caravan" of cars to drive through the nearby ultra-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak. "If they bring Bnei Brak to Tel Aviv, we'll bring Tel Aviv to Bnei Brak," says Milo. Ultra-Orthodox leaders warn that "Milo's pogrom" would result in violence, raising the prospect of bloodshed in the name of freedom of religion and of the sanctity of the Sabbath. The fight over the mall pits the right of an investor to determine the nature of his business against the right of a community to determine its cultural identity. Not surprisingly, each side accuses the other of "coercion." "In New York or London, no one would dream of forcing a religious Jew to open his business on Shabbat," fumes ultra-Orthodox political leader Avraham Ravitz. "Only in this primitive society is that thinkable." Secular activists, apocalyptically warning of the Khomeinization of the Jewish state, see Leviev as the front man in an ultra-Orthodox campaign to "spiritually annex" Tel Aviv and destroy its secular culture. For Darin, the turning point in that istruggle occurred last December, when 8,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered in a hall on the border of Ramat Aviv to demonstrate against Shabbat desecration; closing the mall, he says, is the first step in fulfilling the ultra-Orthodox program. "They won in Jerusalem; now they're trying here." (Chabad hassidim have recently rented an apartment near the site of the future mall, and have begun outreach programs aimed at young people in the neighborhood.) Perhaps it is no coincidence that McDonald's, symbol of the nonstop fast-food culture, has emerged as the most determined foe against closing the mall on Shabbat. McDonald's may well have the law on its side. Before Leviev took over Africa Israel, McDonald's paid three months' rent in advance on a signed contract guaranteeing it the right to operate a non-kosher restaurant in the mall on Shabbat. Omri Padan, owner of the McDonald's franchises in Israel, says he will fight Africa Israel in court - even though, he claims, the company has threatened to bar McDonald's from future malls if it doesn't relent in Ramat Aviv. "Leviev has the right to do whatever he wants regarding any future business he'll open. But I also have my principles, and I will not give in to force."
The battle over the mall has released a new passion among Israelis for boycotts. Milo has called on Tel Aviv residents to boycott the mall if it closes on Shabbat; while a new group, Am Hofshi (A Free People), a coalition of left- and right-wingers opposing religious coercion, has threatened to boycott not just the mall but all Africa Israel projects, including local Holiday Inn hotels. For their part, ultra-Orthodox groups say they will boycott Bank Leumi and the Migdal Insurance Company, minority shareholders in Africa Israel who oppose closing the mall on Shabbat. Deputy Housing Minister Meir Porush of the United Torah Jewry party has even warned that government ministries led by Orthodox politicians will in effect boycott the City of Tel Aviv if it implements Darin's threat to boycott Africa Israel. And the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Hamodia has begun a column listing places, including tourist sites, that are open on Shabbat and charge admission fees, calling on readers to boycott them. An ultra-Orthodox threat of boycott against companies that advertise on Shabbat on Channel 2, the commercial TV station, produced results: Major advertisers like Coca Cola, Elite and the banks have recently suspended Shabbat advertising. The boycott rhetoric highlights an accelerating process of mutual secession between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews. Ravitz, scanning Jewish history for the most damning epithets, denounces Milo as "our generation's Titus," the Roman general who burned the Temple. Yisrael Eichler, editor of the Belz hasidic newspaper, Hamahaneh Haharedi, takes the name-calling to its logical conclusion, denouncing Leviev's opponents as "Nazis." And, on the opposite extreme, someone recently sent a letter to Ravitz warning of the coming "final solution" to the ultra-Orthodox "problem": "Soon we will hang you from the gallows." The letter was signed by the unknown and probably fictitious "Israeli Nazi Movement." Even before the founding of the state, skirmishes over Shabbat largely defined the culture war. The battleground has shifted over the years, producing victories and defeats for both sides. In Me'ah She'arim's "Shabbat Square," ultra-Orthodox residents successfully demonstrated in the 1960s to get main streets closed on Shabbat, keeping drivers from entering their neighborhood. But on the nearby Ramot Road, Shabbat stone-throwers failed in the 1980s to stop the traffic flow. The consensus that gradually emerged was that Orthodox neighborhoods have the right to bar Shabbat traffic, while mixed neighborhoods remain open. But the fate of roads that border ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, or run through both secular and ultra-Orthodox areas - like Jerusalem's Bar-Ilan Street - remains ambiguous. Every Shabbat, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators still gather along Bar-Ilan Street, shouting "Shabbes!" at passing cars and "Nazis!" at policemen gripping batons. Despite various suggestions for a compromise - including tunneling under Bar-Ilan to accommodate Shabbat drivers - no solution seems imminent. While the place of Shabbat in a Jewish state has long been vehemently contested, the scope and perhaps crudeness of the current "Shabbat war" is unprecedented. For the first time, the issue is moving from localized conflicts to a nationwide struggle.
One reason for the intensified clash is that both sides of the culture divide are emboldened by a sense of growing power and momentum. In the past, the so-called "status quo," enforced by successive governments, virtually shut down businesses on Shabbat. But a landmark 1988 Supreme Court ruling forbidding city governments to close eateries and places of entertainment on Shabbat has created a new, if unarticulated, status quo: While public transportation remains suspended and most stores shut, increasing numbers of restaurants and cafes, movie theaters and discos are open seven days a week around the country, including Jerusalem. And secular activists are determined to defend those gains. Some are pushing the limits even further. On a recent Shabbat at Kibbutz Shfayim, near Netanyah on the Coastal Road, the vast warehouse stores of Toys 'R' Us, Ace Hardware and Office Depot were packed with customers, the lines at the cash registers running seven and eight deep. Inside Toys 'R' Us, children were being outfitted with Spiderman, Batman and Buzz Lightyear costumes for Purim. Arguably, only in Israel would non-religious Jews be shopping on Shabbat for costumes for a religious holiday. Yet secular gains are being challenged by the Orthodox parties, which emerged from last year's elections with an unprecedented 23 parliamentary seats, almost a fifth of the Knesset. The ultra-Orthodox agenda is to restore the old status quo, closing eateries and entertainment places and containing the Kibbutz Shfayim phenomenon. The National Religious Party, which represents religious Zionists, isn't leading the Shabbat war but supports a reinstated old status quo. Every Shabbat, Druse members of the Labor Ministry's Shabbat enforcement squad scan the country for stores violating the 1951 Work and Rest Hours Law, which forbids Jews to open businesses on the Sabbath or to employ other Jews on the national day of rest. Under the Rabin-Peres government, the squad's operations were suspended; but now the ministry is run by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party's Eli Yishai, and the squad is back in force. At least 60 businesses are facing court hearings, including the stores at Kibbutz Shfayim. The next target, say ultra-Orthodox leaders, will be those shopping malls where restaurants and movie theaters are open on Shabbat. But Druse inspectors aren't the only ones making the Shabbat rounds. Activists from Am Hofshi are also traveling the country, providing store-owners with a leaflet that offers advice on how to beat the government in court. The leaflet notes that the 1951 Shabbat observance law wasn't intended as religious but social legislation: to guarantee workers a day of rest. And the law offers loopholes: Workers employed in managerial positions, or in positions "requiring a special degree of personal trust" may work on the Sabbath. Finally, claims Am Hofshi, the law technically applies only to Shabbat day, and not Friday night. Some shopkeepers are discovering their own loopholes. The Adio grocery on Jerusalem's King David Street, near the King David Hotel, is open every Shabbat - legally. Owner David Avital has taken in as a partner his friend Ismael Siam, a Muslim resident of East Jerusalem. The law only forbids businesses owned by Jews from opening on Shabbat; Siam's co-ownership offers immunity from the Druse inspectors. "Now all we need is a Christian partner to complete the picture," jokes Avital. One store has taken the "gentile loophole" a step further. Antikon is a small shop at the end of a courtyard in the picturesque northern town of Zikhron Ya'akov, selling "antique-style" china tulips, mobiles of silver fish and porcelain dolls reclining in mini rocking chairs. About six months ago, Antikon owners Alice and Amos Meroz began opening on Shabbat, hoping to draw the many tourists who pass through the town on weekends. A few weeks ago, members of the Shabbat enforcement squad paid them a visit - and issued a warning: Next time they were caught doing business on Shabbat, they'd be taken to court and could expect a 2,000-shekel fine. Amos, a former theater production manager, found a rabbinic-like solution: If Jews could symbolically "sell" their leavened food on the eve of Passover to gentiles and buy it back at the end of the holiday, why couldn't he "sell" the store every Friday to a gentile and buy it back after Shabbat? The Labor Ministry was trying to stop them working on Shabbat by using Druse inspectors, but they would circumvent them with their own Druse connection. A lawyer drew up a contract, whereby every Friday evening the ownership of Antikon is formally sold for 10 shekels to a Druse friend of the Merozes, who relinquishes possession on Saturday night. "Now other business people are asking for a copy of the contract," says Amos. Opposition to the Merozes has turned ugly. One recent Shabbat, someone parked a hearse to block the store entrance. In case that message was too subtle, someone else sent them a letter threatening to murder them unless they closed on Shabbat. But secularists have turned Antikon into a rallying cause. "People come here on Shabbat just to identify with our stand," says Amos. Indeed, on one recent rainy Shabbat morning, the store was so crowded that Amos had to plead with potential shoppers to wait outside in the rain until the pressure eased. "The Yemenite restaurant around the corner is open today for the first time on Shabbat," he called out to one group. "Why not check it out?"
The unraveling of the Shabbat status quo raises the question of whether Israeli society can maintain the delicate balance between its Jewish and democratic identities, and whether devising a new status quo is possible in the current over-heated atmosphere. Amid the shrillness, there are other voices - secularists wanting to preserve some sense of Jewishness in Israeli identity, Orthodox Jews wanting to protect the freedom of the individual. Within that consensus- seeking camp, there is general agreement endorsing the new, unofficial status quo that has emerged in recent years: closing stores like Antikon, but allowing restaurants and entertainment places to remain open. That position has a "Jewish" rationale: Banning commerce asserts the primacy of Shabbat over runaway consumerism, while permitting entertainment could be seen as a modern adaptation of the traditional concept of oneg Shabbat, the pleasure of Shabbat. "I'm ready to demonstrate with the Orthodox against opening stores on Shabbat," says journalist Amnon Dankner, himself secular. "The Shabbat quiet is a key component of the Israeli experience. I'd consider it a black day if we follow what England did a few years ago by allowing stores to open on its Sabbath. But secularists should be able to go to a movie or eat at McDonald's, if that's what people consider culture. Unless we find solutions based on common sense, we'll be in constant war against ourselves." While Dankner favors maintaining the Shabbat ban on public transportation, journalist Yair Sheleg, an Orthodox Jew and Dankner's partner in secular-Orthodox dialogue efforts, says, "Everyone should be able to travel on Shabbat, whether or not they have a car." He adds that mini-buses could replace regular buses on Shabbat, to reduce the noise and pollution levels and preserve some sense of the day's uniqueness. Ruth Calderon, director of Alma, a college opening next fall in Tel Aviv that will integrate Jewish and general studies, dismisses the need for any legal Shabbat restrictions. "Let the free market decide what Shabbat will look like here," she says. "I'm not worried about Shabbat being lost. I would never work on Shabbat, and I believe that most Jews in Israel wouldn't give up their Shabbat either even if they had the choice. We tend to minimize the deep Jewishness of Israelis, because of Orthodox paternalism." Many non-Orthodox Israelis do connect to Shabbat in some way, whether by lighting candles or gathering for family dinner or hiking in nature. And yet, in the transition to modernity, much of the Jewish people has lost its sense of oneg Shabbat. Notes novelist Aharon Megged, a product of the old Labor establishment: "At a time when slavery was the norm, we gave the ancient world a day of rest - even for slaves and animals. We should cherish Shabbat as an essential part of our culture. I deeply regret that we secularists are losing the spiritual essence of Shabbat." Part of the problem is that Shabbat often speaks to secular Israelis in the language of command, showing its public face in restrictions and prohibitions. And sometimes the language is deeply offensive: Just after Tel Aviv's Cafe Apropo was bombed in late March by a Palestinian, the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Hamodia noted dryly that the cafe is open on Shabbat, implying divine retribution for the transgression. In a recent skit of the Cameri Quintet, a satirical TV revue, a secular Israeli is standing on a bridge, about to commit suicide. An Orthodox Jew appears, asking if he would postpone his suicide and put on phylacteries. From the other end of the bridge another Orthodox Jew approaches, asking the secularist to stand in as the 10th man to complete a minyan. The blatant lack of concern of the two Orthodox Jews for his real welfare only deepens his despair. Finally, a third man approaches. "They have no God, those people," he says to the would-be suicide, putting his arm around him. But then the camera pans around to show that this third man, too, is Orthodox; a yarmulke is pinned to the side of his head. "Have you ever tried observing Shabbat?" he asks the secularist. "The joy of family together, the smell of cholent...." The secularist leaps off the bridge. Beyond the anti-religious mockery was this message to the Orthodox: If you really have responses to secular Israel's spiritual crisis, and if Shabbat is truly the pleasure you say it is, you'd better figure out a better way of communicating. Throughout Jewish history, Shabbat observance was a basic definition of Jewishness. In "Jewish time," Shabbat is the centerpoint toward which the rest of the week aspires; Shabbat promises not just a day of rest but a change in consciousness from "doing to being," as Ruth Calderon puts it. Yet that deeper meaning has been almost entirely lost for secular Israel - and, perhaps, for much of Orthodox Israel too - obscured at least in part by the war over Shabbat observance. Jews traditionally understood Shabbat as the antithesis to war, a weekly premonition of messianic peace. To fight over Shabbat, then, is a contradiction in terms. Which is why, no matter which side wins the Shabbat war, Shabbat itself will almost certainly be the loser.
1997
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