Supreme Court Rejects Petition to Halt Auto Race; Protests Sent from London

Israel’s first international automobile race will be held Saturday in Ashkelon despite efforts by Orthodox elements to have it banned because it violates the Sabbath. The Supreme Court today rejected a petition by two Orthodox residents of Ashkelon to forbid the race on grounds that it would cause them “mental anguish.” The court held that it could not entertain petitions on ideological grounds but only on actual damage which the petitioners had not proved. The sponsors of the race promised that religious Jews going to and from the synagogue would be able to cross the race course in safety. Orthodox groups nevertheless have called for a mass protest demonstration and prayers in Ashkelon on Saturday. But the demonstrations will be held away from the race course thereby reducing the chance of violence which some Orthodox spokesmen were threatening earlier in the week.

Both the Cabinet and the Knesset rejected demands by the Orthodox political parties to ban the race. Their stand was taken on the grounds that the contest was a private event with which the government could not legally interfere. Meanwhile, in London, the Mizrachi Federation sent a telegram today to Rehavia Adivi, the mayor of Ashkelon, asking him to stop the race. Similar telegrams were also sent by the Mizrachi Federation to Israeli Premier Golda Meir and to Dr. Joseph Burg, Minister of the Interior. At the same time, responding to requests from various quarters, the Chief Rabbinate in Commission – Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits is in Australia – also sent a telegram to the Mayor of Ashkelon expressing “the profoundest distress of Anglo-Jewry at the prospect of public desecration of the Sabbath in Ashkelon.”