The Cabinet approved a draft law Sunday, to be presented to the Knesset, that would give municipal councils the right to ban Sabbath entertainment within all or part of their statutory boundaries.
The vote was 17-2, with Minister-Without-Portfolio Yitzhak Peretz of the Sephardic Orthodox party Shas voting against, because he felt the proposed legislation did not go far enough to enforce public observance of the Sabbath. Absorption Minister Yaacov Tsur cast the other negative vote, because he thought the draft law to be excessively coercive.
In another move affecting religious concerns, the Cabinet voted Sunday that daylight savings time will be observed in Israel from April 10 to Sept. 4. What Israelis refer to as “summer time” will be in force between those dates for the coming three years.
The 147-day period was a compromise between those ministers who wanted the full 205-day summer time, in force, throughout virtually the entire Western world, and religious ministers who oppose any tampering with the clock, complaining that it makes life more difficult for the Orthodox observing daily prayers.
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