Members of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and leading rabbis met today to consider action to prevent “further desecration of the Sabbath” such as the opening of an industrial exhibit in Haifa last Saturday.
The meeting decided that Chief Rabbis Isaac Herzog and Itzhak Nissim should call on President Itzhak Ben Zvi to ask his intervention with the Haifa authorities. If this fails, the rabbis agreed, all synagogues throughout Israel would be closed down and prayers would be held in the open air.
The meeting also took a serious view of a decision by the Supreme Court ruling that municipal laws prohibiting the sale of pork were unconstitutional. The court ruled that this matter was within the jurisdiction of the Knesset alone: The meeting called on the religious parties’ representatives in the Cabinet to raise the question with Premier David Ben Gurion.
Meanwhile, the Hapoel Hamizrachi representative of the Haifa municipality announced his resignation from the municipal coalition headed by Abba Chushi and the Mapai Party. The Hapoel Hamizrachi alderman said that the municipality’s insistence on opening the exhibit on a Saturday left him no other choice. The Poal Agudas Israel alderman, who has not resigned from the coalition, identified himself with his religious colleague’s statement.
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