Two Bills Backed by Orthodox Pass First Reading of Knesset

Two religious bills demanded by the rigorously Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party as its price for joining the Likudled coalition government were approved on their first readings in the Knesset, after an eight-hour debate that ended at shortly before midnight Tuesday.

The vote was 42-38, with two abstentions.

One measure calls for stricter enforcement of the Sabbath ban on public transportation. Opponents argued it would not only inconvenience but endanger soldiers who have to travel over the weekends between their homes in one end of the country and military bases in the other.

The other legislation, an anti-pornography bill, is directed against what the Agudah faithful consider lewd advertising, a woman in tight jeans, for example.

Both bills were approved Sunday by the Cabinet, with only a single dissenting vote.

With the Agudah safely in the government, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir could count on 66 of the Knesset’s 120 votes instead of his precarious 62-58 majority.

But Shamir, who jubilantly signed the coalition agreements with Agudah last Friday, ran into unexpectedly determined resistance to the religious bills, not only from the Labor and leftist opposition but from within his own Likud bloc.

Several Orthodox parties in the coalition resent the concessions to Agudah. In fact, relatively few Orthodox Knesset members participated in the debate.

The back-and-forth was dominated by secular members, who accused the Agudah of religious blackmail and heaped scorn on its definition of pornography.

BIBLE DESCRIBED AS PORNOGRAPHIC

The bill defines pornographic material as “a picture of a naked person, with sexual innuendo, sexual stimulus or that could be seen as a temptation for sexual relations.”

Avraham Poraz of the Center-Shinui Movement observed that some people might think a sign publishing the hours of the Sabbath was an invitation to sexual relations, “because the arrival of Shabbat brings with it the hour to do the mitzvah.”

Haim Ramon, chairman of the Labor Party’s Knesset faction, worried that Moslem women in Israel would be forced to cover their faces in public or be accused by Islamic fundamentalists under the pornography statute.

Arieh (Lova) Eliav of the Labor Party said the Bible could be defined as pornographic.

He quoted an erotic passage from the Song of Songs, drawing an anguished protest from an Orthodox member, who said it was sacrilege for a Jew to use the holy book to prove a secular point.

The Knesset was short 38 members when the bills were voted. But none of the 18 currently abroad had been summoned home. Their presence was not urgent inasmuch as the opposition agreed not to use the first readings as no-confidence motions.

The approved measures were sent to the appropriate house committees for the time being. They must eventually be brought before the plenum for the second and third readings required for enactment.

Shamir promised the Agudah two additional pieces of legislation. One would forbid the production and sale of pork in Israel. The other would tighten the already severe restrictions on abortion.