Supreme Court President Aharon Barak responded this week to the harsh attacks that members of Israel’s fervently Orthodox community recently launched against him and the court itself.
In speeches and in recent articles in the fervently Orthodox press, leaders of the community have attacked the court for excessive activism and for rulings that threaten the community’s way of life and religious values.
Many of the attacks were prompted by the ongoing legal battle over whether to close Bar Ilam Street, a main Jerusalem thoroughfare, to traffic on the Sabbath and religious holidays.
“This criticism does not affect our judgment,” Barak told the Knesset Law Committee this week. “We will continue to defend the same principles which we have protected until now.
“There is room for criticism, even harsh criticism, but there is not room for an attack on the judicial system, which damages the delicate weave of Israeli society,” Barak added.
“Ours is a state whose democratic roots are not deep enough. We are all in the same boat, sailing on an open sea, religious and secular, right and left.
“These attacks reflect a lack of understanding of the democratic process.”
During the committee session, Knesset member Shaul Yahalom of the National Religious Party criticized the judicial activism of the court.
He said that many members of the Orthodox community feared that the status quo governing religious life in Israel would be changed by the court.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
