Israel – Will Shas Chairman Eli Yishai thwart the business licensing reform over Shabbat observance? The major reform planned by the Finance Ministry together with the employers’ organizations, which is aimed at shortening and simplifying the process of granting business licenses, was scheduled to be approved in the coming weeks.
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Now it seems, however, that the plan is about to be shelved after discussions have turned into a struggle over closing businesses on Shabbat between the Interior Ministry headed by Yishai and the Finance Ministry.
The Interior Ministry recently demanded that in order to receive a business license, the business owner must commit to abide by the working and rest hours act.
The Finance Ministry is furious at the demand, claiming it violates the status quo. According to the Treasury, the clause related to closing businesses on Shabbat is not enforced in practice, and only a small number of Industry, Trade and Labor inspectors are in charge of the matter.
“Bringing the Shabbat issue into the business licensing law will expose businesses working on Shabbat to the control of the local authorities’ supervision system,” a Finance Ministry official said.
Regulations including the sanctions which will be imposed on those breaking the law have not been formed yet, but violating this clause may lead to a temporary revocation of the business license and heavy fines.
“If the Interior Ministry continues to insist on the matter, we’ll shelve the law,” a Treasury source told Yedioth Ahronoth’s economic supplement. “It’s better to make it complicated to issue a business license than to make it easy and have all businesses in Israel in danger of being closed down and receiving heavy fines for being open on Shabbat.”
Uriel Lynn, chairman of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce, who took part in the negotiations on the reform, warned Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz over the weekend that “if the changes in the business licensing law are approved, it will change from a law encouraging businesses to a law oppressing businesses, aimed at enforcing other laws relating to religious matters, labor laws, etc. This will be another impossible burden on opening and managing businesses.”
The interior minister’s office rejected the criticism, saying that “in terms of enforcing labor protection laws, including the working and rest hours act, there is no status quo. It’s puzzling and odd that the Finance Ministry wants these laws not to be enforced.
“During his tenure as industry, trade and Labor minister, Eli Yishai increased the number of inspectors in charge of enforcing these laws, and as interior minister today he is still committed to the matter.”
if passed it will give local authorities to much power and a chance to extort money from business
Yishy is just trying to protect Israeli law! Like rabbi ovadia said, these guys are Beasts!
Good luck to him!
Shaas just wants to bankrupt the few businesses in EY that still operate profitably and reduce everyone to the poverty level of their followers so all will be dependent on the charity and political handouts they survive on. These are the low lives of Isreael politics and the Treasury is right to withdraw the bill rather than give in to this extortion.
As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Trying to coerce people into observing Shabbos may well provoke them to resist Torah even more. 95% of people who become from frum in adult life, do so through friends (myself included, 35 years ago.) Instead of trying to ram this down peoples’ throats, we should make a concerted effort on a large scale to invite them to peoples’ homes for Shabbos, and otherwise show them what a Torah life is really like.
Years ago, there was an article about this in the JEWISH OBSERVER. A frum Israeli Yid invited a freie guy home for Shabbos. A friend of the frum guy thought it would never work–that the Israeli freie were all totally hostile. At the end of the story, the frei Shabbos guest was favorably impressed and was going to look further into becoming frum. We aren’t told if the frei guy eventually became observant, but that isn’t the point . . .
There are some on this board who actually think its correct to coerce yiddin into being shomrei shabbos and threaten them with death if they don’t comply. Some have even said that jews have no free choice in their decisions about religious observance and if they are born jewish the MUST be shomrei shabbos or be killed under halacha. If this wasn’t so scary you would think you were listening to some isalamic mullah threatening the whole world if they don’t convert to islam. In this case, its some small fanatical core of yiddeshe mullahs who purport to act as G-d.
Call me a right winger, but I don’t see a problem with requiring Jewish owned businesses in Israel to close on Shabat. Try going to a shopping mall in Bergen County, NJ on Sunday some time.