Israeli law has long enshrined Shabbat as a national day of rest, restricting commercial activity, public transportation, and the like on the holy day. Now the Knesset is considering a bill—sponsored by Aryeh Deri, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party—that will tighten some of these laws. Shuki Friedman argues against the legislation, popularly known as the “supermarket bill,” even though he does not see it as having a significant effect on religious freedom.

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri’s “supermarket bill” is a bluff. Considering the fact that hundreds of thousands of Jews work on Shabbat—many of them illegally—even if the law passes, it won’t make any difference. It will just be another law that won’t be enforced, and commerce and financial activity on Shabbat will keep blooming.

If Deri and the ultra-Orthodox Knesset members really wanted to change this situation, they would finally sit down with the rest of the coalition members, and with opposition members too, and reach a historic compromise with moral validity, . . . which would regularize Shabbat’s nature in the state of Israel. Aggressive coercion [in the form] of another hopeless law will achieve the exact opposite. . . .

The legal status quo with regard to the Sabbath has been maintained for many years. . . . In recent years, however, there has been an ongoing growth in the volume of commercial activity on Shabbat. More supermarkets, shopping malls, and stores have been opening on Shabbat. . . . The result is that for many Jewish workers—about 400,000—Shabbat in Israel is not a day of rest. . . .

The nonenforcement of Shabbat laws is ridiculous both on the national level and on the local level. In 2016, for example, the Labor and Welfare Ministry issued only eleven fines for illegal work on Shabbat. The enforcement isn’t any more significant on the local level, and most authorities simply don’t want to enforce their Shabbat bylaws. Even Deri . . . didn’t lift a finger to increase enforcement when he was authorized to do so when serving as minister of economy. So even if the “supermarkets bill” is passed into law, authorities that decide not to enforce the law will allow the situation to remain as it is today.

After several weeks of passionate political conflict in Israel over judical reform, the tensions seem to be defused, or at least dialed down, for the time being. In light of this, and in anticipation of the Passover holiday soon upon us, Eric Cohen considers the way forward for both the Jewish state and the Jewish people. (Video, 8 minutes. A text is available at the link below.)