Tel Aviv Shops Resist Shabbat Closing Law
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Many Tel Aviv grocery stores stayed open on the Sabbath even though Israel’s interior minister rejected an amendment to a municipal statute that would have allowed their opening.
Municipal inspectors handed out fines on Saturday of slightly more than $200 to the businesses that remained open despite an Israeli law that makes it illegal to open retail businesses on the Jewish Sabbath, which begins at sundown Friday and ends after sunset Saturday.
Employees at the large Tiv Tam grocery store wore T- shirts with the slogan “Tel Aviv does not keep Shabbat” while they worked on Saturday.
Israeli Interior Minister Gideon Saar late last month rejected the amendment that would have allowed some stores to stay open on the Sabbath and holidays.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
