Israel’s Knesset has passed the preliminary reading of a bill that would bar mosques from using loudspeaker systems to amplify the muezzin, or Muslim call to prayer. The bill doesn’t actually say “mosques” — it says “religious institutions” — but that’s clearly a codeword for mosques, since they’re the ones that use powerful outdoor loudspeakers,…
Two weirdly similar articles showed up in my email this morning. Both are by political activists who don’t particularly regard themselves as political activists but as voices of reason. Both ran into intrusive law enforcement, in the name of national security, that violated the freedoms each one values—freedom of inquiry in one case, freedom of…
Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank is looking into ways to use technology to mute the sound volume of electronically amplified muezzin calls in mosques. Settlement leaders frequently complain about the noise of the muezzins, whose electronically amplified calls to prayer can easily be heard in nearby Jewish settlements, including at night when people…
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