There is a law on the books of the State of Israel, known as
the law of Rest and Work Hours, which requires Jewish
businesses to close on Shabbos and forbids Jewish workers
from working on Shabbos. Another law is called Equal
Opportunity in the Workplace. It states that one may not
refuse to hire someone because he or she is shomer
Shabbos, and also an employer may not require an employee
to work on Shabbos.
Because these laws refer explicitly to Shabbos, which is a
religious concept, they are portrayed as "religious laws" and
are often held up as an example of religious coercion in the
State of Israel. In recent weeks, the Leftist champions of
"the rule of law" have encouraged a Yerushalayim store that
demonstrably breaks the law of Work Hours by staying open on
Shabbos, portraying their efforts as part of their struggle
against religious coercion.
In fact, the opposite is true. These laws are essential to
minimize anti-religious coercion by those who work on Shabbos
against those who do not want to work on Shabbos.
No less an authority than the expert on labor laws of the
Israel Civil Liberties Union, Omri Kaufman, stresses that the
motivation for the law governing work hours is at least as
much social as religious. "Flouting the law also is an
affront to the law of Equal Opportunity in the Workplace,
bespeaking discrimination on the basis of religion. . . . We
are disturbed by this lack of enforcement of equal
opportunity," he says.
The secular press is full of complaints by religious workers
who feel that their keeping Shabbos makes things difficult
for them. Ephraim Lachish, an electronics engineer who lives
in Kiryat Gat where the American semiconductor giant Intel is
building a billion dollar plant (with almost $400 million in
Israeli government financial help) was invited for a job
interview at Intel. The first question they asked him was if
he works on Shabbos (presumably stimulated by the large kippa
he wears). He did not get a job there, and the company
claimed that it had nothing to do with his religious
practices. However the fact that the plant does work seven
days a week and that it was the first point raised in the
interview, suggests that the truth is otherwise.
It is disturbing that the question of a prospective employee
working on Shabbos is asked at all in a job interview. If
Shabbos was kept as it should be in a Jewish state (even a
non-religious Jewish state), it should not be an issue.
Many people who already have jobs and then become more
religiously observant, also have difficulties and challenges
that they should not have to face in a religiously neutral
state. Many complain that when they start asking not to be
scheduled for work on Shabbos, their managers undergo a very
noticeable change in attitude toward them. Even when they are
fired from their jobs and they are certain that the only
reason is their religious observance, it is usually
impossible to prove, since it is always easy to find other
reasons to justify an action such as that.
Even those who own their own businesses, and are not subject
to these problems, are not immune to pressures of their own.
If the competition stays open on Shabbos, there is pressure
on them to begin doing so as well. Certainly they are free to
stay closed, but the commercial opportunities are thereby
limited for Shabbos observers, which is contrary to
democratic egalitarian principles.
The rights of Shabbos observers in Israel should be
protected. We argue this from a purely democratic and
egalitarian standpoint, but we cannot resist adding some of
our own truth.
"The Shabbos is the pearl and friend of the Jew.
" . . . Little do they know what a treasure they are casting
away, who turn their backs upon this friend of their soul.
Little do they know how poor they leave their children, who
fail to bequeath unto them this pearl." (from "The Jewish
Sabbath," by HaRav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, in Judaism
Eternal.)
He was truly a source of light to the entire generation.
