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28 Nissan 5763 - April 30, 2003 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Poraz Refuses to Dispatch Chometz Inspectors
by G. Lazer

Interior Minister Avraham Poraz (Shinui) carried out his pledge not to send out inspectors to enforce the Chometz Law, allowing hundreds of store owners and companies across the country to sell and display chometz during Pesach.

The Ministry's policy represents the first time since the State's founding that the religious status quo in this matter has been breached, and violates the coalition agreement signed between Shinui and the NRP. On Erev Pesach, Shinui Chairman Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said, "I do not believe the Mafdal (NRP) will resign from the government over some sandwich." Shinui officials say the party is carrying out its pledge to effect a "secular revolution."

"The Interior Minister has more important things to do than to deal with the Chometz Law," said Poraz' spokesman.

Paragraph 1 of Chok Chag Hamatzot 5746 (1986) renders anyone who puts chometz on display during Pesach criminally liable. The penalty for violations stood at NIS 100 ($22) until last year when Eli Yishai, then serving as Minister of the Interior, raised the fine to NIS 400. Yishai said a combination of interests between Shinui and the Mafdal is what led to this year's failure to enforce the Chometz Law. Yishai expressed regret that during his term in office he did not expand the law to include a prohibition against the sale of chometz.

MK Gila Finkelstein (Mafdal) contacted high-ranking officials in her party with a request to hold an urgent party meeting to discuss the party's continued participation in the government "in light of the breach in the status quo by the Shinui Party, which has trampled over the law with a heavy foot."

MK Rabbi Avrohom Ravitz (UTJ) told Yated Ne'eman, "The [incident] justifies our ideological position vis- a-vis the State of Israel, for we do not see in it any tie to Judaism and Jewish identity."

MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni (UTJ) told Yated Ne'eman that he contacted Attorney General Eliakim Rubinstein to demand he try Interior Minister Avraham Poraz for contempt of the Chometz Law. "Poraz is taking advantage of his power and of his own accord is deciding which law to uphold and which law to bypass, thereby harming fundamental principles. It would be interesting [to see] what would happen if a religious minister were to bypass a law that harms his principles."

Rabbi Gafni says he will ask Rubinstein to act against Minister of Industry, Trade and Employment Ehud Olmert for not dispatching inspectors to enforce the Shabbat Law, which has been breached at major shopping centers, causing large- scale Shabbos desecration.

 

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