The Movement for Fairness in Government filed a request
asking the High Court for permission to state its position in
the longstanding case on the validity of municipal ordinances
limiting the sale of pork and pork products in the downtown
areas of Tiberius, Beit Shemesh and Carmiel.
The Movement is asking to use a procedure rare in Israel, in
practice primarily in the US, whereby an organization seeking
to express its stance on an issue being heard before the High
Court submits a request as an amicus curiae ("a friend
of the court") in order to present a position supporting one
of the two sides in the case. In order to support its moral
case rejecting pork on the basis of its national symbolism,
the Movement for Fairness in Government added the opinions of
several public figures and rabbonim.
HaRav Mordechai Neugershal, a senior lecturer at Yahadut
Mizavit Acher ("Judaism from a Different Angle"), wrote an
opinion submitted to the High Court that pork was a symbol of
inter-fraternal dispute. "Is there any need to expand on why
our heart trembles so when history repeats itself and once
again pork is digging its claws into the city street while
brothers fight one another? Pork has become a symbol of the
tremendous bloodletting that spilled the blood of the Jewish
people in Europe throughout history, including the river of
blood spilled in the 1940s . . . All this, according to
Jewish tradition, was the work of the Edomites, whose symbol
is the pig. Could there be any greater national shame than
for a people to sever itself from its symbols and from
its past? Is there anybody who has the authority to erase
from memory the Jewish blood that was spilled like water
throughout history?"
Later in his opinion HaRav Neugershal writes, "As the son of
a family of Holocaust survivors, some of whom remained there
among the mounds of ashes, as a descendant of the victims of
the Cossack pogroms of 1648-49, blood libels, inquisitions
and autos-da-fe, I studied Jewish history and I know pork
symbolized these abominations in the eyes of all past
generations of Jews. I do not have the power to prevent the
masses of Jews in Eretz Yisroel from dissociating themselves
from these symbols and their meaning. But I do have the power
to demand legal protection from the deeply emotional blow . .
.
"The law dealing with pork is not a religious law. Pork is a
national symbol, like the swastika. A factory that produces
shirts, pins, ties, etc. bearing a printed swastika would
definitely be prohibited from selling [the product] in the
heart of the city or in any other place. The principle of
freedom of enterprise would be irrelevant in such a case
because clearly this would be a blow to elementary
sensitivities, for under the banner of this symbol so many
atrocities were perpetrated. Certainly this is a severe blow
to Holocaust survivors and their descendants and relatives
and anybody who views himself as belonging to the Jewish
people."
In conclusion HaRav Neugershal writes, I would expect our
guests who were received so graciously by us (including
sal klita, citizenship, etc.), whether they are Jewish
or not, whether or not they have an interest in Jewish
tradition, to respect our values and refrain from hurting our
sensitivities. And now that they are bringing pork into city
centers, the blow is many times worse. Would it be permitted
to tear the national flag in public without anybody voicing a
word of protest? How can we expect new symbols to be accorded
respect if the State itself and its laws, in the name of one
of the other principles, flagrantly scorns the old ones?"
The request by the Movement for Fairness in Government to
join the petition claims that the High Court determined
immigrants from the former Soviet Union who arrived during
the 90s are associated with the eating of pork and that the
vast majority of this sector consumes the non-kosher meat.
"No evidence of this has been laid before the court," notes
the request. "No statistical figures have been generated
showing the rate of pork consumption among immigrants from
the former Soviet Union is greater than the rate in the
general population, and if so, how much greater. Neither has
a distinction been demonstrated between the immigrants from
Russia and the Ukraine, for instance, and the immigrants from
Caucasus lands who are mostly traditional Jews."
The request has not yet received a reply. The judges are
currently engaged in writing a response to petitions filed
against local authorities that did not permit the sale of non-
kosher meat within their jurisdictions.
