Public transport on Shabbat bill defeated, Blue and White vote against
Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg introduces legislation banning the use of ministerial cars and drivers on Shabbat after public transport bill defeated
By JEREMY SHARON‘WITHIN ANY arrangement in Israel it is critical to ensure that no one is forced to work on Shabbat, as in the case of bus drivers or construction workers.’(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
A bill proposed by Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg to allow public transport on Shabbat was defeated on Wednesday, with Blue and White MKs who advocated for it during their election campaigns voting against the legislation.Public transport on Shabbat is banned in all but a handful of municipal jurisdictions, and non-religious Israelis have long chafed at their inability to travel on Shabbat without a private vehicle.Last year, several municipal authorities in the central district including Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Givatayim, Kiryat Ono and Ramat Hasharon, began operating a bus service on Shabbat and made it free to all passengers thereby circumventing existing laws against public transport on Shabbat.The services have proved extremely popular but are costly for the municipalities operating them since they cannot charge for the service.Blue and White’s campaign platform included a specific promise to allow municipalities which so wished to operate public transport on Shababt.Nevertheless, nine Blue and White MKs – including several ministers such as Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevitch, and Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata – voted against it.MK Yoaz Hendel of the Derech Eretz Party who broke away from Blue and White when it split from Yesh Atid and who was deeply involved in the party’s religion and state campaign also voted against, as did his party colleague Zvi Hauser.Yesh Atid and other opposition parties have a raft of draft legislation covering much of Blue and White’s election platform ready to introduce to the Knesset in the coming months as a test of their campaign promises.“Public transport on Shabbat is basic and essential. It is environmentally, socially and economically just, and also saves lives,” said Zandberg after the bill was defeated.“It will reduce traffic and road accidents and will provide a solution for those who cannot afford private vehicles. It is unthinkable that just because of religious coercion and hypocrisy Israeli citizens are under curfew once a week,” she fumed.
Zandberg also criticized Blue and White, noting the party had promised to advance this issue in its platform.“You promised to influence things from inside [the government]. Grow a spine,” she said.MK Uri Maklev, of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party that deeply opposes public transport on Shabbat, said that such a law would “harm the status quo on religion and state,” and said that “the majority in this country want to protect Shabbat, want Judaism.“You are a raucous minority and you are getting smaller,” he addedAccording to the 2018 religion and state index of the Hiddush religious pluralism organization, fully 72% of those polled said they backed the operation of public transport on Shabbat.Blue and White’s proposal was to allow local municipal authorities to decide if they wanted such networks in their cities.“Why are we a Jewish state?” Maklev asked. "What is our connection to the Land of Israel apart from eating falafel? It is our Jewish identity. Values come before leisure.”
