A Tel Aviv family tried to enter a public park in the nearby city of Afula on Saturday, the first day of Passover. A city-funded security guard checked their bags for weapons and explosives, as is common in Israel – but also checked for hametz, leavened food that halakha (Orthodox Jewish law) forbids on Passover, and refused to let them in when food that was not kosher for Passover was found.
Israeli City Bars Jews With Hametz From Entering Public Park
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
A public park in Israel banned Israelis from entering after their picnic baskets were found to contain hametz, Ha’aretz reported.
A Tel Aviv family tried to enter a public park in the nearby city of Afula on Saturday, the first day of Passover. A city-funded security guard checked their bags for weapons and explosives, as is common in Israel – but also checked for hametz, leavened food that halakha (Orthodox Jewish law) forbids on Passover, and refused to let them in when food that was not kosher for Passover was found.
"People who went there with rolls, they didn't let them in, and they had to eat them at the entrance [of Afula Park],” Barak Avivi, a lawyer, told Ha’aretz.
Avivi said he is considering filing a class action lawsuit against the city because of the incident. He said his wife Michal and other children were among many visitors told they could not enter the park because their food was not kosher for Passover.
Michal Avivi posted about the humiliating experience on her Facebook page, and that post was reportedly shared thousands of times.
“[Everyone who wanted to enter the park] underwent a meticulous search for hametz in all their bags. When I asked the security guard at the entrance why he wasn't letting them in, he said he received this 'democratic' directive from the park manager, who told him not to give in to anyone – “Jews, Arabs, everyone!" Michal Avivi wrote.
The City of Afula defended the hametz check and the bans, citing a 2008 Interior Ministry guideline that notes that the purpose of Israel's so-called Hametz Law, which prohibits businesses in Jewish parts of Israel (as opposed to Israeli-Arab villages or neighborhoods) from publicly displaying hametz products during the Passover holiday, is "to prevent the display of hametz in the public sphere, to avoid insulting the public and maintain the character of the holiday. The Afula municipal park is a public facility that serves the residents of the city and its environs, and so the public is asked to refrain from bringing hametz into it during the holiday, as is customary in many other public institutions," the city reportedly said in a statement.
But that is not what Israel’s hametz law, which deals with stores and restaurants only, says.
“[The Hametz Law] only talks about selling and businesses, not about parks or private individuals. That means the Afula municipality decided to take the law into its own hands, to interpret it as it wants, to discriminate between those who keep kosher and those who don’t,” Barak Avivi reportedly said.
[Hat Tip: Seymour.]