Many of the targeted mini-markets are owned by non-Jews who have no religious obligation to close on the Jewish Sabbath, and those non-Jewish owners have now found a creative way to bypass the mayor’s closure order while rubbing his supposedly secular face in it: they just announced they will close their stores to observe their own Sabbath, meaning most of the eight targeted mini-markets will close every Sunday but remain open on Friday nights and Saturdays.
Above: Nir Barkat
Mini-Markets Owned By Non-Jews But Forced To Close On Shabbat By Jerusalem’s Secular Mayor Say They Will Close On Sundays Instead
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Four months ago the secular mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, ordered the city’s blue laws to enforced against mini-markets, most of whom had been open on Shabbat for decades. All eight are located in the city center in areas where there are few, if any haredim or other Orthodox Jews. For all of these mini-markets, their most profitable day of the week is Saturday.
But Barkat issued the closure order anyway to partially mollify haredim on the city council and groups of haredim in the city who had threatened large scale civil disobedience – which almost always means riots – over the opening of a new movie theater on Shabbat. The theater is located even further from haredi areas of the city, and it remains open on Friday night and Saturday.
Ironically, many of those eight mini-markets are owned by non-Jews who have no religious obligation to close on the Jewish Sabbath, Yeshiva World reported based on a report in MyNet, and those non-Jewish owners have now found a creative way to bypass Barkat’s closure order while rubbing his supposedly secular face in it: they just announced they will close their stores to observe their own Sabbath, meaning most of the eight targeted mini-markets will close every Sunday but remain open on Friday nights and Saturdays.
Stuck in a bind of its own making, the city administration is, at least for the time being, allowing this arrangement to continue, although it reportedly told MyNet in a statement that it is unaware of any store in the center of the city which received a permit allowing it to be open on Shabbat. The stores that are open on Shabbat – even those owned by non-Jews and who clientele is primarily foreign tourists and non-Jewish foreign workers – are being investigated.
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Jerusalem's Secular Mayor Orders Shabbat Mini-Markets Closure.