Deputy Minister of Finance Yitzhak Cohen of Shas is continuing to push the kosher electricity law, even though it has been ruled as religious legislation that harms secular-religious relations. Sources inform ''Globes'' that a large meeting Cohen had summoned was postponed at the last minute, allegedly due to "scheduling conflicts". A new date has not yet been set.
Cohen has summoned officials from the Ministry of Energy and Water, even though Minister of Energy and Water Uzi Landau ordered the ministry's director general, Shaul Tzemach, to pull the bill, because of its harm to secular-religious relations.
The bill proposes to grant the Chief Rabbinate the authority to certify that electricity producers operate according to halakha (religious law). The Rabbinate would receive budgets to finance kashrut inspectors at the power plants of Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) and private power companies. Cohen has been deeply involved in the writing of the bill, and is considered the dominant force behind it.
The sources added that the bill will cost NIS 60 million if passed - the money needed to replace manual operating systems at power stations with automated systems that do not desecrate the Sabbath. Additional costs include replacing hundreds of Jewish IEC employees, who currently work on Saturdays, with non-Jews, who under halakha would be the only people permitted to work at the power stations on the Sabbath.
Following the public storm that erupted when the bill was published by "Globes" two weeks ago, Landau ordered Tzemach to pull it. Landau added that he would continue to seek a solution for thousands of haredi (ultra-orthodox) families who, at the orders of their rabbis, use generators and illegal hookups because IEC desecrates the Sabbath.
In the past, IEC has proposed setting up generators at haredi communities, but the initiative was never implemented because the communities could not agree on the terms.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 3, 2012
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2012