Religious Jews Poised to Boycott El Al December 11, 2006

You know, it never ceases to underscore itself: just because something is Israeli doesn’t necessarily make it Jewish. For all the talk of being the “Jewish state”, the “homeland for all Jews”, Jewish law just can’t seem to get a fair shake in Israel.

Charedi Orthodox Jews, following the desecration of the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, by El Al airlines due to a general workers’ strike, seem increasingly poised to boycott El Al. The Jerusalem Post reports:

Threats of an irrevocable haredi boycott of El Al flights loomed again after negotiations between El Al and haredi leaders stalled Sunday night.

The two sides are at loggerheads over El Al’s flight policy on Shabbat.

El Al management insists on the prerogative to decide which emergency incidents justify flying on Shabbat, while haredim want El Al to appoint a rabbi who would have the right to veto any future Shabbat flight.

Who decides if the Sabbath can be desecrated? The business. I can’t imagine that these people have such fear of Heaven that they will throw profit margins to the wind and uphold the Holy Torah no matter the financial risk. Obviously, this was ludicrous to the religious public:

“If you have a question in halacha [Jewish law] who do you go to - El Al or a rabbi?” asked Haim Cohen rhetorically; Cohen is an aide to Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the most respected living halachic authority for haredi Jews. “El Al will not decide when it is permissible to fly and when it isn’t.”

Cohen said that unless there is a last minute breakthrough in talks with El Al, the haredi rabbinic leadership would issue an official joint statement to slap a boycott (cherem) on El Al.

PERIOD!

Would one trust the CEO of Pfizer to tell them what drugs they needed for a life-threatening condition? Or, the marketing director? Without a rabbi on staff or an overseeing rabbinical council, there is no way that proper Sabbath observance could possibly be ensured. El Al know, especially being Israelis, full well what “Shomer Shabbat” means.

To adapt from the Big Lebowski, it means you sure as s**t don’t f**king fly.

Relations between El Al and their haredi clientele have deteriorated since El Al launched flights on Shabbat two weeks ago in an attempt to catch up with the backlog created by a labor strike that paralyzed Ben Gurion International Airport for several days.

El Al argued in its defense that although as a rule of thumb it does not fly on Shabbat, the national carrier retained the right, in certain emergency situations, to exercise discretion.

Launched flights. Now it’s become an operational shift, even if de facto.

Religious Jews are considering setting up their own airline at this point. While lamentable — and the Jerusalem Post said that El Al could theoretically offset its loss by flying on all Sabbaths (G-d forbid) — this shows that the charedi public is capable of supporting itself by itself, if need be.

Perhaps this also shows that we religious Jews really are the only people holding Israel to the Jewish values symbolized by the star on its flag. Shabbat can no more be relegated to insignificance in Judaism than kosher or — for that matter, the land of Israel. The venerated Rabbi Elyashiv said that if El Al does not keep the Sabbath, the Sabbath keeps the Jewish people and therefore it will be unsafe to fly El Al.

For a country that relies on G-d as much as it does, it is a crying shame that Israel is a place so anxious to push Him to the backburner.

There is no mitzva to support the willful desecration of Jewish holy days by Jews in the “Jewish state”, on holy land. I support, still, 100%, any charedi boycott of El Al if so directed by R’ Elyashiv (or other leader of the Torah-observant Jewish people) — and I support the actions of any Jews who want to make a Torah-observant alternative to El Al airlines. El Al must consider the needs of its religious customers as being as valid as those of their secular clientele and come up with a suitable compromise, now.