Hot Item Municipal rabbis strike over unpaid wages
More than 3,000 rabbis and staff at 50 regional councils that provide a range of religious services say they are owed more than $65 million in unpaid wages and that most employees have not received paychecks in months.
Angry workers, including the rabbis, walked off their jobs Tuesday in a protest designed to halt the licensing of marriages, the slaughtering of animals under rabbinical supervision, the issuing of kosher certificates, and the scheduling of weddings and funerals.
The withholding of wages, rabbinate employees say, is part of a plan by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s governing coalition – in which the staunchly secular Shinui Party plays a major role – to undermine the overarching influence of religion in Israeli public life.
Buh?!
Good for Shinui! Let those Rabbis get a job like Rabbis everywhere else. And take away the exemptions for the haredim.
How about a Shinui/Labor/Meretz coalition once Sharon goes to Prison?
it’s not so cut and dry homes, you’re not just talking about religious fundamentalists here. this is everything from orthodox to reconstructionist we’re talking…
the ultra orthodox have the final say in so many things…
marriage, the law of return, etc
I don’t think the conservative or reform (or the reconstructionists) have any real influence
I’m with Shinui on this issue. They can privatize the kosher certification like we have here. The state should offer civil marriages too. The majority of Israelis are secular so why are the religious people bossing everyone around? It reminds me of the religious right here.
where ya beeen??? this has been going on all week!
and they still did weddings and funerals, they were not compromising halachically mandated or committed duties.
i hate people who identify themselves with temporary monickers instead of a constant presence we can know an interact with
i think i’m instating a new personal policy not to respond to commentors who are essentially entirely anonymous
Hey mo1, that’s how I got started.
What up “old news”?
P.S. Thanks for the handle.