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19 Adar II 5765 - March 30, 2005 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Sharon Instructs Pines to Enforce Chometz Law

By Eliezer Rauchberger

Shas retracted on Monday a no-confidence motion it submitted after Interior Minister Ophir Pines-Paz announced last week that he did not intend to enforce the Chometz Law.

Sharon's intervention followed a letter from MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni saying that a minister cannot be allowed to overlook an established law simply because it is of a religious nature. He also explained that failing to enforce the Chometz Law would be a violation of the coalition agreement and warned that Degel HaTorah would thus vote in favor of the no- confidence motion.

Sharon then spoke with Minister Pines, telling him "a law is a law" and therefore he must enforce the Chometz Law just like any other law. Minister Meir Shetreet, who serves as the government's liaison to the Knesset, even made an announcement to this effect during a plenum session.

On Monday ranking Interior Ministry officials claimed that ever since the law was legislated 20 years ago not a single interior minister, including chareidi interior ministers, has succeeded in enforcing it.

Following Sharon's directive Pines said he, too, believes in upholding every law on the books, including laws he does not favor personally. However he went on to say, "The Jewish identity and democracy of the State of Israel are not dependent on laws that create religious coercion that merely cause resentment and distance people from religion." Pines said he himself does not eat chometz on Pesach and fasts on Yom Kippur, "but every citizen must reach a decision on his own."

Last year, when he was in the opposition, Pines-Paz criticized the interior minister from Shinui who openly refused to enforce the law.

 

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