The end of the year was marred by the desecration of the Sabbath in Tel Aviv. It suddenly became clear to the haredi elected officials that for years various public bodies had been tweeting about the law requiring rest on the Sabbath.
If at first they raised an outcry, and Health Minister Yaakov Litzman even threatened to withdraw from the coalition, their voices soon fell silent, as they let out quiet cries of "Yisrael Katz is guilty... Chaim Katz is guilty... The Commissioner is guilty." Voices, and nothing more.
The first person to cool the bath this year when it comes to Shabbat HaMalkah was actually a Shas representative in the municipal coalition in Jerusalem.
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It was one day in the month of Adar 1 when the council member left his house on his way to "an important vote at the city hall," as he told his neighbor in the building. But then he received a phone call from a secular council member, heard what he heard, and from that moment on, no one was able to catch him. He simply took off running.
To this day, no one knows why the Shas council member did not attend the vote, which could have thwarted the opening of the 'Station Complex' on Shabbat, but this much is known: the council member did not first consult with Hacham Shalom Cohen, chairman of the movement's Council of Elders.
Despite that representative's passive assistance to the desecration of the Sabbath, no one expelled him from the movement. This was the first Sabbath indifference of 5776.
The continuation was indifference to the other Sabbath desecrations throughout the city of Tel Aviv. To the shame of the year 2016.
