In the Tel Aviv Regional Labor Court, a lawsuit was heard before Judge Neta Ruth by an employee who applied to work as an intelligence clerk at the Gold Mall in Rishon LeZion, but after she declared that she observed the Sabbath, her application was rejected on the pretext that as part of her job, she also had to work on the Sabbath.<\/p>\r\n
The court recognized the fact that this action was taken in complete violation of the labor laws in force in Israel, the Working Hours and Rest Law and the Equal Employment Opportunity Law, and ruled that the employer did indeed violate the law and caused prohibited discrimination, but the compensation it awarded the employer was significantly lower than in similar cases in which employers violated the aforementioned laws, amounting to only 7,000 NIS.<\/p>\r\n
A review of a recent ruling regarding discrimination based on age or gender shows that the compensation provided to victims of discrimination averages approximately 30,000 NIS per case.<\/p>\r\n
It is important to clarify that compensation in cases of this type does not seek to compensate for damage or emotional distress caused to the victim, but rather is a punishment for the perpetrator, which is defined in court terms as "compensation." The amount of compensation, which is limited to a maximum of NIS 50,000, is at the sole discretion of the court and is influenced, among other things, by the court's personal considerations as to how much the perpetrator should be punished to prevent him from repeating his act.<\/p>\r\n
From reading the ruling in question, it appears that the reason the employer was granted the court's mercy and was paid such a low amount stems from the court's view that it was appropriate to adopt a lenient interpretation regarding the extent to which the employer was required to make adjustments in order to accept the employee. The court also chose to protect the employer's property rights and take into account a number of considerations in favor of the employer.<\/p>\r\n
However, from reading various rulings related to the same legislation, the Equal Opportunities Law - Prohibition of Discrimination, it appears that in cases where pregnant women were harmed or discriminated against on the basis of sex, the courts went to great lengths to protect the injured employees and adopted a very restrictive interpretation of the sections of the law despite the employers' extenuating reasons. For example, in cases where a landlord who refused to rent to a same-sex couple for a wedding was fined NIS 60,000 for discrimination, this also applies in many other cases where the claims of the discriminatory party were not accepted at all.<\/p>\r\n
In other words, according to the court's view, discrimination due to Sabbath observance is four times less than discrimination based on gender or age, for example.<\/p>\r\n
In the Jewish, or at least 'also Jewish' State of Israel, does discrimination based on Sabbath observance not deserve to receive at least the same treatment in the state court as discrimination based on age and gender?<\/p>\r\n
The issue of observing the Sabbath in the public sphere is currently being discussed in the public and legislative discourse in the Knesset. Allowing Sabbath desecration in a variety of different businesses, and unequal treatment of this offense by the court, will completely undermine the proper protection for workers that the legislator intended and will further exclude observant workers from the labor market, who are already widely discriminated against in their employment.<\/p>\r\n
Simcha Dan Radin is a lawyer and public activist.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the Golden Mall in Rishon Lezion, they refused to hire an employee because she refused to desecrate the Sabbath, and the court sentenced the business to a meager compensation of 7,000 NIS \u2022 For discrimination based on age and gender, the court fined compensation 4 times higher \u2022 A Jewish state?","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[454,7435,771,968],"class_list":["post-86488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-138","tag-454","tag-7435","tag-771","tag-968"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n