MIDDLE EAST:A COURT ruling that permits the sale of bread in public places during the Passover holiday has incensed the religious establishment in Israel, which is demanding that the government reverse the decision.
"The court ruling puts a gun to the head of the Jewish people," said Yitzhak Cohen, the minister of religious affairs and a member of the ultra-religious Shas party.
According to religious law, Jews are forbidden from eating leavened bread during Passover and must eat unleavened bread, known as matzah.
The furore was sparked on Thursday when a judge in a local Jerusalem court ruled that grocery shops, restaurants and pizzerias in the city could sell bread during Passover since this was not a violation of the law which forbids the display of bread in public, but not the sale of bread.
In her ruling, judge Tamar Bar-Asher Tzaban dismissed charges brought by the Jerusalem municipality against four restaurant owners who had sold bread during Passover last year.
The court should "deal with what it understands", said a furious Mr Cohen, "and not with Jewish religious law".
Other religious lawmakers said they would push for new legislation that would leave no loopholes for a court to allow the sale of bread on Passover.
"This is a deadly blow to the Jewish identity of the Jewish state and to the understanding between religious and secular," said Zevulun Orlev, the leader of the National Religious Party.
The division between religious and secular Jews in Israel has at times exploded into open confrontation. The demand by religious Jews in some areas for roads to be closed over the Sabbath, for example, has at times led to demonstrations by both secular and religious Jews and even clashes between religious Jews and the police. (Jewish religious law forbids driving on the Sabbath.)
In Israel, there is no clear division between religion and state and the religious establishment has control over issues of personal status. Marriage, divorce and conversion, for instance, can only be performed by an Orthodox rabbi.
This religious monopoly on personal status issues angers many secular Jews who see it as religious coercion and insist they should be allowed to marry as they see fit - in a civil ceremony if they desire.
In the absence of a constitution - Israel does not have one - and a clear set of laws that define the relationship between religion and state, an informal religious-secular status quo has emerged on the ground.
In Tel Aviv, for instance, where the majority of Jews are secular, bread is easily obtainable during Passover, whereas in Jerusalem, with a bigger religious population, bread products are much harder to find during the holiday.
Even in Jerusalem, though, the municipal authorities often turned a blind eye to the sale of bread. But the fines handed out last year and this week's court ruling have stoked tensions that generally simmer on a low flame.
Lawmakers from the stridently secular Meretz party welcomed the ruling. Barring people from selling bread on Passover, said party lawmaker Ran Cohen, was a form of "religious coercion".