ORTHODOX Jewish legislators are celebrating a small but significant victory in their efforts to turn Israel into a more religiously observant state.
The Israeli Supreme Court, the last bastion of democracy, yesterday dismissed an appeal against Knesset legislation that bans the import of pork and other non kosher meat, unfit for consumption according to Jewish religious law.
The appeal had been lodged by the meat importers, who argued that the law infringed both the basic human rights of Israeli citizens and the fundamental right of free enterprise.
But a nine strong panel of judges, headed by the Supreme Court's President, Judge Aharon Barak, ruled unanimously that the infringement of human rights involved was marginal.
And although the court found that there was a more substantial violation of the right to free enterprise, it did not deem intervention appropriate, given that an absolute majority of Knesset members (61 of the 120 parliamentarians) had approved the law.
Between the lines of its dry, technical verdict, the court appeared to be signalling that it was not about to enter into direct confrontation with the Knesset over the ongoing efforts of observant Jewish legislators to boost the religious character of the state at the expense of the secular population.
The battle goes to the very heart of Israeli life. The state was founded nearly 50 years ago as a secular democracy with a strong religious identity, and an uneasy status quo has been sustained ever since between the democratic parliament and the Chief Rabbinate, the Orthodox Jewish authority with responsibility for matters of birth, marriage, divorce and death.
Friction between the democratic and the Jewish religious hierarchies has escalated of late, with arguments over everything from the peace process with the Palestinians (many leading rabbis argue that it is forbidden under Jewish religious law to hand over control of West Bank territory to the Palestinian Authority) to the closure of main roads in Jerusalem on the sabbath (observant Jews want the roads closed; secular citizens want to be able to drive freely).
So intense have the differences become that Israelis on both sides of the religious secular rift have begun talking, not always frivolously, about the need for two states: a secular Israel, for those for whom democratic principles and pluralism precedence over halachah (religious law) as derived from the Bible; and an Orthodox Israel, run according to religious principles.
Given the more pressing need to achieve a permanent division of territory between Israel and the Palestinians, the further re division of Israel is unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future.
And in the meantime, having won the pork import war, ultra Orthodox politicians have set their sights on a more central target the criteria for determining who is considered Jewish in the Jewish state.
A Bill submitted by members of the ultra Orthodox Shas party, part of the governing coalition, would deem conversions to Judaism performed by Reform or Conservative rabbis invalid. Converts welcomed to the faith by rabbis of these more lenient streams of Judaism would not be automatically recognised as Jewish for Israeli citizenship purposes.
The Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, has pledged to fight the planned legislation, which is particularly incensing Jews in the US, where Reform and Conservative Judaism are immensely popular. But Shas is adamant about legislating an Orthodox monopoly on conversions in Israel. And Mr Netanyahu needs the support of Shas's 10 Knesset members for his Knesset majority.