Chabad Shaliach Gets Off With Warning After Inspector Demands Tefillin Stand Shutdown

YERUSHALAYIM
A Chabad shaliach puts tefillin on a soldier in an IDF staging area near the border with Gaza. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Once again, a Chabad Chassid was asked to stop offering passerby the opportunity to put on tefillin. After being booted out of Herzliya a month and a half ago, a similar incident repeated itself in North Tel Aviv on Friday.

The tefillin station in question, situated in a shopping center in secular Ramat Aviv, has been at the same location for several years. The Chabad shaliach was asked by a city inspector to close the booth down; otherwise, he would be given a ticket. After several minutes of heated discussion, the inspector issued the shaliach a warning, telling him that next time he would get a fine.

In September, an inspector in Herzliya demanded that a Chabad Chassid who was operating a tefillin station shut his booth down. After he refused, the inspector issued him a fine of NIS 730 ($220), which was later canceled by the Herzliya Municipality. The incident raised the hackles of many Israelis, and hundreds of offers to pay the fine poured in after the story was publicized. Politicians also voiced their indignation. MK Betzalel Smotrich said that such a fine “is unacceptable in a Jewish state. I will demand that the fine be canceled and the inspectors be instructed as to their error.”

In a statement, Tzeirei Agudas Chabad, which operates the tefillin stations, said that “it is difficult to believe that of all the places in the world where Chabad shluchim help Jews put on tefillin and get closer to their traditions, that it would be the Jewish state that would seek to put a shaliach on trial for doing so. For 50 years we have been sponsoring these stations and they have become an inseparable part of the Israeli landscape. It is inconceivable that just weeks before Rosh Hashanah a fine would be issued for the ‘crime’ of offering to help Jews put on tefillin. We will continue our practice and continue acting as a bridge between the different parts of the nation.”

Speaking to reporters, the shaliach said that he was “in shock. We have been in this same spot for many years, and all of sudden we are threatened with a fine and forced to shut down. It is certainly a shock that in a public space in the Jewish state, in the first modern Jewish city, we are forced to shut down a stand that hundreds of Jews made use of on a regular basis, and from where hundreds of women would pick up Shabbos candles.” According to the shaliach, the inspector was summoned by a far-left, anti-religious resident who called the police, telling the shaliach that he would “teach you people a lesson.”

In a statement, the Tel Aviv Municipality said that “all activities in the public space must receive a permit signed by the mayor before they take place. The activity in this case was issued a warning, and not a citation. In the future, we expect those operating the booth to file a request for a permit before operating it.”

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