Outrage Over Airport Demands that Employees Work on Shabbos

By Hamodia Staff

YERUSHALAYIM — The Israel Airports Authority has been seeking to solve the problem of staff shortages which have been blamed for catastrophic overcrowding and delays at Ben Gurion Airport by insisting on hiring only applicants who commit to working on Shabbos and Yom Tov, despite assurances that religious employees would be accommodated.

In a notice sent on behalf of the Recruitment Department of the Airports Authority to a person who applied for a position as a transportation worker at Ben Gurion Airport, it was written: “You were summoned for an interview with a transportation worker at Ben Gurion Airport. Pay attention to the threshold requirements for the job – shift work, including availability for Saturdays / holidays.”

The letter belied an Airports Authority comment to Arutz Sheva on Sunday that the requirements of shomer Shabbos employees would be respected.

Moshe Goldberg, who told the IAA that he would be willing to work on Motzei Shabbos instead, received an email from IAA saying: “There is no such option.”

Goldberg said: “G-d have mercy on us that we have reached this situation. It hurts me very much that as a religious person I am excluded from a government position. This isn’t the first time chareidim have been excluded,” he was quoted as saying by Arutz Sheva.

The claimed in a followup statement that “this email is a serious mistake and we apologize for it. It has been unequivocally determined that each candidate will be checked according to his data regardless of his ability to work all days of the week. About 90 out of 420 workers in the unit are Shabbat observant,” the IAA said.

Shas MK Moshe Abutbol said: “Religious workers who want to refrain from working on Shabbat, the official day of rest of the state of Israel, are forced to lose positions…in the Airports Authority…they are rejected in application interviews solely on the basis of their Shabbos observance.”

Agudas Yisrael candidate for Knesset Yitzchak Goldknopf likewise expressed outrage.

Goldknopt, who is the secretary of the Rabbinical Committee for Shabbos in Israel, sent an urgent message to the chairman of the IAA Yitzchak Gershon, demanding immediate action to rectify the iniquity.