From: Mermaid . (britannica@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Mar 21 2002 - 15:26:48 MST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,472991,00.html
Is Viagra kosher for Passover?
Police inspect everything from food to pharmaceuticals throughout the Jewish
holiday, writes Suzanne Goldenberg
Friday April 13, 2001
They call them the bread police, and they were out in force this week
scouring cafes for the telltale crumbs that fall foul of the dietary laws
governing the Jewish holiday of Passover.
The seven-day festival, celebrating the exodus of the biblical Israelites
from slavery in Egypt, ends at sunset on Saturday. In tribute to the
sacrifices made by their forefathers during their escape, observant Jews
forego leavened bread, a definition that encompasses not only loaves,
cookies and cakes, but pasta, beer, whiskey and even perfume.
It is not illegal to eat or even sell bread; but it is against the law to
put hametz - or leavened goods - on public display. The Israeli government
was never zealous about enforcement until this year, however, when
inspectors turned up in commercial kitchens and at cafe tables.
They imposed fines of 100 shekels (£17) wherever they spotted hametz, and
opened up a new round in Israel's culture wars.
"We are going towards a theocracy," said Joseph Partizky, a member of
Israel's parliament from the fanatically secular Shinui party. "This is the
first year that inspectors of the bread police have gone out to hunt down
the famous criminals who eat bread during Passover. I can only hope that
offenders will not be stoned in the city markets."
The man who ordered the hunt for hametz offenders was unmoved. "A law is a
law and it has to be respected," said Eli Yishai, the interior minister from
the Shas party, an amalgam of ethnic pride and ultraorthodox Judaism. "For
some reason, these people only object to a law with religious connotations."
It is unsure how this week's battle royale between the ultraorthodox, who
exert a disproportionate influence on the political and religious
establishment, and fanatical secular Jews like Mr Partizky is viewed by the
majority of Israelis.
One opinion poll this week claimed that 66% of Israeli citizens wanted to
eat only kosher foods during Passover, but most were unconcerned what others
did.
But the heat generated by the debate is telling of the exacting preparations
required for the festival. So dedicated are the efforts to purge every last
bread crumb from the holy city of Jerusalem that the water company switches
the spigot on its usual source from the sea of Galilee to underground wells
to safeguard against contamination.
Supermarkets tape white sheets of paper over shelves containing hametz, and
pharmacies keep charts advising which medications are permitted for the
festival week. On the eve of the holiday there was a vigorous debate in the
Israeli press on whether Viagra was kosher for Passover.
Many restaurants close altogether; some put little baskets of matzot, the
wafers that replace bread, on the table. And others are defiantly unkosher,
serving up concoctions of meat and cheese, pork and seafood that manage to
violate several dietary laws at once, and bread, the ultimate hametz.
The inspectors, who are normally engaged in enforcing minimum wage laws,
have fined only a few dozen restaurants across the country. But that has not
diminished Mr Paritzky's wrath, or the ire of secular militants.
This week, Shinui activists fanned out in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other
cities, handing out fliers reading: "Hametz is not a drug", and urging cafe
owners to fight their fines in court.
Mr Paritzky claims the newfound vigilance of the Passover police is a result
of the rising power of Shas, a party that successfully fused ethnic pride
and ultraorthodoxy to become the kingmaker in successive coalition
governments. Shas controls the interior ministry in the hardline coalition
of Ariel Sharon. "It is pure religious coercion," he said. "There is really
no other purpose to this law except in imposing ultraorthodox religious
behaviour on people who are not believers."
Dudi Bar-Chen would agree. For the last five years, the owner of Trio, a
cafe off the main pedestrian mall that has a cult following among young
Jerusalemites, has elevated his sparring with the religious police into an
amateur sport.
He has been fined repeatedly for such sins as playing music, or seating
customers outside on the Jewish sabbath - although he is licensed for both
on weekdays - and has managed on some occasions to successfully argue his
case in court.
Mr Bar-Chen plans to do the same with his hametz fine. "They know I won't
pay the fine, but we have a long romance, the religious police and I; this
is a ritual."
But the defenders of the new regime are not so philosophical. Sloughing off
criticism even from the ultraorthodox, who say the hunt for hametz is
antagonising less observant Jews and strives for an impossible level of
purity, Shas announced this week it plans to raise the fines to a hefty
3,000 shekels (£522).
"We live in a Jewish state, not in France or England," said Shas member of
parliament David Azulai. "It is very serious that a small group, for reasons
of greed, is willing to sell the few Jewish characteristics left in the
state of Israel."
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