According to
Kipa, the Ministry of Culture, headed by Minister Chili Tropper, is "looking into" the
possibility of opening running a program called "Israeli Shabbat" (שבת ישראלית) . This Israeli Shabbbat program would include, possibly, the opening of museums on Shabbos for free, sponsored by the ministry.
It should be noted, the opening of museums on Shabbos would not be new (though not all museums have stayed open on Shabbos), but the sponsorship from the government would be new, ie free entry, to encourage people to go back to the museums and other cultural sites that were hit particularly hard by CoronaVirus as being among the first to close and last to be opened. This would give the return of culture a boost.
MK Moshe Abutbol (Shas), in his position as head of the Lobby for Keeping Shabbos, is
perturbed by this program. He can't be too perturbed, officially, by the museums reopening on Shabbos as well, as that was always allowed and many museums did. What he is officially perturbed by is that the government would subsidize entry to the museums on Shabbos and thusly encourage people to go on Shabbos rather than during the week.
Among others, some of the issues upsetting MK Abutbol are:
- were all museums approached by the ministry, even those that until now have not been open on Shabbos?
- how will the ministry ensure the numbers of entrants are accurate and not being inflated?
- the "Status Quo" agreement requires things to stay the same in regards to Shabbos observance. While museums have been allowed to be open on Shabbos and holidays, they were never funded by the government for that. If the plan is to change this, it should be cleared by the head of the coalition (ie and in agreement with the Haredi parties) - which has not been done.
- museums are often located quite a distance form population centers, so Shabbos-observant people who might want to walk and take advantage of the free museum entry would not be able to.
- Perhaps consideration should be given to open museums for free one day mid-week as well, so more people (including Shabbos-observant people) could benefit from this.
- opening for free on Shabbos could hurt the museums during the week and shrink their revenues.
and some other concerns with funding and technical details that are less interesting [to me, because I don't care about "where the funding will come from, and other technical wrenches thrown in just to try to thwart the program]
The status quo issue seems to be the biggest of all the issues, the one the others are all thrown in to cover for. While I am not sure why where the funding is coming from makes it a breach of the status quo, open is open wherever the money comes from and if it was always open it can remain so, if that is actually how it works, it is an issue that needs to be resolved. I think it would also be fair to be concerned about museums that were previously closed on Shabbos that might now be encouraged to open to get a slice of this pie. I don't know if that would officially be a breach of the status quo, as they were allowed to open but chose not to, but it would be upsetting to see the government encourage additional chilul shabbos by tempting them with funding.
Also, opening for free on Shabbos might be discriminatory against the religious public, who often can't take advantage of the offer.
I could see this program, if it takes off, leading to another problem. I can see this leading to, and re-opening, the issue of public transportation on Shabbos. People will complain that only people with cars can go to the museums for free, but people lower on the socio-economic scale who do not have cars will also not be able to go to the museums for free but have to pay during the week.
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