Interesting Psak: hiring Arab workers

Since the war began on October 7, Simchat Torah, a lot of industries in Israel have been negatively impacted due to the lockout of Palestinian workers. Among the hardest hit industries is the construction industry. Almost all construction workers were Arabs, especially Palestinian Arabs with work permits.

Even as kablanim try to find alternatives and hire Israeli Arabs and Palestinians with work permits (from areas other than Gaza, such as East Jerusalem along with some from Judea and Samaria), residents in the areas are nervous about these Arabs being employed in their neighborhood - much of the intel collected by Hamas that helped them in their attack on southern Israel was collected by [some? many?] Palestinian workers who just went to work on a regular basis in Jewish areas and then helped Hamas with details about people and houses and communities.

The question posed to Rav Yitzchak Zilbershtein is if residents of the area have the right to complain about such Arab workers and demand that they not be allowed to work in the area? Regarding supermarket chains, the supermarkets can employ Jews in the place of their Arab employees even though it means paying a higher salary, but at least it is an option. In construction it is hardly a realistic option to replace the Arab workers with Jewish ones, and the entire industry will collapse if the Arabs are prevented form working. On the other hand, people are scared and nervous.

Rav Zilbershtein responded that he has already paskened in similar situations in the past in times of terror attacks when people were scared of Arab workers that we can rely on God protects the foolish, and that if the government says these employees are safe we can rely on that and Hashem will protect us. 

Rav Zilbershtein says that today things are different, as we have now seen their cruelty, they do not have the "form of a human being" and have justified the expression "pere adam - wild man" that has been associated with them. And the ones that came in to work who might have been safe helped the barbarians with their knowledge and information. The scared neighbors are correct and right.

Rav Zilbershtein paskens that whoever can employ a Jew now should, people should purchase only from shops that employ Jews even if it is a bit more expensive - this will prevent stores form hiring Arabs and then there will be fewer Arabs entering the towns, and that will save untold numbers of Jews in the future.

Regarding construction and other situations that hiring Jews instead of Arabs is not so practical, Rav Zilbershtein says that the kablan needs to hire an armed security guard to be present the entire time the Arab workers are there, and at the end of the day he should escort them out of the city. This will calm the neighbors and they would agree to let the Arabs work with these conditions.

A claim was made that treating them like this and having an armed guard at all times would upset the Arab workers and instigate them but Rav Zilbershtein said there is no choice at this time and this is the required hishtadlus, and of course we should also pray that this should pass peacefully.

source: Haredim10

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