Religion Magazine

It is Not Illegal to Boycott Haredim

By Gldmeier @gldmeier

MK Yaakov Litzman (UTJ) had proposed a law, that was today rejected in the Knesset. Litzman actually proposed this law about 6 months ago, shortly after the last general Israeli Knesset elections, but it was only voted on today, and rejected.
The proposal was to add to the legal term גזענות, racism, the qualification of acts of banning or boycotting groups, in addition to the already legislated qualifications of persecution, humiliation, degradation, expression of hatred, hostility or violence, or causing strife. As well, Litzman proposed adding the Haredi sector to the list of groups being targeted for racism, so that any of those acts when targeted against Haredim would also be defined as racism.   The punishment for such racism, against haredim, would be jail time from 1 to 10 years, and any results of the racist act would be wiped out.
(source: Ladaat and Kikar)
MK Litzman is still upset about the Haredi parties being excluded from the government. Litzman says the Lapid banned them so as to avoid pictures of the government including bearded people. The law would also have protected Haredim in the general workplace from discrimination.
It's a shame Litzman used his anger over the government to try to pass a law that had no chance of passing, which prevented a possibly good law from passing as well. Instead of focusing on the government and how he was supposedly banned, he should have worked to pass a law about the general workplace, where regular people, Haredim, are trying to get jobs and are discriminated against just because of their appearance. So now it is still not illegal to discriminate against Haredim in the workplace.
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