In less religious neighborhoods people like to complain about the Shabbos sirens that some people operate on Friday as Shabbos begins. In fully Haredi neighborhoods, and I think in most or all Dati neighborhoods, the Shabbos siren has become a fixture. it just exists. The problem, the conflict or friction, happens when religious people move into a not-religious area and introduce the siren to people who never had it and do not particularly want it. By the way, in different areas the siren might be different types of music or an actual siren...
Personally, I am fine with the siren. The one thing that I dont like about it is that in a big religious area like where I live there is not just one siren, but 3 or 4, and of course the people operating them can't be bothered to coordinate among each other. So Friday afternoon as Shabbos approaches, we get to hear 3 or 4 sirens, not knowing what each one is alerting us to (40 minutes? 20 minutes? a bit before 40 minutes so we know it is coming? etc).
And in some places they have the opposite problem.
According to Kipa, many religious French people have been making aliya and moving to cities like Netanya, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, and other cities and neighborhoods that do not necessarily have a religious flavor to them, along with many others who go to these areas for short term stays and visits. Because these are not natively religious areas they generally do not have these sirens in place, and the community representatives say the residents often do not know enough Hebrew or where to look for the information, and having a siren announce the upcoming arrival of Shabbos would be very helpful.
These people have put out a call to Ron Huldai to allow a siren in Tel Aviv to announce the approaching Shabbos. They specifically requested a siren be sounded ithe areas of the midrachov, a popular pedestrian walkway, and the boardwalk (I think this is the boardwalk along the beach)...
I havent seen any word yet from Huldai if he plans to approve this or reject the request. It seems to me that it would be more likely to be approved if it was being requested for a religious area where a significant portion of the residents wanted it and benefited from it. It seems less likely to me that in places like these, the boardwalk and midrachov, such a request will be approved. but we wait and see.
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