Radio Kol Hai is reporting that Minister Chaim Katz, the minister in charge of issuing the special permits needed to allow work on Shabbos, has said that work on the train tracks will continue on Shabbos.
He has said that before, but what he added now is that the work on Shabbos will be performed entirely by non-Jews.I know the laws regarding "amira la'akum", telling a non-Jew to perform work for Jews, are relatively complicated, but they definitely turn it into a less serious issue than having Jews do the work. Though by appearances, it is still the State of Israel, the Jewish State, still performing work on Shabbos in public.
It seems he took Rav Amsalem's advice. Rav Amsalem recently suggested the work could be performed via shabbos goyim. He was obviously criticized, as he gets criticized for whatever he says, ever since he separated from Rav Ovadya Yosef and Shas, at the time. Let's see if they accept the opinion in practice or if they oppose it as they did when Rav Amsalem said it.
And where are they going to suddenly get all these non-Jewish skilled workers? Won't they need training? Can anybody just be pulled in off the street and be put to work in laying new tracks and fixing old train tracks?
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