The Rest Day of Professional Football Players in Israel
![handle is hein.journals/virspelj18 and id is 19 raw text is:
FALL 2018 THE REST DAY OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYERS IN ISRAEL
Article
The Rest Day of Professional Football
Players in Israel
Shelly Aviv Yeini*
INTRODUCTION
[B]ut the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do
any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant,
nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.'
According to The Israeli Democracy Institute, Israeli Jews define their
religiosity in diverse ways, each of which is often a package deal, combining
distinct and distinguishing characteristics and attitudes.2 Israeli Jews - whether
they define themselves as religious (on a sliding spectrum), observing tradition, or
completely secular - have an interest in the place that religion occupies in the
State of Israel and the meaning of a Jewish state.3
Israel's historical approach toward the balance between the demands of
religious and secular camps is referred to as the status quo model. The status quo
model is traditionally depicted as a decision not to decide - that is, on preserving
an existing status quo that acknowledges the priority of religious demands in some
areas in a way that reflects a social-political compromise rather than a principled
decision-making.4 The practical approach of this model is to refrain from
changing the compromises that were crystallized in the early days of Israel based
on agreements reached between Jewish leaders at that time.' One of the most well-
known and relied upon documents that shaped the agreements of the status quo
model is a letter that the Jewish Agency - which was controlled by the secular
Labor Party - sent in 1947 to the international organization of Agudat Israel, the
hegemonic movement within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish public. The letter
included, among other topics, the recognition and promise that the Sabbath would
be the official rest day of the future Jewish state.' However, the letter did not
present a commitment to Sabbath observance in the traditional religious meaning
of the term.
* PhD., Bar-Ilan University, Law Faculty. I thank Professor Ariel L. Bendor and Professor Gideon Sapir
for their valuable comments and remarks.
Exodus 20:10.
2 The Israeli Democracy Institute, A Portrait of Israeli Jews: Beliefs, Observance, and Values of Israeli
Jews, 2009 (2009), https://en.idi.org.il/media/7083/abstract-guttmanavichai20l2_eng.pdf.
Id.
Daphne Barak-Erez, Law and Religion Under the Status Quo Model: Between Past Compromises and
Constant Change, 30 Cardozo L. Rev. 2495, 2495 (2009).
5 Id.
6 Id. at 2496, http://rotter.net/User-files/forum/57c208e4620712c6.pngla copy of the original letter in
Hebrew).
17
VOL. 18:1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/virspelj18&div=5&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
The Rest Day of Professional Football Players in Israel
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most