Rabbis declare a war on chirtmas trees in Israel
Orthodox assembly switched to a straight threats to owners of business because of settings of Christmas trees in waiting of influx of tourists on vacation. Additionally to this, arise conflict among students of premier technical university.
Many hotel owners have taken the warning to heart, fearful that the rabbis may carry out previous threats to damage their businesses by denying them certificates declaring their premises to be "kosher".
In the coastal city of Haifa, in northern Israel, the rabbi of Israel's premier technology university has taken a similarly strict line. Elad Dokow, the Technion's rabbi, ordered that Jewish students boycott their students' union, after it installed for the first time a modest Christmas tree.
He called the tree "idolatry", warning that it was a "pagan" symbol that violated the kosher status of the building, including its food hall.
About a fifth of the Technion's students belong to Israel's large Palestinian minority.
While most of Israel's Palestinian citizens are Muslim, there are some 130,000 Christians, most of them living in Galilee. More Palestinian Christians live under occupation in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed in violation of international law.
"This is not about freedom of worship," Dokow told the Technion's students. "This is the world's only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a 'light unto the nations' and not to uncritically embrace every idea."
Rabea Mahajni, a 24-year-old electrical engineering student, said that placing the tree in the union was backed by Palestinian students but had strongly divided opinion among Jewish students and staff. The majority, he said, were against the decision.
For most of Israel's history, the festive fir tree was rarely seen outside a handful of communities in Israel with significant Christian populations. But in recent years, the appeal of Christmas celebrations has spread among secular Israeli Jews.
Interest took off two decades ago, after one million Russian-speaking Jews immigrated following the fall of the Soviet Union, said David Bogomolny, a spokesman for Hiddush, which lobbies for religious freedom in Israel.
Many, he told Al Jazeera, had little connection to Jewish religious practice in their countries of origin, and had adopted local customs instead.
The controversial status of Christmas in Israel was underscored four years ago when Yair Netanyahu, the 21-year-old son of Israel's prime minister, caused a minor scandal by being photographed wearing a Santa hat next to a Christmas tree.
The office of Benjamin Netanyahu hurriedly issued a statement saying that Yair had posed as a joke while attending a party hosted by "Christian Zionists who love Israel, and whose children served in the [Israeli army]".
Source: Al Jazeera
