5 December 2006
Fervently Orthodox rabbis in Israel have protested after an El Al plane flew on Shabbat. The "Jerusalem Post" reported that the Committee for the Sanctity of Shabbat had called on the public to "distance themselves from El Al" after the airline authorized a flight to leave Miami on Shabbat in order to make up for time lost by a day long strike at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv last week. A group called the Council of Torah Scholars is to reach a decision by the end of the week regarding the airline and the fervently Orthodox community's relationship with it. "They did not want to desecrate the strike, but they had no problem desecrating Shabbat," the newspaper quoted rabbi Yitzhak Goldknopf as saying. Israel's national carrier traditionally does not fly its planes from Friday night to Saturday night.