Veteran NIF grantee Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) of the Movement for Progressive (Reform) Judaism has won two important victories.

The Kfar Saba Magistrates Court has ruled that the Ministry of Religious Affairs was acting in a discriminatory and illegal way by refusing to advertise the religious services of Reform movement synagogues on its website. The Ministry’s actions contravene a law enacted in 2000 by the Knesset, which prohibits discrimination regarding products and services related to public places. The Ministry was ordered to pay $2,500 compensation to the three Reform communities who sued them together with IRAC.  

Meanwhile, following a complaint by IRAC, Deputy Attorney General Shay Nitzan has opened a criminal investigation against 29 rabbis who signed advertisements urging Israelis not to employ Arabs. The ads appeared in the right-wing newspaper Kommemiyut and were distributed separately as flyers on days following terror attacks perpetrated by East Jerusalem Arabs.

The ads said: "Stop employing the Arab enemy, at least in the spheres closest to us. We won't let enemies into our homes, we won't buy from enemies, we won't directly employ enemies."

Some of the rabbis who signed the ad, such as Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Safed and Rabbi David Druckman, Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Motzkin near Haifa, are state employees.