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In Israel, the place of religion is disputed

It was a first in the history of Israel. On May 29, 2019, Benyamin Netanyahu failed to form a government and voted to dissolve the Knesset (parliament), elected a month and a half earlier. The crisis was born out of the refusal of one of its allies, Avigdor Liberman, to enter into its majority: it denounced the concessions made to the religious party, including a reform of military service to incorporate more ultra-Orthodox Jews. For the second time, in five months, Israeli voters vote on Tuesday, September 17, 2019. And the relationship between the state and religion have emerged as one of the themes of the campaign.
"In Israel, the place of religion is disputed", it is a Great report of Guilhem Delteil.

• In the ultra-Orthodox community, many religious Jews refuse military service. Regulatory changes regularly provoke demonstrations in the country's religious cities.
  © RFI / Guilhem Delteil

• Religion is taught to thousands of young men throughout the country in institutions called yeshivot (yeshiva singular).
  © RFI / Guilhem Delteil

• Students learn Jewish philosophy, morality and law. Some will then become rabbinic judges: in Israel, religious law applies to marriages and divorces. Public transport stops during the Sabbath ...
  © RFI / Guilhem Delteil

• "Building a world requires an economy, security, but also values," says Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a teacher in a Jerusalem yeshiva. But other currents of Judaism as well as the laity challenge this weight of religion.
  © RFI / Guilhem Delteil

• Tiberias attracts many Israeli and international tourists. Its lake, the surrounding mountains and its Jewish and Christian religious sites are assets for this northern city. ...
  © RFI / Guilhem Delteil

• One of the first steps of the mayor was to set up a bus running during the Shabbat. In the country, only three cities with Jewish majority have public transport that day.
  © RFI / Guilhem Delteil

• The city also has a high proportion of religious inhabitants who denounce the "aggressive" policy led by the mayor. Critics denounce pressure on traders to force them to open during the Shabbat.
  © RFI / Guilhem Delteil

• Rananel Cohen, head of the kashrut, observing Jewish food rules in the north of the country, says the mayor's policy has fueled tensions between lay and ultra-Orthodox in the city.
  © RFI / Guilhem Delteil

• Prayer in the tomb of Rabbi Meir. Relations between the state and religion have emerged as a major theme of the election campaign that ends on Tuesday, September 17, 2019.
  © RFI / Guilhem Delteil

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