- 1.II. The Weekly Rest
- The right to weekly rest is one of the human rights that Judaism brought into the world. God, who took a break from all his work on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2-3), commanded weekly rest, including for the servant, for her maidservant, and for the stranger (Exodus 20:7-9), and he instructed as follows:
"Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it. For six days you shall work and do all your work. And on the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord your God, you shall not do any work, you and your son, and your daughter, your servant, your maidservant, your cattle, and your stranger that is in your gates."
- The Israeli legislature expanded the scope of weekly rest to set it at "at least thirty-six consecutive hours per week." In the spirit of Jewish tradition, section 7(b) of the law stipulates that for a Jew the weekly rest will include "the day of Shabbat" within the meaning of Jewish tradition[10], and for a non-Jew – "the day of Shabbat or the first day or the sixth day of the week, all according to what is acceptable to him as his weekly day of rest." In other words, for a Jew, the weekly rest must include Shabbat, whereas for a non-Jew it is up to him to choose which of the Fridays, Shabbat or Sundays to include in his weekly rest[11].
- Section 8 of the law authorizes the minister to set a weekly rest of less than 36 consecutive hours. By virtue of this authorization, various regulations have been enacted that do not relate to our case. In addition, Section 9 of the Law prohibits the employment of an employee on a weekly rest, if this is not permitted under Section 12 of the Law. By virtue of this authorization, the Minister of Labor issued "a general permit for employing workers during the weekly rest for the purpose of holding soccer matches."[12] This permit was issued after two proceedings were opened in connection with the claim that soccer matches on the Sabbath were held in violation of the law, [13] and after the government accepted the recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Examining the Holding of Shabbat Games in the Football Industry of November 15, 2017 (hereinafter: the Inter-Ministerial Committee).[14]
- 1.III.Weekly Rest Reward
- As mentioned, one of the ways to enforce the weekly rest is to impose a financial burden on the purpose of determining an increased remuneration for the inconvenience caused by working during the weekly rest. Section 17 of the Law states in this regard:
"(a) An employee was employed during or part of the weekly rest hours: