Arab bakers say they’ll keep low profile over Pessah

Pita bakers from the North will make every effort to avoid selling leavened bread to Jews over the holidays.

By JONAH MANDEL
Challah, Hallah, bread 311 (photo credit: Ilan Nachum / Al Hashulchan Magazine)
Challah, Hallah, bread 311
(photo credit: Ilan Nachum / Al Hashulchan Magazine)
Arab pita bakers from around the Sea of Galilee and the northern Mediterranean coast will make every effort to avoid selling leavened bread (hametz) to Jews over Pessah.
This follows a meeting on Sunday with Deputy Minister for Development of the Negev and Galilee Ayoub Kara (Likud), during which he asked the bakers to be sensitive to the religious feelings of Jews on their holiday of redemption and freedom.
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The sides also agreed that “if people’s livelihoods depend on selling hametz, we’ll make sure they do so far away from people who would be offended by its sale, and keep away from the Kinneret and the beaches,” an announcement by Kara, himself a member of the Druse community, said.
Two weeks ago, media reports said senior Druse and Muslim religious leaders had called on their flocks to refrain from publicly selling hametz to Jews over Pessah, especially around Jerusalem’s Old City.
The imam of Herzliya’s Sidna Ali Mosque, Sheikh Ra’ed Badir, was quoted as saying that “nobody should harm another person’s religion,” and Sheikh Amin Kablan, the second most senior Druse religious leader in Israel, said he would appeal to all Druse to not bake bread and pita over the Jewish holiday.