Pork disagreement fractures Israeli town

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel -- Diana Torzinski hoisted the plump pink sausage off the rack and began slicing it for customers who were well aware their purchases are fueling the latest dispute between secular and observant Jews in Israel.

In this working class town of 50,000, the battle has focused on Petersburg and Olga's, delis owned by immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

The shops sell pork. Beit Shemesh's growing ultra-Orthodox community, however, says religious law prohibits Jews from eating pork and is trying to force the delis out of the city center. The dispute is now in the hands of Israel's Supreme Court.

"The Torah says we should eat kosher," says Meir Cohen, a devout Jew.

"We're used to the tastes of our own food, our own products," counters Russian immigrant Janna Bradman, as she waits in line at Olga's.

Division rekindled

The dispute over the delis has rekindled Israel's religious-secular divide, which has been largely ignored during a year of Israel-Palestinian fighting.

About one in five Israeli Jews is devout. The number of Orthodox Jews and their political clout are growing, and they have challenged the country's secular majority on issues such as observance of the Jewish Sabbath, when according to Jewish tradition all work is forbidden.

The two delis cater mostly to Russian immigrants, who were discouraged from religious observance under communism and grew up in non-kosher homes, where pork was eaten. The delis also offer frozen blinis, Stolichnaya vodka, and cured salmon -- and Russian-speaking workers to sell them.

The shops also attract a non-Russian secular crowd -- Jews who do not keep strict dietary laws -- and as a result, the dispute over pork has come to be a symbol of how Israel defines itself.

"It's not just about the Russians," said Moshe, a 23-year-old florist whose business is on the other side of town.

"The ultra-Orthodox are making life impossible for the secular: (they say) you can't have a disco on the Sabbath, or drive on the Sabbath," said Moshe, who refused to give his name.

Just down the block, Cohen, a 38-year-old Torah scholar and lifelong Beit Shemesh resident, said he wants the pork shops out.

He says the Torah forbids eating of pork. "I don't mind that they (the Russians) come, but let them act appropriately," Cohen said.

Council action

The city council has ordered the pork stores out of the city center and to an industrial zone on the grounds that their presence in residential neighborhoods offended observant Jews.

The stores, backed by the Shinui secular rights party and the Israel B'Aliya immigrants party, appealed the ruling to the Israeli Supreme Court, charging that the move would spell certain economic death for the shops.

"The people who are using the products of these shops are old and poor," said Israel B'Aliya lawmaker Marina Solodkin. "They have no cars."

The court is expected to rule within a few weeks.

"Petersburg" owner Irena Zlutenko, 35, is fighting to stay in business.

"The ultra-Orthodox just want this to be their land, and that everything should go the way they want it," she said.

"The Jews need to live together in Israel," she said.