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Court blasts Holon rabbi for firing man for not backing Shas By Tomer Zarchin The Tel Aviv Labor Court yesterday blasted Holon's chief rabbi, Avraham Yosef, for having fired an employee solely because he supported a party other than Shas in Holon's municipal elections, and ordered the worker's immediate reinstatement. Last month, Haaretz reported that Haim Hayon, a kashrut inspector employed by the Holon rabbinate, had been fired for assisting Agudat Yisrael's election campaign by putting up campaign posters. Hayon's father, Meir Hayon, was number two on Aguda's slate. Advertisement The report quoted Yosef, the son of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, as telling Hayon: "You won't work for me. You want to deal a blow to my father, and you imagine I would employ you? ... Get out, good-bye and don't come back. Seek a job from your father ... Let him support you. You're done working here as of yesterday." Hayon petitioned the labor court against his dismissal, saying he had been fired solely because he campaigned for a party other than Shas. He also submitted complaints to the police and the state comptroller. In a ruling handed down yesterday, deputy court president Lea Glicksman Kocavi agreed that neither Yosef nor the Holon Religious Council had offered any convincing explanation for Hayon's dismissal, and other evidence supported the conclusion that his firing indeed stemmed from his political activity on behalf of Aguda. Inter alia, she noted that Yosef himself had told the court that Hayon's campaigning "was a blatant expression of contempt for my father's personage, and therefore, I could no longer have faith [in him]." Preventing an employee from engaging in political activity violates his constitutional rights, and therefore, it cannot be done without authorization in law, Glicksman Kocavi argued. But in any case, Yosef clearly had no general policy against political activity, because other kashrut inspectors who engaged in such activity were not fired. "Support for a party whose advertisements, in the opinion of Rabbi Yosef, injured his father's dignity cannot be seen as an expression of contempt for Yosef's father on Hayon's part, so this reason cannot justify his dismissal," she wrote. But even if it could, she continued, Yosef has no right to deprive a man of his livelihood just because he supported a rival political party. Bookmark to del.icio.us   The Eilat bus crash At least 24 Russian tour guides were killed in one of Israel's worst road accidents. Setting it straight Livni: Syria peace must involve more than just eating hummus in Damascus.

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