Hot topics at the Caesarea conference for economic affairs were Israel's working week and Shabbat.

"Stop forcing people to work on Shabbat and let them preserve the family unit," Industry Minister Eli Yishai urged the industrialists crowding the conference room, not in Caesarea but at the Dan Carmel Hotel in Haifa. "Not because they're religious but because they're human beings," the minister added.

"There are people who work on Shabbat and can't spend time with their families. A mother who wants to be with her son on leave from the army is forced to go to work on that day," Yishai expanded.

He said the public has developed antagonism to the issue, mistakenly believing it to be solely religious in nature, but it isn't, Yishai explained. "Work and rest hours aren't a religious issue, it is a purely social aspect," he said.

Before him, economist Yaakov Sheinin addressed the audience, saying that the weekend is two days everywhere in the world, Saturday and Sunday. If Israel sees itself as a part of the global market, and especially since it aspires to join the OECD, it must adapt itself to the norm and not keep Friday as a half-day, Sheinin said.

"If we want a two-day weekend like everywhere else, why not do it on Saturday and Sunday?" Sheinin asked. "That way we wouldn't hurt the religious population or the secular one either."

Yishai insisted however that the issue isn't one of the sanctity of the Shabbat, but of the family unit.

Also, he saw no place to shorten the study week at schools, Yishai said. "I prefer that children be in school, not roaming the streets. They need frameworks, such as after-school activities. I hereby state categorically that if the working week is shortened, Torah schools will hold activities on the day off. My concern is not for the religious public but all the people of Israel," he said.

Prof. Amir Barnea also threw in his two cents, arguing that Israel is not structured for a shortened work week.

"The Israeli marketplace is not ready for a situation of a 4.5-day working week because of its low productivity," he argued.

"Some claim that reducing the working week from 43 hours to 40 would lower unemployment, but the idea doesn't meet the test of economics," he said.

Leaving wages unchanged for less work would increase wage costs and if anything, create more unemployment, especially in labor-intensive industries outside central Israel, Barnea said.

He added that the idea of turning Friday into a whole work-day wouldn't wash because people prepare for Shabbat. Nor does he see sense in turning Sunday into a holiday.