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Via VINnews

JERUSALEM —The United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party is demanding that as part of its coalition agreements, a subway be installed which will pass through Bnei Brak and not just on the city’s outskirts, as is already planned.

Currently the more than 200,000 residents of Bnei Brak suffer from huge traffic congestion and less access to public transportation connections to other towns in the Tel Aviv metropolis. A subway connecting them to the 26-km Tel Aviv metro would improve their mobility, since most of the population rely heavily on public transport.

According to Channel 12 News, sources in the planning and engineering department of the Tel Aviv-area metro claim that there is no option for the metro’s construction to not take place on Shabbat , and that such a stipulation will delay the entire project.

“The machines which dig giant tunnels need to work constantly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” a source said.

The UTJ party responded: “We will not allow, in any fashion, work to take place on Shabbat, which will violate the status quo.”

Due to this impasse, there are currently two alternate routes being planned -one through central Bnei Brak and the other south of the city.

However, the Bnei Brak municipality is searching for a loophole which would allow such work to take place on Shabbat, including defining such engineering work as Pikuach Nefesh, a life-saving activity which may be performed on Shabbat.

It is also possible to define the work as Yishuv Eretz Yisrael, helping to establish Jewish presence in the region through the establishment of mass transit systems, and this would allow the work to be done by gentiles even on Shabbat [Gittin 8a, Bava Kama 80b].

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