I hope Tel Aviv doesn't allow the closing of stores on Saturday - Israel is a free country not a closed one that is held hostage by a bunch of religious idiots - they put their energy into making Israel a safe country and a welcoming place to visit not a place where people want to avoid.

Religious nuts harassed shop owners in Great Neck over a decade ago to force them to close shops on Saturdays. Old time residents moved out. This is how they ruin neighborhoods and crash real estate prices to buy homes on the cheap. No one wants them around.

Shabbes preserves us. It's a nice sounding half truth. ALL of the Mitzvot preserved us throughout the ages, when our identity was all we had, and Judaism is that identity. Today there are enough frumme Yids all around the globe (Israel including) to make sure we'll go on. Personal freedom, on the other hand is everything, if we want to feel that life's worth living. No to coercion by the religious!