Chief Rabbi on Huldai: 'He ate a dog and turned dumb'
Mayor of Tel Aviv's plan to petition High Court of Justice in order to fight the termination of construction work on Yehudit Bridge on Shabbat prompts Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef to attack Huldai in his weekly class.
The Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Yitzhak Yosef slammed Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai on Saturday, following Huldai's criticism of Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz's decision to halt all construction work done on Shabbat on the Yehudit Bridge over the Ayalon Highway.
Without explicitly mentioning Huldai, the rabbi said: "When a person publicly declares that he has eaten a dog, what nerve does he have? It is not for nothing that he petitions the High Court of Justice to complete the work on the Shabbat. He has eaten a dog, what will become of his heart."
At the beginning of the year it was reported that during a visit to Vietnam, the mayor of Tel Aviv visited a local restaurant where he was served dog meat. "It's delicious, it tastes like meat. Why, is eating chickens and seafood okay? The mayor said.
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz halted last Wednesday the plans to close parts of Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv during weekends for the construction of the new pedestrian bridge, and said that the announcement about work on Shabbat was "outrageous and needless."
The minister instructed Ayalon Highways Co. to immediately freeze the plans and submit new plans as soon as possible, in order to carry out the works without disrupting traffic on weekends. Instead, the transportation minister suggested carrying out the work in the late night hours, "as was done in similar cases in the past and as is customary in Israel and around the world," the minister said.
Ayalon Highways Co. said it would "act in accordance with Transportation Ministry instructions and will examine alternatives."
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai criticized Katz's decision , saying the works cannot be done at night. "The professional decision to carry out the work on Saturdays was done following a thorough examination of the Ayalon Highways Company, a company wholly owned by the Ministry of Transportation," the mayor explained.
According to Huldai, Ayalon Highways Co. has already examined all possibilities and reached the conclusion that "construction work of this kind could not only stop traffic on Ayalon Highway, but also stop Israel Railways trains, and eventually lead to a transportation catastrophe."
The Tel Aviv mayor explained that the deployment of the cranes alone requires more time than the three hours allocated for the nighttime works (2am-5am).
Following the cancellation of the work, Tel Aviv municipality warned Ayalon Highways Co. not to comply with the transportation minister's decision.
In a letter to Ayalon company's CEO, Itamar Ben-Meir, Tel Aviv municipality CEO, Menachem Leiba, asserted: "as you know, the transportation minister cannot order the company to stop construction work on Saturdays. Not only do you not have to comply with his demands, it is forbidden by law."
