For several days now, ultra-Orthodox Israelis are in an uproar over a Supreme Court decision to allow the opening of grocery stores and entertainment hubs on the Sabbath. The chairman of the Knesset's Finance Committee, Moshe Gafni of the ultra-Orthodox Yahadut HaTorah party, sounded especially pugnacious in a radio interview he gave to Reshet Bet on May 4 when he said, "The issue of the Sabbath is a real political crisis."

While Gafni’s statement was sharp in tone, he could not hide what was obvious for everyone in the political sphere, including Gafni himself: that the ultra-Orthodox do not really want to break up the coalition, especially because Yair Lapid, the chairman of the opposition Yesh Atid party, is lurking right around the corner. Ever since Lapid promoted the drafting of the ultra-Orthodox into the military during the third Netanyahu government, they consider him a political enemy. According to the most recent polls, Lapid will be running against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the next election.

That is why a meeting between Netanyahu and leaders of the ultra-Orthodox factions at which Gafni was present seems to have laid the foundation for a resolution to the current crisis. Ultra-Orthodox factions announced that they reached an agreement to transfer authority over enforcement of the Sabbath Rest Law from Minister of Welfare Haim Katz to Minister of the Interior Aryeh Deri.

The conflict over the Sabbath began after an April 19 Supreme Court ruling that approved a bylaw passed by the municipality of Tel Aviv, allowing for some 160 small supermarkets and kiosks and another 80 businesses in three commercial centers to remain open on the Sabbath. As soon as the court's decision was released, the ultra-Orthodox factions entered crisis mode. This included veiled and somewhat less-veiled threats by the ultra-Orthodox that they would quit the government, as well as harsh attacks against the Supreme Court. At a religious gathering in Tel Aviv, Rabbi Shalom Cohen, the head of the party's Council of Torah Sages, mocked the justices of the Supreme Court, calling them "deprived people. They are 'captive' Jews." Cohen went on to say that the party should take up the fight against this law, even if it means leaving the government.