A controversial Israeli bill to limit the volume of calls to prayer at mosques may be revived after it appeared to have been buried thanks to opposition from ultra-Orthodox Jews, reports said Thursday.
Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, from the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, may now lift his objection to the bill if an exception can be included for Jewish rituals, the Jerusalem Post reported.
The minister had feared that the bill, approved by a government committee, would also limit sirens and trumpets used for Jewish holidays or the Sabbath, the weekly Jewish day of rest.
The lawmaker sponsoring the bill, Moti Yogev of the hardline Jewish Home party, says it is meant to target noise at night, which would exclude Jewish rituals.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Yogev also told Litzman as part of discussions to gain his support that depriving a person of sleep is considered theft in Jewish law "since it cannot be returned," in a reference to Muslim calls to prayer awakening residents.
If Litzman removes his objection, the bill could go before a government committee on Sunday and Israel's parliament for an initial reading as early as Wednesday.
The proposal has outraged Palestinians and Arab Israelis, while government watchdogs call it a threat to religious freedom and an unnecessary provocation.
The draft law would also apply to east Jerusalem, occupied and later annexed by Israel and where more than 300,000 Palestinians live.
Israeli Jews living in settlements in the east of the city had protested against the volume of prayer calls.
Stance about Azan in rest of the world
In Germany, only about 30 of the 160 official mosques have a call to prayer, according to the DPA news agency. While residents often complain, authorities say it is covered by the right to religious freedom, though still subject to general laws against making excessive noise.
The nationalist Alternative for Germany and various far-right parties have tried to exploit the issue, so far to little avail. Yet the party has done very well in local elections by campaigning against Islam and is surging as the country heads into a major election year in 2017.
In Britain, local city and town councils mediate occasional disputes over early morning prayer calls. There is an online petition in support of allowing areas with high Muslim populations to have "a loud call for prayer" at least three times a day, but it has not yet generated the 100,000 electronic signatures required to put it before Parliament.
While France has no ban, French mosques don't sound public calls to prayer, apparently out of respect to the country's secular traditions.
Likewise, very few mosques in the US blast a call to prayer. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said most American mosques are not located in the heart of Muslim communities. "Even if they broadcast it, the likelihood is that people are not close enough to hear it," he said.