Poll: 65% of Likud voters support rail work on Shabbat
Survey conducted before Litzman resigned over railway work during Shabbat shows vast majority of public support 'limited maintenance work' on Shabbat 'for safety and to prevent week delays.'
Maintenance work on the railroad on Shabbat may be controversial in the political sphere, but it enjoys a consensus among the general public, according to a new poll conducted shortly before Yaakov Litzman's (United Torah Judaism) resignation from the coalition over the issue.
After Litzman resigned, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a meeting between the faction leaders after the Haredi party leaders—including Litzman—headed by Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas) and Moshe Gafni (Degel HaTorah faction) boycotted the government meeting.
The poll, carried out by the NGO Hiddush, which seeks to promote "religious freedom and equality," demonstrated that the majority of the population approves work being carried out on Shabbat, despite the fact that a political crisis has been raging for months on the issue.
Five hundred Jewish participants were polled in the survey, with equal numbers of men and women), half of whom identify as secular.
Aked "should a limited amount of maintenance work be allowed on Shabbat for the sake of safety and to prevent serious service delays during the week," 71% responded positively.
Only 23% agreed that "no compromises should be made regarding the sanctity of Shabbat and all maintenance work should be done exclusively during the week, even at the cost of severe inconvenience to the general public".
The poll data also reveals that an almost equal number of both genders supports the work on Shabbat.
Additionally, that figures indicate that support for the work on Shabbat increases with age: 62% of respondents under the age of 29 support the work while support rises to 80% among those over the age of 50.
Notably, 10% of those who identify as Haredim, 29% of those who identify as religious and 87% of those identifying as "traditional even if not so religious" fully support the work being carried out on Shabbat. Among those identifying as secular, support was partciularly high at 90%.
When the stats were divided up according to party loyalty, Zionist Union supportes were most eager to permit work on Shabbat.
Sixty-five per cent of Likud voters sanctioned the notion, while 64% of Bayit Yehudi voters expressed their approval of the idea.
Thirteen per cent of Shas voters said they would support the work on Shabbat and 80% of Yisrael Beytenu voters said they would back the required work.
Ninety-five per cent of Meretz voters threw their weight behind the idea, 98% of Zionist Union voters approved of the work,
Ninety-three percent of Yesh Atid voters said they were ok with maintenance work on Shabbat, and 87% of Kulanu voters supported it.
