A growing number of minivans have been plying the streets of the greater Tel Aviv metro area on the past few Saturdays, providing public transportation on the Jewish Sabbath. The initiative was launched last month by the municipalities of Tel Aviv and the neighboring towns of Givatayim, Ramat Hasharon and Kiryat Ono. The initiative was titled “Naim Besofash” (“Moving pleasantly on the weekends’"). This ride service operates for 25 hours, from the start of the Sabbath on Friday at sunset to the time it ends the following day. It runs along six routes, with 526 stops. The municipalities are bypassing the law requiring a special license to operate paid public transportation on the Sabbath by offering the service for free, funding it with their own budgets.

Already on its inaugural Sabbath, on Nov. 22, the service generated surprising demand, requiring the municipalities to beef up the service with additional 20-seat minivans on the following weekends. “We have over 12,000 rides on the weekends,” said Meital Lehavi, who holds the transportation portfolio on the Tel Aviv City Council. She told Al-Monitor, “We have had to boost service to meet growing demand, which illustrates the tremendous vacuum that exists in terms of public transportation on the weekend.” In fact, only Israelis who own a car or can afford taxi service can take advantage of their weekly day off.

The wholesale institutional violation of the Sabbath had been expected to generate widespread protests by the ultra-Orthodox, who regard it as desecration of the Sabbath and a severe erosion of the essence of the Jewish state. However, so far, as everyone concedes, the ultra-Orthodox have been largely silent. The lone representative of Yahadut HaTorah party on the Tel Aviv City Council did not even quit the coalition. Nonetheless, following several calm weekends, several low-key protests were held, including an attempt earlier this month to block Jabotinsky Street, a major thoroughfare leading to and from Tel Aviv that passes along the outskirts of the predominantly ultra-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak.

The signs posted on the streets of Bnei Brak urging residents to protest were unsigned, and the several dozen demonstrators who heeded the call did not appear to have any rabbinical backing. The mainstream rabbinical establishment has yet to instruct followers to take to the streets. According to Itay Gadassi, an ultra-Orthodox journalist, the rabbis' silence is strange. “The ultra-Orthodox have organized demonstrations over far less than this in past years,” he told Al-Monitor. In September 2018, for example, they organized mass demonstrations against the tunnel digging for the Tel Aviv light rail that took place on the Sabbath, Gadassi noted. “Whereas now, over public transportation above ground on the Sabbath, a roaring silence is heard.”