Enforcing Pesach

My wife has a Jewish friend called Mimí. When my daughter was a little girl, Mimí used to treat her to lunch at a quickfood, so that they became friends too. Now my daughter is a señorita and has a boyfriend to take her out, but she has remained very fond of Mimí, who was the only non-relative adult to be invited to her quinceañera.

On one occasion, Mimí traveled to Israel and brought us back a present: a big box of matzah. Although this foodstuff is also known as unleavened bread, it would be better described as a totally flavorless cracker that sticks to your molars. At first I tried to render it palatable by making sandwiches of prosciutto and swiss with it -- a desecration raised to the power of two. But then my wife had a better idea: she bought two cans of Iranian pistachioes and a few bars of chocolate. Then she spread the chopped pistachioes on the matzah, poured molten black and white chocolate on them, et voilà!, a tasty dessert came to life. Whoever said there can be no Israeli-Iranian collaboration?

It's not likely, however, that Mudabbah Mahmoud Rayik will be able to buy the necessary ingredients to make his matzah tastier. This Israeli Arab, who is serving time for a criminal offense in a prison that houses both Arab and Jewish inmates, has asked to be served bread, not matzah, during the Pesach festival that began last night and lasts eight days. His petition has been rejected by a district court and, on appeal, by the Supreme Court. Haaretz reports:

The Israel Prison Service claimed that facilities with mixed populations are kosher, and that his request cannot be ranked above that of Jewish inmates who wish to follow the rules of their faith, which forbids the consumption of leavened bread over the holiday[.]

But Mr. Rayik doesn't want Jewish inmates to stop following the rules of their faith. He wants to eat bread, just as he does during the rest of the year. Why should the superstitions of certain inmates trump the eating habits of others?

Haaretz goes on to report that

Justice Elyakim Rubinstein said in his ruling that no one disagrees about the importance of bread, but that the state is only obligated to provide inmates with food, not a specific type of food and that there is no harm in substituting one food for another for a matter of days.

"Therefore, there is no legal offense in not providing bread during Passover to wings in which non-Jews reside with Jews in a Jewish and democratic state, especially when a suitable food is being provided," Rubinstein said.

If the State is not obligated to provide inmates with a specific type of food, why is it that matzah is being provided instead of the usual bread? And when Ramadan comes, are Jewish inmates in the same wing asked to fast from dawn to sunset, out of respect for Muslim prisoners?

This is how the official status of Pesach in Israel is different from, say, that of Christmas in Argentina: in its coercive nature, which forces people to do things they don't like for the sake of other people's irrational beliefs. Any analogy between the role of religion in Israel and in the West is more bad faith from the Zionists.