Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met haredi-religious Ministers Aryeh Deri and Yaakov Litzman on Monday to advance a law to ban the use of outdoor amplification systems for the call to prayer, sermons or nationalistic speeches at mosques.
The law is intended to eliminate excessive noise during the early morning hours. During the discussion, a compromise was proposed to allow the use of speakers once a day, thus avoiding the need to exempt sirens used to warn Jewish neighborhoods of the impending start of the Sabbath or holidays. Following an uproar over freedom-of-religion implications of the bill, action was suspended.