Rabbi Menachem Perl, head of the Zomet Institute, which seeks to reconcile technology with the observance of the Sabbath and other aspects of Jewish law, is calling on Economics Minister Eli Cohen to make the grant keeping the Phoenicia glass plant in Yeruham alive conditional on allowing Sabbath-observant workers to work there.
To get around the company's claim that its furnaces must be kept on during the Sabbath, Rabbi Perl proposed that the owner sell a little more than a one-seventh interest in the factory to a gentile and sign an agreement that the profits of the Sabbaths and holidays would belong to the non-Jew and non-Jews would work on the Sabbath and holidays.