Agriculture Minister Oded Forer (Yisrael Beytenu) on Tuesday morning sent a letter to Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi David Lau requesting that non-Jews be allowed to clean and perform maintenance tasks on kosher dairy production lines on Shabbat (Sabbath) and Jewish holidays.
In his letter, Forer said that in the coming month, due to the holidays and how close they are to the weekends, the number of regular workdays will be significantly lower than usual.
He emphasized that in order to prevent difficulties in the ongoing supply of milk to consumers, the Agriculture Ministry is working with the dairies to increase production, including operating three shifts each day, in order to close the gaps.
Forer also emphasized that the work the non-Jews would do is not directly connected to producing milk, but rather technical support work in the dairies, before or after production, and that it would take place only during a set time.
This, he said, would provide an organized solution without risk of a dairy shortage in Israel.