Opposition chairman Benjamin Netanyahu came under fire from lawmakers within his own Knesset bloc after he phoned Olympic gymnast Linoy Ashram to congratulate her on winning a gold medal and publicized the call before sundown on Saturday.

While Netanyahu is not religious, he avoided issuing public statements during the Sabbath when he was prime minister. Now out of government though, the Likud chairman appeared to be implementing a new policy on the matter.

The blowback took some time, as many of the MKs in the opposition traditionally observe the Sabbath and refrain from using electronics.

But reactions were swift once the sun had set. United Torah Judaism chairman Moshe Gafni said Netanyahu’s statement had “desecrated the Sabbath.”

“I am glad that the president and the prime minister waited [to congratulate Ashram] until after the Sabbath. Mr. Netanyahu should have done the same,” Gafni said, refraining from even addressing the opposition chairman by his title.

In his respective call to Ashram, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett even made a point of emphasizing that he only learned of the gymnast’s victory after the Sabbath, upon which “we celebrated here at home.”

לינוי — ריגשת מדינה שלמה! אין כמוך. דגל ישראל מתנוסס גם אצלך בלב וגם למעלה מעל המעצמות הכי גדולות בעולם. התקשרתי גם למירי רגב והודיתי לה כך שהכפילה פי 3 את הסיוע הכלכלי לאלופים שלנו כדי להבטיח שננצח. שבוע טוב לעם ישראל! pic.twitter.com/NM8aPi7Fuh

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) August 7, 2021

Gafni’s fellow UTJ MK Yaakov Litzman also censured Netanyahu, saying there was no “real need” for him to put out the statement on Shabbat.

“It’s expected of someone with an official state title to respect the Sabbath day, as the president and prime minister did in this case,” Litzman said in a statement.

Shas chief Aryeh Deri said Netanyahu’s release of the statement “hurt many Sabbath-observing Jews and hurt his loyal partners for whom the holy Sabbath is very dear to their hearts.”

Deri added that the Sabbath is so holy that one cannot desecrate it then ask for forgiveness.

The head of the Knesset caucus for observing the Sabbath, Shas MK Moshe Abutbul, issued a statement reminding Netanyahu that he should have been more respectful, particularly given the fact that “the majority of his political partners are Sabbath observers” who expect him to “respect the values of the Jewish heritage.”

Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the far-right Religious Zionism party echoed the ultra-Orthodox lawmakers’ remarks, tweeting that an Olympic gold medal is not enough of a reason to “desecrate the Sabbath.”

“It’s sad that there are those here who take advantage of the medal to laugh at the Sabbath and its observers,” he added, in an apparent reference to a tweet published hours earlier by Labor MK Ram Shefa, which appeared to mock Smotrich and other Sabbath observers for missing out on the medal win in real-time.

Following the flood of condemnations, Netanyahu’s office attempted to do damage control, with the Likud party issuing a tweet claiming his statement’s release on the Jewish day of rest was due to a “technical error.”

“Likud always safeguarded and honored the Sabbath and made sure not to publish statements to the press during the Sabbath. This is how we will continue to act,” his party said.

Source: TOI