[Avodah] [Areivim] Veils and Terrorists

[Daniel Israel]

On Jul 21, 2010, at 11:05 AM, Steven J Scher wrote:
> From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_law_on_secularity_and_conspicuous_religious_symbols_in_schools
>
> "The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in  
> schools bans wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public  
> (i.e. government-operated) primary and secondary schools. The law is  
> an amendment to the French Code of Education that expands principles  
> founded in existing French law, especially the constitutional  
> requirement of lait the separation of state and religious  
> activities. ...
>
> "Prohibited items would include headscarves  for Muslim girls,  
> yarmulkes for Jewish boys, and turbans  for Sikh  boys."


I'm curious, has anyone heard a psak whether to consider this a  
yaharog v'lo ya'avor?  AIUI, the halacha is that any demand to violate  
even a minhag falls in this category, but only if it is done as an  
attack on Torah, not if it is done for other reasons.  Here the law is  
not aimed at Judaism specifically, but it is aimed at religion.  So  
which side does it fall on.

Of course the other part of this is that it is not actually a life and  
death issue.  Given that the whole sugya, IIRC, comes out of chai  
bahem, is there any heter to violate a ya'avor v'lo yaharog if it  
doesn't save a life, but rather only avoids a fine or jail sentence?

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu