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Are self-driving cars kosher? San Francisco rabbis weigh in as robotaxis flood the city’s streets
(J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — Ask a rabbi about self-driving cars and you’d better be ready for a long answer.
Self-driving cars — also known as robotaxis, autonomous vehicles or driverless cars — with their whirring sensors and their odd, almost tentative movements, have become a familiar sight on the streets of San Francisco.
Familiar they might be, but not without controversy. With local incidents of self-driving cars trying to drive into active fire zones, stalling en masse and even crashing into a fire truck this month, reports of autonomous misconduct have been plentiful. Regardless, the California Public Utilities Commission in mid-August expanded commercial robotaxi service to daytime hours in San Francisco for GM’s Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo autonomous vehicle divisions. City officials are opposed to the expansion, citing safety and other concerns.
And yet the all-electric fleets offer intriguing Shabbat possibilities — not least for observant Jews who traditionally refrain from driving and using electricity on the day. So what do local rabbis say?
“As an Orthodox Jew, in order to evaluate new realities, they are going to try and understand how they work and categorize them within already existing precedent in Jewish law,” said Rabbi Joel Landau of Adath Israel, an Orthodox synagogue in San Francisco.
There is one existing piece of technology that might offer a clue, he said. It’s the Shabbat elevator, which automatically stops and opens its doors at each floor, negating the need to press a button.
It may seem that an autonomous vehicle, if pre-programmed, could possibly meet the same requirements as a Shabbat elevator. But Landau said it’s not that simple.
“Not everyone is happy with a Shabbat elevator,” he said.
Many elevators make adjustments based on the weight of the passenger, he said, which negates their neutrality, so to speak. By contrast, a running escalator or moving walkway might be OK.
If self-driving cars react to a passenger’s weight or position, that alone might rule them out for Shabbat use among observant Jews. The same is true if riders would need to activate anything to start the ride. Landau said he’s sure the technological know-how to make a Shabbat-compliant autonomous electric car could be developed. He’s just not sure it should be.
The issue of driving on Shabbat was addressed in the Conservative movement back in the 1950s when rabbis allowed driving to synagogue for services as Jews moved into the suburbs and lived too far from shul to walk. Still, the movement does not encourage driving on Shabbat.
“The ideal is that one does not drive on Shabbat and that people live close by to their Jewish communities — to walk to synagogue, share meals, raise families,” Rabbi Amanda Russell of Congregation Beth Sholom, a Conservative synagogue in San Francisco, wrote in an email to J.
But not everyone can reach that ideal, she said. “We know that to be in community on Shabbat, many people have to drive.”
But what about self-driving robotaxis? Would they be better than driving?
“Funny you should ask about this,” Russell said. “These cars have become a small topic of conversation at Beth Sholom, simply because they are taking up precious parking spots in the early morning for daily minyan and on Shabbat!”
Annoyance aside, Russell said the question comes down to the way the cars operate, what they are used for and whether they undermine the spirit of Shabbat. If “pre-arranged and prepaid,” she said, self-driving cars could be “more ideal” on Shabbat than someone driving even an electric car.
So how do self-driving cars really work? Could they really be Shabbat-compliant?
To put it simply, an autonomous car is equipped with an array of sensors and imaging devices, including cameras and LIDAR, which is the spinning device atop the cars that uses light to measure distance. While GPS helps the car map its route, it’s all those sensors that help the car navigate a chaotic street environment.
Right now, riders access the cars through apps on their phones, but pre-arranging a robotaxi pickup is possible.
“To make it permissible, one would want to make the arrangements before Shabbat: pickup and drop-off locations, payment, etc.” Russell said. “That would prevent the passenger from having to use their phone, any ride-share-related technology and any form of money, all of which are prohibited on Shabbat.”
Russell and Landau both said that focusing on keeping the spirit of Shabbat is a crucial guide. Landau said that even if self-driving cars can technically be used — an assumption that hasn’t been truly tested yet — he doesn’t believe that most observant Jews will tap on the Waymo app a few minutes before sundown on Friday.
“Not everything you could do, you should do,” Landau said.
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The post Are self-driving cars kosher? San Francisco rabbis weigh in as robotaxis flood the city’s streets appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.