Tiv Taam: The Pork Party’s Over

Good to know Tiv Taam supermarket owner Arkady Gaidamak's decision to stop selling pork at all locations isn't motivated by the sort of fatuous "cultural sensitivity" we've come to expect from the Ken Livingstones of the world. To listen to him talk, you'd bet that was the case:

"I believe that in a Jewish state," he declared, "in which there is a large Muslim minority, selling pork is a provocation.

It's frightening when 21st century citizens who can learn about microbes, neurons, DNA, and black holes worry about what their neighbors eat or about who they fuck. Thankfully (I guess), Gaidamak's just a run-of-the-mill opportunist:

…it is unlikely that Mr Gaidamak has announced his move merely for business reasons. Instead there may be two other factors. One is a possibility floated in Rishon Letzion yesterday by a reflective Mrs Schlinger: "I think he wants to be Mayor of Jerusalem where there are many religious people." You don't have to be ultra-Orthodox to be Mayor of Jerusalem, though the present one, Uri Lupiolanski is, but you do have to take the religious vote very much into account. And the other, more subtle reason may be that if he is to have any kind of political future, he needs to shake off the idea that he is somehow confined to the secular, Russian-speaking immigrant periphery, however big.