Lately, there has been a growing number of restaurants and cafés across the country choosing to go kosher. […]

… This phenomenon, however, isn’t limited only to places with a clear majority of religious or kosher-observant people like Jerusalem, but is now starting to crop up in cities like Tel Aviv, Kfar Saba and the rest of the secular cities of the central region.

The calculation most business owners make is an economic one: reading the market often leads to the conclusion that profits from the Haredi, religious and traditional public will lead to more business than the losses incurred by not being open on Shabbat. The fact that employees need to be paid 150 percent on weekends also plays a part in this decision.

Many businesses also explain the desire to allow their employees, and the business itself, one day of rest a week lies at the heart of the decision.

At least in some of the cases, however, that plays more like a counterargument to the claim it’s mere religionization and less of an actual reason, because at the end of the day, what businesses care about is their bottom line, and not their contribution to the balance of harmony and relaxation in the world.