(USA Today) Michele Chabin - Five times a day, loudspeakers at the top of nearly 200 minarets in Jerusalem call to Muslims to pray. They begin before dawn, and can be heard for miles, a Middle East tradition that goes back centuries. In March, the Jerusalem municipality announced plans to measure the volume of Muslim prayers broadcast via loudspeakers to check whether it exceeds noise pollution standards that the law says all residents must abide by. It was initiated after years of complaints from neighbors who say the prayers are loud enough to wake them from a sound sleep. The same issue has cropped up elsewhere, including India, England and Germany. Yael Saltoun, who lives in the Jewish neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv, says neighborliness means not imposing one's religious practices on others.
2014-05-08 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive