Just a few hours after Justice Minister Ya'akov Ne'eman made a controversial statement regarding the necessity for halacha to be incorporated into the laws of Israel – a statement that pleased the religious community in Israel, and infuriated the legal and political communities – it has been suggested that Ne'eman should immediately resign.
The Justice Ministers word's, which were deemed to be too "Jewish", were depicted in the media as archaic, and it was said that his ideas were taking us 10 years into the past.

Ynet publicized just a sample of the angry reactions of lawmakers and judges, all of whom expressed their strong disapproval of Ne'eman's statement. Ne'eman, incidentally, wears a kippah. One of the sources said, "If he is of this opinion, he cannot serve as a minister in the State of Israel. The prime minister must call him to order and fire him at once. There is no place for such comments by the justice minister in Israel."

On Monday evening, Ne'eman said before a rabbinical conference in Jerusalem, "We must restore glory (to the judicial system), so that the justice of the Torah will be the justice commanded in the State of Israel." This morning, Ne'eman apologized for the fact that his words had caused such an uproar, and said that he had been making a general statement about restoring Jewish law to a place of honor in the Israeli legal system, but he had not implied "a call to replace state laws with halachic laws, not directly or indirectly."
However, Ne'eman did say at the rabbinical conference that such as return would have to be made "step by step". Ne'eman said, "We must return to Israel the tradition of the forefathers, the first and last sayings of the Torah, in which there is a full solution for all things with which we are concerned."

"A justice minister in the Israeli government, which is a democratic government, cannot make such statements and it cannot be left to blow over. This is a serious statement that takes us 10 years back," say senior officials in the Israeli justice system. They claim, "The minister may have meant to cater to the public before which he spoke, but such a statement cannot come from the justice minister. If he is of this opinion, he cannot serve as a minister in the State of Israel."

Former Knesset member Professor Amon Rubenstein painted Ne'eman's statements in a very dismal light. He said in an interview with Ynet, "The justice minister's bid to turn Israel into a halachic state is a revolution that will rob Israel of its character as a Jewish democratic state, and will nullify the Knesset's position as a force that represents the people's sovereignty and will call for the replacement of judges with religious judges."

Rubenstein continued, emphasizing that if Ne'eman's ideas are put into action, the country, "will not be the Israel we know. A large portion of the non-religious public in Israel will not want to live in such a state. Such a halachic state will estrange itself from the vast majority of the Jewish people in Diaspora."