HERE’S a sight one does not often seen in public in Israel – or anywhere else for that matter: an Orthodox Jewish man wearing nothing but a sock over his genitals.

Ah, but the supermarket, in which he almost bared all, was not a public place, argued the unnamed 27-year-old yeshiva student.

He entered the supermarket to protest over a ruling by Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court Judge Tamar Bar-Asher Zaban that grocer stores, pizzerias and restaurants were permitted to sell chametz (leavened products, not eaten during Passover) because they are not “public” places in which chametz is prohibited for sale by law.

She struck down four indictments issued by the Jerusalem municipality against business owners for selling chametz last Passover. According a Haaretz report:

The angry responses were not long in coming. ‘The ruling puts a gun to the temple of the Jewish people,’ Religious Affairs Minister Yitzhak Cohen (of the Shas party) said. And National Religious Party Chairman MK Zevulun Orlev said that the ruling was divorced from reality and dealt a critical blow to the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.

The man was who mounted the supermarket protest was detained for interrogation on suspicion of performing an indecent act in public.

Eyewitnesses, according to this Haaretz report, stated the 27-year-old had the inscription “this is not public” penned on his abdomen. He claimed that since chamez was sold on the premises, it could therefore not be legally recognised as a public place, and as such, there were no grounds to press charges against him.

Police who were left unconvinced by this defence, said that they would ask for him to be put under psychiatric observation.

You can learn more about the barmy rules governing Passover food here.