JERUSALEM (RNS) Non-Jewish prisoners will not be able to eat bread during Passover, Israel’s High Court has ruled.

On Wednesday (March 24), the High Court of Justice denied the petition of Mudabba Mahmoud Rayik, a Muslim prisoner incarcerated in a multi-religion facility, who said his civil rights were being trampled by the Israel Prison Service.

Religiously observant Jews do not consume leavened foods like bread or crackers during the week-long Passover holiday, which begins Monday night (March 29). Instead, they eat unleavened foods such as matzo, to recall the Israelites’ swift exodus from Egypt, when their bread had no time to rise.

While the High Court acknowledged Ravik’s distress at not being able to consume the foods he was used to during the Jewish holiday, it noted that the prison authority was under no legal obligation to provide specific foods.

The court said also that serving leavened foods in the same cafeteria where Jewish inmates dine could lead to friction between prisoners of different faiths, and that Ravik’s right to eat bread did not outweigh Jewish prisoners’ rights to observe the holiday.

In his ruling, Justice Elyakim Rubinstein wrote that “there is no legal offense in not providing bread during Passover to wings in which non-Jews reside with Jews in a Jewish and democratic state, especially when a suitable food is being provided.”