An urgent legal application has been filed in Yerushalayim District Court against BSH Home Appliances, the Israeli importer and distributor of Bosch, Siemens and Neff ovens, over allegations that ovens marketed with a “Shabbos Mode” can cause users to unknowingly violate Shabbos.

According to the application, opening the oven door while the feature is activated causes the heating elements to shut off, while closing the door causes them to resume operation. The applicants contend that Shabbos-observant consumers relied on the feature believing that ordinary use of the oven would not directly affect its electrical operation.

The legal action was brought by Beni Landau and Varda Teller as part of a request to have the case certified as a class action.

The two are now seeking temporary relief from the court even before the class-action request is decided. They want BSH to be required to clearly inform both existing customers and prospective purchasers about precisely how the ovens’ “Shabbos Mode” operates.

According to the filing, the very use of the term “Shabbos Mode,” together with the program’s features, creates the impression for a Shabbos-observant customer that the setting was designed to permit use of the oven on Shabbos without routine actions by the user switching electrical components on or off.

The applicants specifically point to opening the oven door, an ordinary and necessary action when removing food.

Teller said in a declaration submitted with the case that she purchased a Siemens oven in December 2023 and that the availability of “Shabbos Mode” was an important consideration in her decision. She said the feature ultimately helped determine which appliance she selected from among the products she was considering.

According to Teller, she understood the setting to mean that the oven could be used on Shabbos without opening or closing the door triggering changes to the heating system.

She subsequently discovered, however, that opening and closing the door did affect the heating elements. Teller said that after learning how the system operated and making a halachic inquiry, she stopped using the oven on Shabbos.

The court filing also includes details of a conversation with a service manager representing the importer.

During that conversation, the manager reportedly explained that European regulations require the heating elements to shut off when an oven door is opened and to resume operation once the door is closed.

At the same time, the company representative stressed that BSH does not advertise the ovens’ “Shabbos Mode” as carrying halachic certification.

Landau and Teller are asking the court to intervene immediately rather than wait for a final determination on whether the case should proceed as a class action.

Among the measures they are requesting is an order preventing the relevant ovens from being sold without customers receiving clear information about how the feature works.

They are also asking the court to require BSH, within 96 hours, to publish a notice on its websites and customer-service pages, place notices in two daily newspapers, and directly contact customers whose information is already in the company’s possession.

At this stage, the applicants are not asking the court to order BSH to replace or repair the ovens, halt their sale altogether or pay compensation.

Instead, the immediate relief being sought focuses specifically on warning consumers while the court considers whether to certify the broader class-action case.

Bosch had not responded to a request for comment by the time the original report was published.

Dr. Itamar Miron, an attorney with the Miron Ben Zion Prives law firm representing the applicants, sharply criticized BSH’s alleged handling of the matter.

“This is one of the most serious consumer scandals to have occurred in the State of Israel. More than five years ago, BSH saw fit to warn Shabbos-observant customers abroad and open a service channel for them regarding Shabbos Mode in Bosch and Siemens ovens. Nevertheless, no similar public warning was issued in Israel, and innocent customers continue to violate Shabbos while mistakenly relying on the setting known as Shabbos Mode. Instead of selectively offering a complaining customer a budget for two replacement ovens in order to bury the affair, the importer must promptly inform, address and compensate thousands of other customers whom it chose to mislead regarding something that is more precious to them than anything else.”

{Matzav.com}