MIDDLE EAST : Billions Served--but Not Orthodox Jews of Jerusalem : The holy city is getting a McDonald’s. But these golden arches aren’t kosher.

JERUSALEM — Peace negotiations with Syria may be stalled, and talks with the Palestinians are proceeding at a snail’s pace. Israel’s decision to confiscate Arab-owned land in Jerusalem has mushroomed into a diplomatic crisis with the Arab states, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s government faces a parliamentary no-confidence vote next week that it may lose.

But all is not gloomy in the Holy City. McDonald’s, which has enjoyed phenomenal success since it opened its first restaurant in Israel in 1993, is finally coming to town.

Even this bit of good news, however, is not without its downside: Because the McDonald’s will include cheeseburgers and milkshakes on its menu and will stay open on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath, the city’s large and growing Orthodox Jewish population will not be able to eat there.

Jewish law forbids the cooking, serving or eating of meat and milk products together.

In Israel, about 80% of the general population would eat in non-kosher restaurants, surveys say. But in Jerusalem, only 50% would eat in such establishments, according to surveys.

So why open a non-kosher McDonald’s in the bastion of the nation’s Orthodox Jewish community?

Franchiser Omri Padan, who recently announced plans to open the first three kosher McDonald’s elsewhere in Israel, said that Jerusalem’s powerful rabbinate--which oversees the observance of religious laws--left him no choice.

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“You need to give customers a choice, either kosher or non-kosher,” Padan said. “But the rabbinate said that if we open one kosher restaurant in Jerusalem, then all our restaurants in Jerusalem must be kosher. This is a condition that no other rabbinate imposed and a condition that we cannot accept.”

In Israel, each city’s rabbinate is responsible for issuing certificates to restaurants and hotels assuring patrons that Jewish dietary laws are observed by the establishments and that they follow the laws restricting activities on the Sabbath.

Padan said he spent years arguing with the Jerusalem rabbinate about opening both kosher and non-kosher McDonald’s restaurants in the city. But the rabbinate would not budge.

In the end, he said, he decided to simply open a non-kosher restaurant here and not deal with the rabbinate. At the same time, he made his announcement that he hopes to open McDonald’s first three kosher restaurants by year’s end--all outside Jerusalem.

To qualify as kosher, the McDonald’s restaurants that will open in Mevasseret Zion--a suburb of Jerusalem--in Ranana and in Rehovot will drop cheeseburgers from their menus. They will offer a cheese-free Big Mac and sell neither milkshakes nor ice cream. And they will close on Saturdays to obey the religious injunction against working on the Sabbath.

Padan pointed out that all the meat served in the 10 non-kosher McDonald’s restaurants now operating across the nation is kosher.

“Our surveys show that more than 80% of the population prefer that they eat kosher meat, even if they eat it in a non-kosher restaurant,” Padan said. “It took McDonald’s a lot of experimenting to get the flavor of the hamburgers just right, but they succeeded.”

Padan said that McDonald’s restaurants in Israel already have served more than 7 million customers.

But for now, Jerusalem’s Orthodox will have to stay on the outside looking in at the shiny new McDonald’s that already has its Hebrew-English menu up on Shamai Street, in the heart of the city’s commercial district.