The City of Holon was due to sponsor an event in which Rav Yigal Cohen, a noted rabbinic speaker involved in the teshuva movement in Israel, would give a shiur. The shiur was announced to be gender-segregated, i.e. separate seating for men and women.

A fit was thrown, as public events are not supposed to be segregated, and being that this event had received municipal funding, an appeal was filed with the State Comptroller to ban the separate seating or to have the event canceled.

Dina Zilber, from the Attorney General's office, announced that the seating at the event must be mixed, or open seating, as the event with municipal funding cannot be segregated.

People threw a fit about Zilber mixing into the style of a shiur, and kedusha, and all the arguments why her involvement in this is out of place. This is not a concert or a basketball game, but a torah shiur, a religious event in which separate seating is appropriate..

At the end of the day, the whole issue became moot, as they resolved the issue by making it open seating with an understanding that the people would voluntarily choose to sit with men on one side and women on the other. This was probably more voluntary than the voluntary separate seating on some buses and at some other events.

But that is besides the point.

First of all, if it is against the law, such an event should not take money from the government, local or national, and the government should not give it. If they want the government funding, dont complain about having to follow the rules.

Second, the complaints are really right, on their own (meaning, not taking into account the legal issue because of the government funding). It is a religious event, a torah lecture, not a rock concert or a sporting event or a science lecture. It is reasonable and appropriate for such an event to have separate seating. I am not saying all religious events have to be gender-separate, but if one is, that is fine by me. If I want to go I will and if I dont I won't, but it isnt unreasonable for such an event to be separate seating.

Third, while people were outraged at Dina Zilber for her butting in and deciding how a torah shiur should be given, I think it is actually the fault of the growing extremist position on separating genders in the Haredi community that this happened. Sure this isn't a rock concert or sporting event, but when you insist that rock concerts are separate seating, and when you insist that seating on the bus must be separate seating and when you insist on every public event being separate seating, there is an extreme reaction to that. Now that it has become a fight, even when it is reasonable there are people who will fight it.

If the Haredi community would keep its separate seating limited to religious events of shiurim and tefilla events, I think people would generally be fine with that, but when they insist on every thing that moves being separate men and women, the issue has become greater than any one event. The people complaining about it need only blame themselves for having caused it to get this far.