At the time I wrote that just like when enough religious people move to a secular town and demand religious services, including, but not limited to, separate swimming access in the pool, and their requests should be granted, when secular people live in a religious town their needs and requests should also be honored.
A year later and the fight is still going on and in the news.
Ynet is reporting that the Supreme Court had heard the case and decided that the City must provide the residents with some mixed swimming hours. After the decision some local rabbis called on the public to cancel their membership at the pool. The pool was even shut down because of this issue for a period of time. Now City Hall has decided to reopen the pool and again only offer separate swimming hours.
It seems an agreement was even reached between the relevant residents and City Hall as to the times and number of hours of available mixed swimming, with the approval of the Court, yet City Hall has decided to break the agreement and not allow any mixed swimming at all.
The new mayor claims he is trying to find a solution but int he meantime the pool needs to be open, even with just separate swimming available for the health needs of the public. Obviously the secular residents are upset over this.
It seems that when the religious, and this is obviously not limited to the Haredi community as this is a case of Dati Leumi, are a minority in a town, they are very good at demanding services to satisfy their needs, be it eruv, mikva, [some] roads closed on Shabbos, separate swimming hours at the local pool, budgets for various events and things, and they rightfully deserve it. It is the job of City Hall to provide the residents of its town with the public services they need. Yet when the religious are the majority, they are not so good at taking care of, and providing for, the needs of the secular minority.
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how can the uber-orthos swim in any pool once women swim in it? Some may be menstruating, or may not be nida, or may have recently had sex and not washed properly? If children under age are banned from mikvot for fear of predatory acts by adults will there be swimming hours available to young boys separate from adult males? The Supreme Court must deal with all these issues. No good deed goes unpunished.
ReplyDeleteI do not know of separate pools for women. Every religious community that has a pool has separate hours! Be cautious what you claim, religious life is not necessarily righteousness!
DeleteA third of the population are non religious, deal with it accordingly. I as a religious Jew refuse to give credit to a body that chooses a course that devides our people. This attitude does not reflect the love of Hashem, it does the opposite. People of Kiryat Arbah, align yourselves to ways that unite the people. To deny mixed hours invites hate and makes religious swimming areas next to non religious areas a contradiction!
ReplyDelete