Recently reporesentaives of the Dati Leumi community, especially rabbonim in the ocmmunity, have made a big deal about an army logistical change in which female soldiers are being taken to serve in the armored corps, most notably in hummers and namers. They are generally serving in these vehicles as either drivers or paramedics. Traditionally the armored corps is a division that the Dati Leumi community frequently sent its soldiers, especially hesder students, to serve in. The community reps, especially the rabbonim see this as a breach of tzniyus and have basically considered this a "breach of contract" of sorts (figuratively speaking) with the dati leumi community, and if necessary they will instruct their students to serve in other divisions instead.

Israeli innovation has hit the swimming pool market..

The latest flash point is around the recently annual Yom Kippur services at Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv organized by an organization called Rosh Yehudi.

As announced a few months ago, Minister Idit Silman has decided to run a pilot arranging separate swimming hours at some springs around Israel, to be more accessible to the religious public, the religious hikers. I guess depending on the results of the pilot the program will either be expanded or cut...

MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) has proposed, along with the other members of UTJ, a law that would set separate hours for male and female access to nature sites and natural springs of the Nature and Parks Authority.

The news is reporting that UTJ has demanded from Netanyahu as part of the coalition negotiations that a law will be passed that will allow gender-segregated events in Haredi areas (I dont know the exact wording). The justification is that there are many cultural events that Haredi women will not attend if they are mixed (ie the women will stay home from the concert, or whatever, while the men go to what will essentially be a mens only event). 

Zeev Alperovitz of Merkaz Inyanim, a Haredi news media outfit not found on the Internet (that I know of), is reporting on an upcoming series of laws soon to be passed, or at least proposed. This series of laws is being seen as an anti-Haredi blitz of legislation, and MK Uri Maklev (UTJ) is supposedly working his connections to thwart them in advance from being raised and/or passed, campaigning quietly for support among religious and right wing coalition MKs.

What religious male traveler/hiker in Israel is not familiar with the experience of driving out and hiking on a hot day to a river or stream or natural pool of water in the middle of nature looking forward to jumping in to cool off for a bit and enjoy the cold water, only to get there and discover the pond or stream already being enjoyed by other people including women, often wearing bathing suits, if their presence alone isn't enough, and realizing they cant go in the water or hang out there to enjoy?  And what religious female hiker isn't familiar with the same experience from the other side - getting to the stream or pond and finding men there splashing around in their swimming trunks and realizing that she cannot go in to enjoy the water?

Sometimes the hikers are able to find a natural solution of moving a bit upstream or downstream where it might be quieter, but sometimes that is not a solution, especially with a pond.

The organization B'Tzalmo, a human rights organization that fights for rights based on Jewish values (briefly, if I understood it correctly), has submitted a request to the Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber that would, if accepted, reorganize popular nature hikes in Israel and offer separate schedules for women's and men's hours or days, depending on the trail.

According to Israel Hayom, the petition was submitted as a result of the petition to the Supreme Court regarding the ongoing case of the Kiryat Arba municipal swimming pool that is kept in operation only with separate hours for men and women but some want family time to be allocated for the pool as well that would have men and women together. The court has ruled in that case that the pool must offer family time as well if residents want it. The Mayor of Kiryat Arba shut the pool down rather than offer mixed swimming times. Now residents from both sides want it to be reopened - some requesting it be opened for separate swimming and others insisting that if reopened there should also be family time.

As a result of this, B'Tzalmo has petitioned the Deputy AG that some nature trails, such as Nahal Yehudiya in the Golan, require swimming in large pools as part of the trail - the pool cannot be avoided, should someone want to for personal reasons of tzniyus to avoid mixed swimming. Because of that, B'Tzalmo says, many religious people avoid trails such as these so as not to end up in a difficult situation.

The arrangement for separate hours or days, depending on the trail, could be designated for specific days of the year, while the rest of the year it could be open to all, according to the request. they compare it to the beaches where it was determined that separate beaches could be opened without being considered discrimination.

Interesting. let's see what happens. It doesn't really help family tiyulim, but it would help all-male and all-female groups of hikers...

The Netanyahus, PM Benjamin and Sara, went to the Kotel last night prior to the start of the elections to offer a prayer for victory and success.

The note the Prime Minister put in the wall, though I do not know who took it out of the wall to publicize its contents, expressed his wish for bringing a good government to the Israeli people, to Eretz Yisrael and to the State of Israel. The note Sara placed in the wall expressed her wish for a Likud victory to protect the Jewish nation and the State of Israel, and for her husband's victory for the future of our children in Eretz Yisrael.



Interestingly, and in an unusual move, the two went to pray together at the Kotel, with no gender separation, both on the men's side of the Kotel. What happened to the traditional custom of the Kotel requiring gender segregation? How did Rav Rabinovitz, rav of the Kotel, allow this? hmmmm

Makor Rishon is reporting that the City of Tel Aviv has decided to open a fitness center that will operate in the format of gender-segregation, with separate hours or separate facilities divided between men and women. The goal was to have ti available to the Arab community, mostly from nearby Yaffo, and the Arab women won't come if it is a mixed environment.

Legal counsel for the city participated in a panel discussion on the issue of gender-segregation and announced this plan and explained that the city wants to include more communities and not automatically ban populations form participating because they have specific needs.

Mr Salman, the legal counsel for the City, explained that as he sees it, the city can operate such a facility because it is for the public but it is closed, whereas an "open" event, such as the outdoor concert that was at the heart of a dispute last year, is more problematic. When an event is in an open public space, it cannot be exclusive and has to be equally available to the broader public, but when an event is "closed" they can designated for specific sectors and communities and even operate gender-segregated.

Salman claims that the law allows him to operate such a fitness center just as it does a beach. There are separate beaches that the law allows to operate with a division of hours and days between men and women, with being open to the broader public on the weekends. I do not get the comparison because the beach is an open space, so how can this be allowed, yet the fitness center is a closed space, so I am not sure how that compares to the beach and how, with his explanation, the beach itself is allowed to operate like that.

Obviously this has attracted calls of hypocrisy, as when gender-separate events were planned for the religious and Haredi public they were fought tooth and nail, yet when planed for the Arab community they find ways to justify it..

I do not understand the justification in the difference between open and closed. Beside for that, other argument swe have heard in the past are also issues.

One such argument was "hadata", or religious coercion and imposing religious beliefs int he public sphere. II don't think this is an issue in this case because nobody feels imposed on or religiously threatened by the Arabs, as it is a different religion.

Another argument was public money support discrimination. This si an issue whether the considerations are religious or not, and it seems like this should be an issue here.

I have said many times that I think a way should be found to allow public monies and locations to be used for sectors of the population that have different lifestyles, without imposing on the greater public. I don't know what those ways are, but I think such ways should be found. Salman says this is a way to do this, but I do not understand his differentiation and how this can be significant enough of a difference to allow it here but not in the various other situations that arose this past summer. I am happy he found a way, and await to see if it passes the legal test, after someone challenges it. If it holds up, the religious public wanting separate seating concerts funded by municipal coffers will have some criteria to follow but should be able to get their events..

According to Kikar, a number of avreichim from Bnei Braq tried to register for training for positions of heads of ballot boxes for the upcoming elections. When they discovered that the training is held without gender segregation, they got upset and are talking about not getting involved and not taking these positions.

besides for earning some decent money on election day, these positions are influential and somewhat help the party ( I am not sure how much it really helps, but the party leaders all think it does, as they all try to maximize their representation).

One of the relevant avreichim explained that he is not going to register for the position and will just give it up. There is no way he is going to sit in a gender-mixed training session. it is ridiculous, he said, that he should be forced to sit without gender segregation.

I do wonder if this avreichm, and the others involved, are aware that the task he is trying to register for is more than just a training session. Is he aware that he will have to sit all day at a table with other electoral supervisors and some of them will be women? Is he aware that he will have to take teudat zehuts from voters, including female voters, and look at their pictures?

Perhaps we can establish a new policy in the Ministry of Interior that female citizens get their faces blurred out on their teudat zehut, or they can get a teudat zehut with no picture, so avreichim at the electoral table shouldn't need to look at their pictures.

So, back to the original, they can't sit in a training session int he same room as a woman, and definitely not next to, but even if that gets resolved how can they serve in the position they are registering for? Why is it ok there but not in the training session?

The following event has been advertised around Bet Shemesh:



The event is a Thursday night Hannukah kumzitz in honor of Shabbat Hannukah in the Sport Center of RBS. The City of Bet Shemesh invites the residents of Bet Shemesh and Bnei Hayeshivot to the event, and a special gift will be distributed to Bnei Yehivot.  Speakers will include a rosh yeshiva (Rav Gavriel Yosef Levi) and a city councilman (Shmuel Greenberg) and singing will be lead by Avreimi Rot and Dudu Kalish with choirs and a band. The event is Thursday night of Hannukah from 7pm until 11pm (doors open at 6:30pm), entry is free but no kids due to limited space available.

Interestingly, the sign is signed off by two city councilmen who are named as Rav Chaim Zamora and Rav Shlomo Brilant (both from UTJ), and the mayor, Aliza Bloch, who is left unnamed.

The fact that her picture has been left off a sign published by the Iryah for an event sponsored by the Iryah is somewhat understandable, despite it being strange, and she has already explained it away on a number of occasions, especially after the mayoral elections in which she posted signs in haredi areas without her image. Leaving her name off when every other person involved is named is just strange and demeaning, as if she does not deserve to exist.

The other interesting part about this is that while I would think such an event, targeting primarily the Bnei Yeshivot, would be open to men only, or at least with strict separate seating, the sign announces the invitation to the residents of Bet Shemesh and the Bnei Yeshivot, with no distinction of gender and no notice of separate seating. Historically that is unusual. I would suspect that they did this out of fear of the event being cancelled, as a number of similar events around the country recently were after protests were filed with the courts for discriminating on the public dime. If so, those court cases accomplished what they set out to do.

On the other hand, this event could easily be explained as a religious event that qualifies for such gender separation, as it is billed as a shabbos hannukah event praising God for the miracles and honoring Shabbos and those who study about the holiness of Shabbos - the courts did say events that are religious in nature could qualify for exceptions.

So, with the event not being separate seating or men only, just go enjoy! Party on!

I love this.

Menachem Toker announced that the nxt step in the fight against the secular attempts to tell the haredim how to live and not let them have publicly-funded concerts that leave women out of the audience will be a new concert.

This new concert, this coming Motzei Shabbos, will be in a rented hall in Binyanei Hauma in Jerusalem, with Mordechai Ben Advid  and other performers. The concert will be for men only. The proceeds will go to funding court expenses for the battle over this issue.

(note: it seems to meet the rules laid out recently by being a fully private event, so I think it should go off without a hitch, but you never know)

I love this fight.

You tried to tell us what to do. You tried to tell us we can't discriminate against our women. Oh yeah? We'll show you! We'll discriminate against our women even more! We'll make an even bigger concert, an even better concert, and we won't let our women go! Yeah, we'll really show those secular people that they can't control us...

The court hearing the case in Haifa against the Kumzitz for men by Mordechai Ben David and Motti Steinmetz has decided, based on the recommendation of the Attorney General Avihai Mandelblit to disallow the event.

The court basically said that if they want to have an only men event and not meet the criteria set by Mandelblit, they should fund it themselves and not have it sponsored by the Irya from public monies. Mandelblit had set criteria for gender-segregated events that the Irya must be able to defend sponsoring the event by showing that women have an equal (but separate place) - meaning, if the event is separate and women are treated equally, with a mechitza but not squashed into the back or somewhere they cannot see or hear, that would be fine. if the event is for men only, the women are being left out. If the women don't have a similar event for them, the women are being left out.

When Mandelblit announced his support for gender-segregated events, meeting the criteria he laid out, the Haredi askanim were happy that their needs were being recognized. Now that an event not meeting the requirements is being canceled, they are once again upset that their needs are not being met and the Haredim are being left out of the public sphere. Really all they need to do is make their events to treat men and women equally, but separate, as they supposedly wanted to in the first place, and Mandelblit says it can happen. Now they don't want to do that either and still want it to be able to happen.

(update: the producer of the event says he is insisting the show must go on at any cost and they will forgo the Irya funding and put it on fully private, and people will buy the tickets, and they are even willing to take a financial loss to make sure it happens)

The responses have been sharp from the haredi askanim, but, as always, none as sharp as MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ). Eichler said if we are weak, the judges from the North will come to us in Jerusalem as well. When you want to make a bris for your son, the court will not allow you to make it separate seating.

It is a cute and funny attack, as per Eichler's normal style, but he, as he often does, is convoluting, probably intentionally, what is going on. The only time the court might not allow you to make your bris separate is if somehow you get the Irya to sponsor your bris. And even then it might get a religious exception, the way prayer services get. Again, the courts are not saying, at least not yet, private events cannot be gender-segregated. They are syaing public events cannot be segregated and even public events can be segregated if care is taken to give equal space to men and women.

After the court reversed the earlier decision and allowed the Afula concert to proceed as planned (which was later overturned by the Supreme Court, though not in time to stop the concert)... as Yair Sherki wrote posting this picture, when the uproar over gender-segregation meets real life...

The sight is very familiar. Summer vacation. Bein Hazmanim. Everyone is touring around the country at the same time, mostly up north where it is slightly cooler and the trails are peppered with rivers to hike through and/or  cool off in, along with other water experiences such as river rafting, the Kineret, and many other activities. it is a fun time of year, but the attractions are all crowded with people - the entire rainbow of the Israeli public.

Here is a picture from the entrance to the Abu Kayak rafting site along the Jordan River from earlier today. It was posted to Facebook commenting on the need for appropriate entertainment opportunities for the Haredi community and that the Haredi community deserves to be serviced equally as everyone else is. The suggestion being that the current situation is inadequate with just several days over the summer designated at such sites for the religious public. Being a day designated for the religious public basically means people are requested to come fully dressed and not scamper around shirtless or in bikinis. As you can see in the picture, it does not mean the morning is hours for men only and the afternoon hours are for women, or Mondays for men and Tuesdays for women.

posted by Leah Aharoni

Now, something here makes no sense to me.

A concert in the park must be 100% separate. Even a compromise (recommended by the judge but rejected by all parties involved including the Haredi parties) to have a mens section, a womens section, and a family section is not good enough, but the Haredi community demands the event to be completely 100% separate seating.

Yet, a water park, rafting on a river, where people are swimming int he water and splashing and getting wet and soaking their clothes, that is perfectly fine to be mixed, family style.

That makes no sense.

I'll tell you what the difference is, as I see it.

The difference is that one event, the water park, is populated by people who want to go have fun. By their own initiative. Most people in the Haredi community, not everyone of course, want to have fun and do thigns with their family. They go out to concerts and sit mixed seating with their families. they go to the parks all over the country and are fine with the crowds being mixed. They go to hikes on trails, they go bowling, they hike through the river, all with mixed crowds. At the annual Sukkos concert in Bet Shemesh with no official separation (there is a sectioned off area for separate dancing), hundreds of Haredim show up to enjoy. No separation necessary. Most Haredim want separation at weddings and in shul, and that is mostly it.

The other event, the concert in Afula, is arranged by askanim. Askanim like to tell people what to do. According to the askanim, the Haredim need 100% separation. Nobody is even willing to speak up and say "I am perfectly fine with family style seating", probably because they are worried about the askanim getting them thrown out of shul and their kids thrown out of school. People are only rarely willing to oppose askanim publicly.

I think it is a shame that the community cannot have events catered to their needs and desires. I understand the legal claim against it, but I do not understand the limit of the opposition. Yet, with everyone upset that this womens lobby that appealed against it, and the judge that ruled against, claiming that they are patronising and telling the Haredim how to live their lives - I just want to say that most Haredim are perfectly fine with mixed, family-style, events, and had this concert been planned this way to start (not including Motti Steinmetz who personally would not sing at such a concert but other performers would and do), nobody would have said boo except a few askanim. As much as the womens lobby and the judge wants to tell people how to live their lives, the haredi askanim are equally as guilty of this.