Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli announced today that she is going to put together a team of inspectors to secretly check bus line sin Jerusalem, Bnie Braq and Bet Shemesh to see that women are not being discriminated against and forced to the back of the bus.

According to Globes, the courts ruled against the Israel Rail Authority in a case in which a group of men decided to daven in one of the rail cars, and the woman was told by a train attendant/usher to move to sit in another car. She was awarded 16,000nis by the courts for the incident.

The new IKEA catalog is out and has been distributed to homes around Israel.

I immediately noticed two things about it:

1. On the bottom of the front cover, where it lists the branches around the country, the new Eshtaol branch, just outside Bet Shemesh, is included and noted to open March 2020!

2. After the catalog (at least, the catalog distributed in Haredi areas) made waves last year, and maybe in years before that, by having pictures of male models only among the furniture, with no females, they took a different route this year.

As you can see from a few sample pages posted below, there are no pictures of any humans at all, male or female, child or adult, in the catalog. Just furniture and other things sold in the IKEA shops. No people. The suggested compromise has been, since this issue began, that no people are better than some people and discrimination against others. It looks like IKEA went that route this year..

See for yourself

Recently, after the issue with the event to benefit Rav Firer's organization was canceled because of a public outcry against the "hadarat nashim" of not allowing female performers to perform for what would be an overwhelmingly secular audience, many pointed to an event that would be for women only by female performers, also for the secular public, and claimed hypocrisy that from the mens side it is considered discrimination while from the womens side it is allowed to happen. One person even petitioned the Ministry of Justice to weigh in on the event in question and offer an opinion if this is a problem of discrimination or not.

The Ministry of Justice has now responded that the specific event in question was not researched by them as the petition came in too close to the event to allow such treatment. That being said, the MoJ says that there is no discrimination against men in Israel, so an event that excludes men is not "hadara" - men do not suffer from being excluded. While men are not excluded or banned, from the public sphere, women do suffer greatly from this, so events excluding women are a strong offense. That is why female-only events can happen but male-only events (from public funding) are a problem.

Personally I think of this like affirmative action. African Americans in the USA, or Hispanics or other minorities, get priority in hiring or acceptance into schools, because they have been discriminated against for so long and have suffered from the discrimination. Whites do not suffer from such discrimination, so occasionally they get the short end of the stick but have to live with it. In Israel, the Haredi askanim fight for affirmative action for hiring Haredim in government jobs, Arabs get affirmative action in acceptance to universities and specifically medical school. The average Jew (male I guess) in Israel is not discriminated against, so even though affirmative action means occasionally the average jew might get the short end of the stick, that is not discrimination, or hadara.

the interesting part of this conference (interesting for the purpose of this post) is the panel discussion at the 5:14:00 mark. The panel is made up of Yishai Lapidot, Rabbanit Adina Bar Shalom, MK Merav Michaeli, and Mayor of Ramat Gan Carmel Shama Cohen. The panel discusses the issue of "hadarat nashuim" and the standing of women in society and the issue of separation between men and women.

Rav Firer decided to cancel his fundraising event so as not to be involved in such machlokes. He said he has never been involved in arranging fundraising events.

To remind you, an event was organized for the general public to raise funds for Rav Firer's organization Ezra Lamarpeh that helps people find the right doctors and treatments, among other things in the medical field. The organizer had asked bands to participate in the event, but when a band was one that included females, he told them only the men should participate but not the women. When a reporter asked a band member about it, it became a hot topic and some of the performers backed out, not wanting to participate in the event that excluded women. Many spoke out against the exclusion of women and many spoke out against the movement to ban the event because of the exclusion of women. Other performers said they would perform in honor of Rav Firer even though they normally oppose excluding women.

I still think from everything I have read that the fault is not with the performers or even the journalist, and it is definitely not with Rav Firer, but the fault lays with the person who was responsible for making the arrangements. He could easily have done it in a way that would be respectful and honor Rav Firer's religious needs but it seems he tried to sneak it through without people realizing and was deceitful about his intentions.

Regardless of that, it is a shame the event was canceled, and it is a shame it became such a big fight. Even if I do not approve of a specific organization or event or something an organization did, does not mean I need to shut it down and go nuclear. We need to find ways to live together and respect each other's needs and lifestyles. There were enough performers willing to participate that the show could have gone on. So some people would not have gone to the concert, and many others would have.

The issue of "hadarat nashim" is up again, and from a more interesting angle.

The annual fundraiser for Ezra Lamarpe, led by Rav Elimelech Firer, is coming up soon and is being planned. The show as planned was going to be a tribute to Shlomo Artzi with other singers singing his songs and other songs in a tribute to him. The concert is for the general public, not for the Haredi community, and will be mixed seating. After performers were approached and had agreed to perform at the event, it became known to them that it had been planned with no female singers or performers. For example, one band leader had been asked to perform without his band, just him and one other, leaving out the female member of his band. He only realized it was intentional that she was excluded at some point after he agreed to perform. The same story for other performers included. The reason, obviously, is because Rav Firer heads Ezrra Lamarpeh and as a frum haredi Jew cannot and does not want to be in a situation of women singing at his performance with him present.

After the performers realized what had been arranged, they started to back out, saying they do not want to participate in an event that excludes women, especially women they normally perform with. Even Shlomo Artzi himself said he did not like how it was arranged and is going to try to get the event changed and to convince Rav Firer to allow it to include women.
source: Ynet and others

In all the recent events, the hadarat nashim was protested by external groups. Also, the hadarat nashim was manifested by the audience - women were not invited at all or were planned to be seated separately or in a smaller area.And in all those events, the event was for the haredi community. In this instance, it is the performers themselves protesting the event, it is an event for the general public and not for the haredi community and the hadarat nashim is in the lineup of performers, not the audience.

Being an event for Rav Firer, it is understandable that he won't listen to women sing or watch them perform. Perhaps his organizers should have been more upfront about what they were doing when they arranged the details rather than trying to do it in a way that nobody would notice. Then they would not have felt deceived. Still, putting on a performance for the general, secular public, and excluding women in the process, is a recipe for disaster.

the women need to respect the sensitivities of the residents in a private neighborhood..

  -- Mayor of Bet Shemesh Moshe Abutbol, talking about the court decision today regarding the signs against women (i.e. about dressing modestly, about not walking on certain sides of the street, etc) in Bet Shemesh... Perhaps Abutbol transferred ownership of those neighborhoods to the local residents. If not, I am not sure what makes them private and why he thinks the law needn't apply to them.

you can hear the entire interview with Mayor Moshe Abutbol in which he said the above


While Abutbol's argument almost seems logical - it is the job of the police to deal with the illegal activity of the residents hanging the signs and not his job - the court refuses to accept it. In part, as was expressed in court today, because the judge threw back at Abutbol something he himself said in an interview on a Haredi radio program that he supports the continued existence of the signs. The courts said if he supports it he cannot turn around and be believed to say he does not support it and just cannot do anything about it.

I have no idea why he is not fining the offending people with hefty fines. When forced, he takes the signs down and lets them immediately put them back up. When he wants to deal with other illegal activity in the city, and make money off it, he seems to find ways.

Anyways, the courts gave him to Sunday to have the signs removed for good. If not the fines previously decided upon will be strictly enforced, and the court will consider jailing him for contempt.

If he lets it get to the point that he gets arrested over it, he'll be a hero to the Haredi community. I can hear the platitudes already of נתפסת על דברי תורה and the like.. Besides for jail being a perfect launching point to a career in national politics with Shas, as some have joked, his hero/martyr status will send him far...

It is going to get interesting in Bet Shemesh over the next few days..

Wow! When this post was written and posted about the madness of not including womens pictures in publications, I don't think anybody even took into account ramifications of danger to life that can be caused by not publishing the image of a woman.

It would never have crossed my mind that in a situation of danger to life the publication/community would still not print a picture. I did not even imagine a scenario where that might happen.

Yet Bechadrei has announced a missing person's report in Bnei Braq without including her picture. A 35 year old woman went missing. Good luck identifying her.

That is something that is a sakana, and anybody who can possibly find her, see her walking down the street, being abducted God forbid, or whatever, should be able to quickly identify her and alert the authorities. I would never even think otherwise.

Yet Bechadrei printed this missing person's report without including a picture of the missing woman!

That is insane!

Can you imagine the milk carton with the face blurred out for tzniyus reasons, making the missing person practically unidentifiable?

From the description alone, 35 year old woman, thin with a head covering and sport shoes, black skirt and white blouse, 1.4 meters tall, that is practically every and any 35 year old woman in the country! How can anybody possibly identify this poor missing woman from that description with no picture?

This is insane!

By the way, Kikar included a copy of the woman's teudat zehut picture:

Posted on behalf of a group of concerned residents

• If it bothers you, just don’t buy them, its really that simple.
• Women are so sexualized in the world that we must do the opposite:
• A woman’s worth, her beauty is internal.
• Achdus! Why must you start up?
• Its always been this way
• We are telling our daughters that their externals are not important.
• Preserving women’s privacy does not prevent them from having a major influence in our lives.
• It’s our right

We desperately hope not. It certainly isn't who we are meant to be.

As reported in the JPost, the Attorney General, Yehudah Weinstein, has initiated a crackdown on forced gender segregation.

The three main issues it is tackling are:
1. the impact of increasing numbers of Haredim in the IDF, and how that affects women
2. forced gender segregation on the bus
3. chevra kadishas, in the sense of women speaking, or not speaking, at funerals.

From JPost:

In another example, the committee was informed that burial societies often prohibit women from giving eulogies at burials out of religious concerns for modesty. The Justice Ministry confronted the Chevra Kadisha, and ordered an end to the discrimination on eulogies.
Initially, the ministry received reports that all of the Chevra Kadisha chapters were in compliance – except for two chapters, with whom there are ongoing negotiations.
But after receiving additional complaints, the ministry reopened the issue with the Chevra Kadisha to make it clear that partial compliance was not acceptable.
In another example, the city of Netivot was due to hold a Remembrance Day ceremony in which women would be prohibited from singing. The ministry ordered that women be allowed to sing, requiring that the ceremony organizers change their policy.
The city of Ashdod was due to hold a Mimouna ceremony with separate areas for men and women. The ministry contacted Ashdod, and made it clear to the ceremony organizer that forced separation was prohibited.
Despite repeated guarantees by the Transportation Ministry that it would take steps to end forced gender segregation on buses, the Justice Ministry found that those steps did not lead to sufficient change.
The Justice Ministry said it is on the verge of ordering all buses in areas with complaints of discrimination to have their back doors sealed, so that men and women will have to enter through the same door. This will make it harder to force women systematically to sit in the back of a bus.
Besides these examples, the committee plans to continue work on segregation against women on many fronts, ranging from walking in certain separate areas in health centers, from being harassed if someone argues that they are “immodestly” clad, to demands for separate education in higher learning centers and bans on women on public radio stations.

I am against forced gender segregation outside of tefilla and shuls, and some other public religious services, where it is halachically necessary.

The idea sin the article quoted above regarding Weinsteins approach do bother me though:
1. They are going to order the back door of the buses sealed? Sounds dangerous to me. Should the bus have trouble (God forbid), like catch fire on the way up the hills to Jerusalem, as is not uncommon, or terrorism, this could become a death trap, for whomever is sitting in the back.
Must we really go so far, as to seal people in, to solve this?

2. there must be some sort of guidelines to having a separate-gender event. Can men not get together for an event without women? Women cannot have a womens-only event? Is Weinstein saying that men and women MUST sit mixed at all events? While I think it is wrong and demeaning to send a woman to the back of the bus, I would also not say every community event must be mixed-gender.

There must be some sort of guidelines, or else we are soon going to end up with the government insisting that shuls cannot have separate seating, as it is gender discrimination. And definitely not when the women's section is in the back of the shul (rather than a side-by-side arrangement).

3. The Attorney General is approaching this solely from a religious perspective. When religion, or religious people, gender discriminate, he looks into it and gets involved.
Why does he not also get involved when the discrimination has nothing to do with religion? Surely there must be room for his involvement to improve the situation there as well. There are plenty of ways in which women are still discriminated against in general society.
Not to take away from the abuse in the name of religion, but the problem is not limited to religious settings alone. If Weinstein considers the problem to be such a serious one, he shouldn't limit himself to the religious part of it.

from my friend Naftali Copperman's FB page:
(translation below)


One perspective:
Young religious soldiers in the holy army want to leave the hall in order not to hear women singing, get pushed out and then slandered (in the press), even though they are excellent soldiers in special units.
Haredim remove women from advertisements and ad publications - and every news program opens with that story, with all sorts of people explaining why it is good or not good, using terms like 'primitive', 'excluding women', etc.
Second perspective:
The Pope visits, not a single woman is included in the visit, they work to remove any and every woman from the main area around the nice Francisco. When he visits Mt. Herzl, unscheduled and as a response to the prayer next to the Separation Wall, Netanyahu asks the visitor to pray by the memorial to terror victims. In the videos one can see a woman who immediately disappeared from the access path to the memorial. The writer quickly apologized and explained that it was the coordinator of the visit from the Foreign Ministry and not just any woman.
In the studio "professors" sit there [discussing it] and not a single one of them opens her mouth. It seems natural to all of them.
Two perspectives, one kippa, different responses.
Since the days of Bet Shemesh I have not seen 'hadarat nashim', the exclusion of women, on television as much as there was during the Pope's visit.
Clarification: I am not saying this is right or this is right. Just pay attention how with one of them they respect, understand, dont want to harm his faith... and for the other - an entire community is judged by a kangaroo court.
It seems everything depends on the color of the kippa.

I bless any candidate who will stand against me, as long as the rules of proper behavior, truth and justice are followed. I believe there will still be many surprises along the way, including announcements of support for me from broad groups of residents. I also bless the unity, but it distresses me that they have excluded a woman from being mayor, which is something everyone hoped for..

  -- Mayor of Bet Shemesh Moshe Abutbol, upon hearing the announcement by Minister Naftali Bennet about closing a deal to stop supporting Aliza Bloch for mayor of Bet Shemesh and support Eli Cohen instead.

Which is worse - asking, or even demanding, that a woman move to the back of a bus, or punching someone in the face and pulling his beard?

According to reports, a secular woman got on a bus in Jerusalem on Kanfei Nesharim st and sat down in the front of the bus. A haredi fellow told her to move to the back of the bus (told? asked? requested? demanded? does it matter?). A secular fellow punched the haredi fellow in the face, pulled his beard and ran away. MDA came, police came, everything was dealt with, but the secular fellow got away before they arrived.

The haredi fellow was wrong for telling her to move. The secular fellow was wrong for physically attacking the Haredi fellow.

Which action was worse? I tend to think the physical attack was worse. The first is a social trend which has to be stopped, is immoral in today's day and age and is a form of violence in its own right. The 2nd is an actual  physical attack, but it is also throwing away the high ground. It is like being merciful to an animal at the expense of a human (sort of). it is being blinded by one thing and not seeing the bigger picture.

By now you have surely heard of what happened yesterday in Bet Shemesh with the Egged bus incident.. I know that most of the postings online in the news media is inaccurate, so I want to clarify what I can.

First, here is the Channel 2 news report on the incident.



More interesting is the article on Mako than the video clip:
Channel 2 news spoke with various parties and interests and here are their responses:

Deputy Mayor of Bet Shemesh Shmuel Greenberg:

There was no "hadarat nashim". the bus driver enflamed the incident. A woman got on the bus and asked another passenger to change places with her so she could sit near someone she knows. The woman agreed, but the driver then turned it into an incident and began to go crazy. He called the police who came and stopped the bus and arrested the man and woman. After the police arrived, haredi residents began to gather to the area and throw stones at the bus. "Maybe it is connected to elections. There is incitement because of the upcoming elections. That is the power of incitement."

Aliza Bloch, candidate for mayor, said:

We can not in any way give in to the extremists. Incidents like this must be dealt with with an iron hand, and we are obligated to uproot such violent behavior and take care that all residents of Bet Shemesh and Israel know that nobody is above the law.

Eli Cohen, candidate for mayor, said:

Again violence and incitement of the extremists against the general population in the city has returned. It is incomprehensible that the residents of Bet Shemesh should be afraid to go around the city freely. We will uproot this phenomenon.

MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) said:

I call upon the Haredi leadership to make its voice heard, to uproot from within it the rioters and make clear that there is no place for such behavior. If they do not do this, the situation can deteriorate to harming someone. We cannot give in to violence, and we cannot allow extremist groups to set how the public realm appears. I hope the police will punish the rioters to the extent of the law in order to prevent such incidents form happening again in the future.

Rabbi Uri Regev, director of Hiddush, said:

the unending violence on the segregated lines proves that they must be completely abolished and serious criminal sanctions must be placed on those who exclude women. Areas in Bet Shemesh have become centers of violent Haredi gangs and the time has come to begin to impose Israeli law there

MK Rav Dov Lipman (Yesh Atid) said:

Such events of excluding women are an invalid phenomenon that need to disappear from the world. Even in the Torah it was prohibited to degrade women and there is no place for this in Israeli society.

Egged Spokesman Ron Rettner said:

Egged completely condemns any attempt to force seating arrangements on buses, and any attempt to use violence, verbal or physical, against any passengers or the driver. We expect the Bet Shemesh police to locate the small group of rioters and use the full extent of the law against them in a way that will be a deterrent, that will uproot this unacceptable behavior.

Now for what I want to add.

With all those responses, I must say that I wonder where the mayor himself is. I did not hear or see any statement or comment on the incident by him. Is he out of town? Is there a reason he does not want to condemn the violence or condemn Egged or play it down or whatever? Where si the mayor's leadership or his activity to calm the waters?


Regardless of that...

The reports in the news spoke about an incident in which a woman got on the bus #497 - from Bet Shemesh to Bnei Braq, and sat in the front. A woman and a man told her to move to the back of the bus as it is a mehadrin bus. The police got involved, arrested the man and woman, and that led to the bus being stoned and then 2 other buses being attacked with windows smashed.

Last night I heard on Radio Kol Chai, while on my way to shiur (so I did not get to listen to the entire discussion with all the interviews), an interview with the woman involved - the one who was told to move to the back of the bus. She sounded like an olah chadasha, though her Hebrew was very good. I read elsewhere later that she moved to Israel from London and had recently been with her family on shlichut to the Ukraine..

Her name is Rachel Rosenfeld, she is 27 with two children. She is not charedi, but is Dati Leumi (in her words).

She said she got on the bus with her kids and some packages. She sat in the front. She is fairly new to Bet Shemesh and did not know that this is a mehadrin bus. A charedi woman came to her and told her to move to the back. She said no because it is too difficult - her kids, her bags, etc. The woman offered to help her move. A man spoke up as well. The woman agreed to move. At that point, against Egged policy (supposedly Egged policy is the bus driver does not get involved unless it seems like the situation will get violent), the bus driver intervened and started screaming about calling the police, and from there the situation deteriorated and the rioting began.

I don't know if that justifies anything that happened later (actually I know it does not), but it is good to get the story straight.

According to the victim, the initial story was turned into a mountain, when it was just a molehill. There was not a serious attempt at forcing a woman to the back of the bus - it was a polite request to which she had agreed.

We do not know the bus drivers version - maybe he saw them being more aggressive than what she is admitting to, maybe he perceived it differently than she did, or maybe he lost control. I don't know.

And, again, this does not justify rioting, violence, destruction of property, putting people into physical danger (thankfully only one person was hurt with only minor scrapes from the broken windows). The criticism on the violence that happened after the incident still stands.

"Hadarat Nashim", the exclusion of women, strikes again! This time not in Israel, but in Gaza.

The UNRWA has been planning the Gaza Marathon 2013 - 42 kilometers from the northern end of Gaza until the southern end of Gaza. This year they were even bringing in a number of international runners to participate. The event is used as a fundraiser for summer camps for the Gaza children.

As an aside, once again I contacted the UNRWA organizers to ask if I could participate in the Gaza Marathon. A couple years ago, in preparation for the first Gaza Marathon, I asked if I could participate and they said I could not. They said they were not set up with appropriate security procedures, they were not registering international runners, and they could not guarantee my safety and therefore I could not participate. This time, they were promoting it with international runners, so I thought there would be a chance they would allow me to run - after all, I have a US passport, and even if Israeli perhaps they would see it as mutual interests, ability to overcome politics, etc. Unfortunately, despite having written to them, I never received a response.

This morning the UNRWA sent out a message that the Gaza Marathon 2013 is canceled. the reason given is that authorities in Gaza insisted that women not be allowed to participate in the marathon. They had already sent out instructions detailing how runners form abroad should be sensitive to the local customs, including how to dress appropriately when running with dress recommendations for both male and female runners. Despite that the Gaza authorities refused to allow women to run.

Hadarat Nashim at its finest in Gaza, and the UNRWA did not ignore it.

Well, I'll just have to try again next year...

It has already become standard practice that the haredi press will not print images of women, facial shots, body shots, or barely even mention their names. The haredi online sites have already started moving away from that behavior, but the old-style haredi media (I won't call them mainstream media, MSM, because they aren't by any means) has just increased their strict approach to this behavior.

It has gotten to a point that is so ridiculous that it is already funny. I don't see any other way to look at it. the foolishness that has taken over is just funny, in a sad way.

A young child, a 1 year old baby, in Jerusalem opened up a cabinet door that prevented the room door from being opened. That meant the kid was stuck in the room. The parents called the Fire Station, who sent a team out that dismantled the door and rescued the child. Good job.

The funny part comes next.

Hamodia (Hebrew edition) reported the story yesterday, but altered the picture that accompanied it. They did not remove the image of the child's mother - she was not in the picture anyway. The  picture showed the child laying on the floor next to the open drawer. The drawer had various pairs of shoes in it. One of those pairs was a pair of womens shoes. Hamodia removed the shoes from the image.

They weren't even a pair of high-heeled sexy shoes, or anything like that, that their removal might be understood in some sort of crazy way. This was simply a pair of beat up old flats - nothing enticing or provocative, just a pair of beat-up old shoes.

Here are the pictures:

the original:
the Hamodia version:

I don't know what there is to say other than it is so sad that it is funny how ridiculous they have gotten (though they did miss the womens black shoes just above the brown ones - thanks Yaak for pointing it out)......

(this issue was seen mentioned in Bechadrei, Kikar, Ynet, NRG)

A couple of weeks ago it was reported on a news site that the Israel Museum has conducted tours that are gender-separate, separate tours for men and separate tours for women. The article was indicating that the museum, and other institutions, are giving in to extremists.

Now, there is a similar article about the City of David having conducted tours recently that were gender-separate. The article concludes that they have not yet received a response from City of David management about this issue.

I am not sure why this requires a response from anyone.

Men come as a group and want a tour, so they give it. Women come and want a tour, so they give it. nobody forced anybody else to split into groups of men and women. The article itself describes the groups under discussion as a group of Hassidim. Should the City of David management care what type of group comes for a tour? Should they refuse a request from a group of men for a tour and say "we only give tours to groups of men and women together"?

I do not understand the demand to mix groups of people who do not want to be mixed. People have taken the issue of gender-equality and the issue of hadarat nashimi too far. they are invading on people's personal liberty and on their right to choose their own lifestyle.

You want to sit separate on a bus, that's your problem. Don't force it on me or other people. Don't repress women on the bus or in other public (or even in private, really) areas, just because you want something done your way. That is an important fight. When it goes from that to telling people they can't live the way they want to live, on their own time without it affecting you, then it has gone too far.

The museum and the City of David don't have to respond, because nothing happened. they are not forcing groups into separate tours and opening their museums at gender-separate hours. they are giving tours to whomever wants, whether they are mixed groups or groups of men and groups of women. And there is nothing wrong with that.
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This is interesting, and a bit strange. Shmuel Pappenheim (from the Eida) posted on his Facebook page (yes, Shmuel Pappenheim is a unique fellow) the following images:

They are unusual in the sense that if you look carefully you will see that they are advertisements for female products, such as tampons, breast cancer awareness, birthing classes, female fashion, etc but the models in the advertisements are all haredi men.

I thought it was weird when someone first pointed it out to me, and did not know the background. It turns out that this was a display created by a student in a school of art in Haifa. The project before the students was to express in art something in the current news of Israel. This student created this ad campaign to represent the issue of "hadarat nashim" in the Haredi community. His art looks at what advertising female products would look like in the Haredi ads.

While it may be strange, the truth is that it is fairly close to reality.What is especially wrong about it is that even with m,ale models no haredi ad campaign would publicize female products like these. No haredi magazine would advertise tampons or breast cancer awareness, even with a male model.

What is realistic about it is sometimes one reads the haredi papers and is reading an article about a woman, maybe someone received an honor, maybe is the feature of a news event, or whatever, yet the image embedded in the article is of a man, sometimes her husband, sometimes someone peripherally connected to the story.

Anyways, Bechadrei says that after this was publicized (the student posted it on the schools Facebook page. The school took it down fairly quickly, but it had already been noticed). One of the models featured is considering suing for using his image without permission in a way that is harmful to him.

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The news reported on Pesach about a show in Park Anabe in Modiin in which during the show a female volunteer was chosen to assist the presenter. With a large haredi audience present, presumably, but not necessarily, from the nearby Modiin Ilit, a woman from the audience requested that the volunteer be changed for a male volunteer instead of female.

(picture taken from Haaretz website)

This was not let to pass, and what might have been an innocuous incident, innocuous on both sides - the act could have gone on and those who didnt want to look didnt have to, and the request could have been honored and not challenged - has turned into another point in the fight of haredim in the public sphere dealing with women in the public sphere.

While I do believe there is no need to force the haredi public to integrate the ideals, lifestyles and philosophies of the general public into their own communities, and a certain level of leeway should be allowed for their cultural preferences even when they go against the laws and ideals of general society (as long as nobody is being harmed by it), I do not think that applies in this situation.

If the city of Modiin Ilit wanted to sponsor a circus performance with only male performers, and have gender separate performances, I would be fine with that. Despite the fact that it is sponsored by a public body (the Iryah) and it includes gender segregation. That is the culture the haredim have developed, even though it is fairly new, and I have no problem with that.

However, in this situation, the haredim went into Modiin to enjoy the performance there. The secular (and dati) city of Modiin sponsored a performance that was not deemed for haredim, but for the local residents who are not interested in gender segregation. The fact that hundreds of haredim showed up, should not change anything. When they go into secular cities to take advantage of secular entertainment, they should not complain when it does not conform to their ideals. This is an example of them attempting to impose their ideals on others.

And then they don't understand when Modiin residents get upset and try to devise ways to keep the haredim out of their events and parks.

Next time, instead of flocking to secular cities to enjoy the entertainment there, they should encourage their own city municipality to sponsor and arrange performances locally that meet with the ideals and culture they wish to live by.


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