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The revelation was actually that Elaitzur has decided to perform without his glasses so he wont have to see the female dancers in the performance. He is careful about "shmirat Einayim" - I would add as is common in Breslav as it is but many people not Breslav also are. Some people turned this into a scandal of sorts that he is disrespecting the ceremony or the event and the other performers, and how dare he.

I think it is a good thing. I am happy he found a way he could honor the event with his performance that was requested and still hold to his ideals. We get upset when people walk out of such events with female performers, we can't also get upset when they find a way to stay in and participate. So he wont be wearing glasses - big deal. People can think maybe he is wearing contact lenses or maybe people dont even notice - I wouldn't have as I did not know he needs t wear spectacles to see. Had I seen him singing and jumping around the stage without glasses I would not have even thought about it.

Good for Elaitzur for finding a solution. I saw a report that Rav Arush, his rav, was uncomfortable with him participating at all alongside female dancers and want it cancelled. I guess we'll see on Yom Haatzmaut what happens (I think it is being pre-recorded again like last year but not sure) and what was or will be decided, but good on Elaitzur for finding a way acceptable to him to make it happen. It makes me like him more, not less.

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A teacher in a Haredi seminar asked Rav Zilbershtein about how to handle the bus situation. The buses are very crowded in the morning and evening when men go to kollel, yeshiva and seminary students go to learn, kids go to school, teachers go to teach.. There are not enough buses on the lines, so the ones that do run are very crowded at the busy hours of the day.

The issue with this is, it is so crowded it can lead to breaches of tzniyus, men and women touching as the bus hurtles forward, brakes, jerks around turns, etc. 

While they have approached the askanim to arrange more buses at the busy hours, until then, what should one do about this situation? As long as the situation stays the same is one even allowed to travel on these buses?

Rav Zilbershtein responded that Rav Moshe Feinstein related to a similar question in New York on public transportation and had paskened that such contact is not intentional and is not categorized as touching of any intimacy or desire and is not even prohibited on a rabbinic level, so one could ride on a crowded subway train or bus, even knowing that at times it will cause people to touch.

Rav Zilbershtein continues and says that today's situation is different than the one Rav Moshe related to back then. In Rav Moshe's time he was talking about married men going to work, they were not interested in the other women. Additionally they were traveling distances that could not be accomplished by walking as an alternative. Today's situation being asked about is different as it involved young men and women going to yeshiva and seminary. At such a young age they have desires and their "yetzer" burns inside like a fire, and it will definitely cause improper thoughts.

Ergo, Rav Zilbershtein paskened, if a bus is overcrowded and one cannot travel with men and women separated as would be proper, even Rav Moshe would agree that one cannot alight such a bus - neither men nor women. How can one begin his or her day and succeed in learning when he or she travels without kedusha! Additionally, usually the distance involved is not so great and walking is a viable alternative, so the bus in such a situation is unacceptable.

Rav Zilbershtein added that nowadays with a situation of danger, it is even worse, because the care for tzniyus protects us. Lessening the kedusha leaves us exposed to the dangers.

I guess that is one way to relieve the buses of being overcrowded.. if the other methods dont work...

I do wonder about the statement that married men have no yetzer and do not have such thoughts or interests in the women around them. I wonder if Rav Moshe would have agreed to such a distinction.

This is a call from the "gedolim" to the bochurim (I added quotes on gedolim only because I have never heard of any of these rabbis) to not go collecting on Purim in houses because women are there. The boys should only go collecting where it is known that no women are present. They also call upon the baalebatim to ensure the rules of modesty are kept in the homes and that the women should not hang around in places where there are men...

The sign looks real and not like a joke, but having never heard of these rabbis I can't be sure, and they may be fake names.

I guess the other option was to tell the husbands to kick their wives out of the house for Purim so the boys could come collecting....

Shas released a statement, in light of PM Netanyahu's statement about the Kotel tzniyus law not being advanced, along with the official killing of the bill - they said, "we bless PM Netanyahu for his message that the status quo at the Kotel will be kept. We were pushed to propose this law due to the Supreme Court not allowing further delays in the debate of the subject. There was never any intention to place criminal sanctions on clothing or musical instruments at the Kotel. This was cheap demagoguery."

So they were "forced" to propose a law that they didnt want to propose, and they wrote it in a way that said there would be criminal repercussions, but they didnt mean it and everyone should have known that, and the public that went crazy over it was just cheap demagoguery. It's their fault, not ours! And thank you Mr Netanyahu for confirming that the law we proposed is worthless and bad and things will simply stay the same instead of being changed the way we requested.

I guess they are thanking Netanyahu for saving them from themselves.

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I had my say about this two weeks ago when the idea was just floated, but now MK Deri has decided to advance this law and supposedly, according to news reports, has agreement for support among all coalition members, even ones who spoke out against it, at least to pass its first reading. 

It is going to be laws like this that will at some point bring down the government. the extreme right or extreme religious members of the coalition are going to keep pushing crazy laws like this. At some point Netanyahu will say no. He'll probably freeze this one as well after the first passing. The Likud doesn't want it, Likud voters don't want it, and Netanyahu doesn't want it, but he is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Right now he has to give Deri this little victory, but at some point he wont be able to continue advancing these types of laws and at some point that will cause a coalition crisis.

The unofficial tzniyus police of Mea Shearim never worked out well for anyone. I wonder if this can turn out any differently even though it will be official. I would be curious what type of reaction this law, if it will pass, will cause among the people. Will there be some form of protest with so many choosing to stay away from the Kotel? Will we see the annual slichos during Elul with much smaller crowds of people with much less participation of the traditional and non-religious? Will we see a form of protest of thousands going tot he Kotel in attire that does not meet the laws of tzniyus -women wearing pants and short sleeves and the like and daring the police to arrest thousands of women? or will the people just accept it and behave accordingly? If someone does get arrested, say a woman for wearing slacks at the Kotel, will she be able to defend herself in court with her lawyer claiming that her rabbi says these pants are allowed for women, even if other rabbis say they cant be? Are we going to have secular judges deciding what Jewish law should and shouldn't include?

Is this entirely to be directed at women or will this be enforced against men as well - no shorts perhaps? shirts with no sleeves will get you arrested? Will this cause an uprising of the women, having a law passed just against them?

The psak issued calls out the girls who are riding scooters and electric bikes. Besides for being dangerous, mentioned as an aside, it is a serious breach in tzniyus and the polar opposite of the concept of "kol kvuda bat melech pnima" - the honor of a princess is internal (or often translated as indoors). 

The beis din calls on parents and educators to educate them in proper modest and gentle behavior appropriate for a princess.

Shas MKs, led by MK Ariel Buso and Minister Michael Malkieli, have proposed a law that I hope desperately PM Netanyahu will shoot down and stop it dead in its tracks.

Buso has proposed a law that apply prison time of up to 6 months or a fine of up to 10,000nis for a various list of infractions. The list of infractions includes davening in a mixed minyan, and another infraction being going to the Kotel in immodest dress.

First, how will immodest dress be defined, and by who?

Second, does the State of Israel really want to be arresting people for praying to God, even if it is in a way I dont agree with?

Third, enforcement (of the dress code) will be by definition almost entirely selective, so it likely wont stand up in court anyway.

I must say, this is probably one of the worst law proposals I have ever heard.

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Zaakah announced on their FB page that Zev Steen, a Baltimore resident, was arrested for the possession and distribution of child pornography. You can get more information off their post. Steen was a teacher in the Bnos Yisroel high school in Baltimore. Additionally, Steen is the CEO of MirageID, a tech company that specializes in preventing you from being tracked online. I guess his own software helped keep him safe for a long time but ultimately they figured it out and caught him.

The main point though is that Steen was also the Director of Tag International Baltimore office. TAG, if you are not aware, is the Technology Awareness Group - an organization that, as they say, stands at the forefront in the battle against the nisayon of technology. They have been behind many of the conferences against internet and smartphone use and also push for installation of filters and the like when internet is necessary.

Once again, someone at the forefront of extremism in tzniyus turns out personally to be a creep, a pervert and himself a degenerate dealing in the worst of what technology has to offer. Maybe he did not use TAG himself for his own internet use, or maybe he used his own company's services to get around the TAG filtering and monitoring, but while he was fighting against Internet use and telling everybody about how bad it can be, he himself was wallowing in the worst of it. Maybe it was all just research for how necessary organizations like TAG are. Maybe he could scream at everyone else because he knew how bad it actually is.

Without accusing anybody of anything if we do not know, it is already not unusual that the loudest and most extreme on these issues turn out to be actual creeps and pervs.

Interestingly, this kind of reminds me of the shaitel. We just got used to the shaitel. But if you think toes need to be covered, like hair does, wouldnt covering your toes with fake toes be pretty much the same thing as covering your hair with fake hair? It seems like craziness, but I am not sure why people are outraged or scoffing at this when shaitels are a perfectly normal thing.

As you can see there will be separate starting times for men and for women for the same events - 6:30pm for the 10km for men, and 6:40 for women. 6:45 start for the 5km mens race and 6:50 for the women's 5km race. then 7-7:15 for the family 2km races. And some other activities.

Srugim is reporting that somebody asked Rav Tzvi Tau, Rosh Yeshiva of Har HaMor, if it is ok to participate in this race/event.

Rav Tau responded paskening that it is a chilul hashem to participate in such an event of men and women running together, and with women running in front of men and it is prohibited to participate in such an event, even in the "kosher" parts of it (ie in gender-separate tracks).

Rav Tau added that when women run in front of Arabs it is even worse than running in front of Jewish men as it is also a chilul hashem.

They both are a chilul hashem in his opinion, so I am not sure why one is worse than the other (as is mentioned) and he does not seem to explain, at least not in the article. I also recently heard a shiur on tzniyus and it seems that women causing "improper thoughts" by not dressing modestly is worse when it is Jewish men and might not even be a halachic problem when it is not-Jewish men as they are not commanded in the idea of avoiding improper thoughts, so the woman is not even causing them to falter. 

Additionally, Rav Tau calls it a chilul hashem rather than a halachic breach of tzniyus, which makes me wonder why he uses a generic issue like that rather than the halachos of tzniyus, unless maybe he doesnt think they actually apply directly.

I have seen the occasional race that tries to address the tzniyus issue by having separate routes for men and for women in addition to the separate start times. I wonder if that would be more acceptable to Rav Tau. Even with the different start times, with a gap of just ten minutes it seems the slower men might still be running behind the faster women.....

If Rav Tau is your rav, you might want to adjust your plans for tomorrow evening....

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What I did not see was anyone finding out who really wrote it, the story behind it, and actually calling the number on the flyer.

Until last night. Flatbushgirl, aka Adina Miles-Sash, posted in her Instagram that someone called the phone number. Here is what she had to say, with some background of the open letter:

So, though I still dont know why it matters, it is a woman who wrote the letter and not a man. Additionally, she sent it to shoe stores and didnt expect anyone to actually read it and post it online - does she know how the world works today? And, she only expected women to read it - how would men know not to read it? She has a problem with how women cross their legs when sitting and think it is not tzanua, so she wrote a very untzanua letter to raise awareness of the need for more tzniyus? For somebody who is hyper-aware regarding tzniyusshe seems extremely unaware of absolutely everything else...

Honestly it is a little creepy but if he sees it, he sees it. Maybe frum women who care about such things should be more careful when they sit in such places. But perhaps this is on him as well - if his work environment means he has to crawl around on the floor and his visual perspective is form that angle, maybe he needs to make adjustments. I am not sure how he expects women to protect the view from below. Maybe he should have a raised seat of some sort on a platform or whatnot and have the kids try ont he shoes so he can continue standing or sitting in a regular chair rather than sitting on the floor and looking up from below. If he found a creative solution, he wouldnt be looking up women's skirts.

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While I am happy someone "in power" is taking a stand on this, it is actually like the tzniyus signs. No matter how often the authorities take them down, they get put back up with a vengeance, in greater numbers. The signs will continue to be defaced, maybe even at a faster pace. The Iryah will be paying the price by advertising for free and losing revenue at a fast clip and eventually will just stop fighting about this. 

But at least he is trying