Women may not be barred from the so-called Mehadrin Bridge in Meron on Lag B’Omer, explains attorney Yisrael Patt, general counsel for the Ministry of Religious Services
Since the bridge was constructed in 2012 to accommodate visitors to the tziyun of Rashbi on Lag B’Omer, women have been barred from the bridge. The pedestrian bridge runs over the parking area and roadway below. The bridge was constructed in response to tznius problems in the tunnel under the roadway as men and women used the thoroughfare without any separation. The bridge is assembled and dismantled before and after each Lag B’Omer.
The Ometz organization a number of years turned to the State Comptroller’s Office to check into the matter, which it feels is discriminatory. This year, attorney Alona Toledano of the Center for Women’s Justice turned to the Ministry of Religious Services legal counsel requesting to eliminate the gender separation on the bridge which is illegal. Ministry Counsel Yisrael Patt agreed and promised the gender separation would be eliminated and instructed ministry officials’ in a letter to do just so this coming Lag B’Omer. (see photo)
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
How about asking the poor benighted women you ostensibly represent
These fellas are outside instigators and saboteurs -Who asked them
This is an outrageous interference by the anti-religious government into the affairs and modesty practices of the Jewish religious community in Eretz Yisroel.
Rightfully, it will be ignored. Let the government eat their own words, as they will. Then they can go crying back to their courts.
The government is unable to force the women to use the bridge. The women will willingly not use it as in the past.
Avuu shteight, that a Yid is michuyav to go to Meron on Lag Ba’omer, bichllal? Does this have the same chumro’s as Uman on Rosh Hashana?
It was very likely some feminist group that initiated this action and not the politicians. Furthermore, there are many non-chareidi and secular women who go to meiron so even if the chareidi women won’t use the bridge there are others who will.
This however doesn’t change the fact that there are two sides to every story: the chareidim are upset because they can’t use the bridge for the very purpose for which it was built while those who protest see it as just another amenity they can’t use do to ‘gender discrimination.’ Either way, it’s just another very complicated issue that everyone loves to over-simplify.
I will use it. I’m not a second class citizen & there is no reason why, if everyone walks with decorum, men & women have to bang into each other.
Most haredi women & girls view themselves as helpmates who would not want to put a stumbling block in front of men. They are cognizant of the choices they have and choose to minimize temptation. In the long run they see themselves as beneficiaries of female modesty. Where you find coercion is in the secular advertising realm. Example: there was 30-foot billboard along a highway with Bar Rafaeli baring almost all. You could not drive the highway without seeing it. That is visual coercion, and disrespect to women.
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there was a case where males exercised such self-restraint and were punished for it. Soldiers in an officer’s course were compelled to attend an entertainment program where women sang. There were a few soldiers who who keep stringencies of not listening to women sing. They did not say a word about asking the women not to sing, they only asked to be excused.
They were forced to attend on penalty of expulsion from the course. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t. This is symbolic of a culture conflict that needs to be negotiated tactfully. It isn’t an isolated case of women singing at one event, but participation in a culture that is redolent with permissiveness. Example: the female soldiers who announce the traffic reports on national army radio are told to read the reports in a throaty, breathless, erotic voice.