The Reform Center for National and Religious Affairs has organized a tour of the Beit Shemesh neighborhoods who refuse to take down the signs requesting that women dress modestly. The center, which has been fighting against the exclusion of women in society in Beit Shemesh for the past decade has invited numerous members of the Knesset to participate in the tour, which is also aimed at showing the Charedi communities in Beit Shemesh that women’s rights are not to be taken lightly. The tour will be taking members of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality around to meet women from the communities of Beit Shemesh who have complained about the signs and about how women are treated in the city in general.

Following the recent decision by the High Court of Justice that is forcing Beit Shemesh’s Mayor Moshe Abutbul and City Hall to remove the signs, numerous residents have continually replaced the signs, mere hours after they have been removed. Tensions in the city revolving around the issue are on the rise and the tour, scheduled for Sunday morning is expected to make matters worse.

MK Yisrael Eichler from United Torah Judaism has asked Speaker of the Knesset Yuli Edelstein to prevent the tour from taking place tomorrow so as not to inflame the already high tensions in the city.

While rabbis in the city have not issued a statement regarding how to act during the tour, or hat response to make, Israeli media have published statements by residents that have showed that many people who live int he communities are of the opinion that the tour, being organized by the Reform Movement’s Center for National and Religious Affairs, is aimed at causing provocation and anger amid the Charedi population. One official from City Hall said that: “The tour won’t be allowed to pass without incident unless the police are out in force to prevent residents from interfering or simply shut down the tour.”

Head of the Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality Aida Touma-Suleiman (Arab Joint List) said: “The request to cancel the committee’s tour of Beit Shemesh tomorrow is another attempt to exclude women and trample on their rights in Beit Shemesh, something which the women of those communities have been dealing with for many years. It is an attempt to get us, women, to shut our eyes against these troubling and outrageous trends.

MK Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union) said: “It is not surprising that these same elements that are responsible for the exclusion of women, of Reform Jews, and of everything that is not exactly like they are, would request that this important tour of Beit Shemesh be canceled. If it were up to Eichler women wouldn’t be allowed in the Knesset at all. That is what it is like in his party. Those who wish to maintain this affliction of the exclusion of women from society can find us on Sunday morning in Beit Shemesh.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)