Thousands of worshipers gathered at Charles Clore Park on Sunday morning to celebrate Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice. The practice at this location, where Tel Aviv meets Jaffa, is nothing new. The grassy open space along the coast of the Mediterranean, perfect for picnics and other outings, is a choice venue for nightly family break-fast barbecues during the Islamic month of Ramadan.
Nor is it out of the ordinary for Muslim-Arab citizens of Israel to engage in gender separation during prayers, which they did at the event in question—with physical barriers dividing between the men at the front and the women at back.
Two things made this annual religious ceremony at the location in question noteworthy. One is that this year, it included signs calling for a ceasefire, with the slogan: “The innocent people of Gaza are in Jaffa’s heart.” But even that wasn’t novel, judging by the behavior of Israel’s Arab citizens, including residents of Jaffa, during Operation Guardian of the Walls against Hamas in Gaza in 2021.
Far more significant was the apathy to the happening on the part of all the secular leftists who spent years blocking any attempt by Orthodox Jews to separate men and women in public areas. The adage that “it takes one to know one” is particularly apt here, as the chattering classes constantly accuse the right of opposing “freedom,” while being guilty of just that.
After the Knesset elections on Nov. 1, 2022, while Benjamin Netanyahu was in talks to form what would become the current governing coalition, the Religious Zionist and United Torah Judaism parties were demanding that legislation be enacted to enable gender segregation at publicly sponsored events without its being deemed discriminatory. Their aim was to prevent a repeat of a court-ordered cancellation in 2019 of a sold-out concert by renowned singer Motty Steinmetz at the Afula Municipal Park.
The ruling—one of many that backed anti-Orthodox appeals over the years—was spurred by a “Women’s Lobby” petition challenging the separate seating that had been arranged in advance for the mainly haredi audience.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Ruth King
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, http://www.ruthfullyyours.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.