Haredi Extremists Ban Women From Mea Shearim

Sicarii move to ban entry to Mea Shearim by women on Sukkot. Women's sections of synagogues either closed or open only to members showing special ID. Non-haredi women plan march through Mea Shearim Friday as city does not intervene to ensure open access to public streets to women.

Haredi extremists versus visitors - women are not invited
Gender relations, Mea She'arim style: Non-Haredi women plan a march through the neighborhood Friday morning to protest discrimination against women.
By Yair Ettinger • Ha’aretz

The posters put up Tuesday in Mea She'arim, a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox ) neighborhood of Jerusalem, answered some questions about what to expect during the week-long Sukkot holiday, and especially the mid-holiday Simhat Beit Hasho'eva celebrations. On one hand, contrary to rumors, women will not be forcibly prevented from entering the neighborhood. On the other, women are definitely not invited.

But that is not a good enough reason for a group of non-Haredi women to cancel a planned march through the neighborhood Friday morning to protest discrimination against women. On the contrary: They are threatening to petition the High Court of Justice against the police for having given them a permit to demonstrate only outside the neighborhood rather than in Shabbat Square, as they had wanted.

One poster, signed by the "Committee of Residents of Mea She'arim and the Vicinity," a group backed by neighborhood extremists, said the women's sections of their synagogues would be open only to the women "of each congregation, upon presentation of a special card."

Next to it were posters from Toldot Aharon, the largest Hasidic sect in Mea She'arim. Though Toldot Aharon is known as a bastion of zealous separatism, for one week a year, it welcomes thousands of visitors who come to participate in the dancing that is part of the Simhat Beit Hasho'eva, and perhaps to leave behind a few dollars in contributions.

But for the first time in its history, the poster put up yesterday announced that its women's section would be closed to the general public on the nights of the Simhat Beit Hasho'eva.

The poster, which was also printed in English, said that overcrowding and safety concerns were behind the new rule. After all, Toldot Aharon would be loathe to admit that it had bowed to pressure from even more extreme forces. One such force is a group calling itself the Sicarii. Another is Yoel Krois, who crowed yesterday, "This Sukkot, women have no reason to come to Mea She'arim. That is our victory."

But the Karlin Hasids, who are known to welcome even secular Jews, have rejected the demand to keep women out. One Karlin Hasid told Haaretz his group had received a threat that a stink bomb would be thrown at their study house, but it would not recant.

In recent years, even the neighborhood's official leadership has demanded stricter gender separation during the Simhat Beit Hasho'eva.

But this year, the extremists demanded that only men be allowed to walk the quarter's main street, while women would use side streets - a plan that was scrapped after yeshivas on the side streets complained. The Haredi factions on the city council also quashed a demand that public transportation be barred from the neighborhood for the duration of Sukkot.

Mayor Nir Barkat has apparently decided to let the Haredi groups work the matter out among themselves.

And the neighborhood's official leadership, the Va'ad Hageula, released a statement yesterday pledging that "any person may enter Mea She'arim from any direction."

Comments

[the usual chaim]

i think it is so bizarre that a group of haredim willingly call themselves sicarii when the RABBIS (or at least their leader, Yohanon ben Zakai) condemned precisely the sort of extremism they represented as a cause of the destruction of the temple.

[Maskil]

I saw those signs last night. They state that "groups" passing through the neighborhood severely disturbs its residents. "PLEASE, STOP THIS!"

I didn't know what it was about or why it suddenly sprung up. Now, I, well, I still don't understand. But clearly those who reside (in the legal sense) in that neighborhood are annoyed by the groups that pass, or will pass, through the neighborhood. Should their feelings be receive any less protection than the sensibilities of the Arabs who have legal (school, mosque, sanitation etc.) reasons to be on the Temple Mount?

I, and anyone who looks too Jewish (I'm not freaking kidding, if you're a pass you're exempt - only this past Passover was an exeption) are singled out and escorted by "special escort" on a "special route" with "special guidelines" applying only to us, and hearded in this fashion until exiting the gates of the plateau in a manner so reminiscent of 1939 Germany, only that since the uniformed men enforcing this procedure are Jews...wait, didn't that happen in Germany too?

Anyhow, fair is fair. Barkat said that he'd enforce the laws equally for Jews and for Gentiles in his city, and if an illegal Jewish structure must be torn down then structures of Gentiles with the same legal dilemma will be receive the same law. One law for one people (the Israeli people). He should be doing the same here, if the sensibilities of the residents are threatened (especially if those "residents" tend to be violent) they should receive the same police protection. If they don't then the Temple Mount should should not be controlled by the Capos.

A fair law is not unfair - in a good democracy. This principle has even stood true in good dictatorships. Whatever type of government, we will see if Israel will choose this day between life & good, and death & evil, in that we were commanded to love the Lord our God and to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that we mayest live and multiply: and the Lord our God shall bless us in the land whither we came to possess it - or not...

[Garnel Ironheart]

I think the big money will go to the geneticist who figures out how to use parthenogenesis in humans. The male Mea Shearim crowd will be able to reproduce without needing women and only have male offspring. Anyone working on this?

[chaim1]

on another point.
I once visited meah sheorim and attended a 'tish'. In the middle a coach load of 'kibbutsnik's' arrived. I spoke to one who speaks english and he explained to me that this is their satuday nights entertainment and they come on shabbos in a coach and park it just outside.
I would ban all 'tishen' and the excuse that they would be mechalel shabbos anyhow and go somewhere else doesnt wash with me.

[Mr. Apikoros]

They're public streets If the residents of Mea Sheirim are annoyed that they've turned their neighborhood into a sightseeing mecca, they have only themselves to blame.

[nachos]

"Haredi Extremists Ban Women From Mea Shearim"

Maybe they will stop reproducing

[Yochanan Lavie]

Nachos: They'll split apart, like amoebas, and reproduce asexually.

[Alter Kocker]

Orthodox Judaism = Sexual Immaturity, Emotional Immaturity and Ignorance in the name of piety.

Give us a break-stay in the succah all year long and shake your lulav for all its worth.

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

YL -
you mean assexually?

[Maverick]

Isn't it great that the Charaidim are on the way to solving their own problems? If they take this movement to its logical conclusion, women will be banned from Charaidi neighborhoods. If there are no women, then they can't procreate, and after about 50 years there will be no Charaidi problems!

[justayid]

it seems like the karlin are being sensible

[justayid]

maskil - IIUC the temple mount is not a public street.

[Maskil]

maskil - IIUC the temple mount is not a public street.

It is public property belonging to the State of Israel, annexed in 1967, and no less public than Zion Square between Yaffo and Mahaneh Yehudah in the City Center, or Shabbat Square at the corners of Ha-Nevi'im, Me'a She'arim and Strauss streets between Geulah and Mea Shearim.

[the farshlepte krenk]

It is wakf land, as is al-maghrabiyya quarter, whose residents were evicted and homes demolished to make way for a very ugly western wall plaza

[Menachem Mendel lll]

NO JUDE FRAU or DOGS ALLOWED.

[Maskil]

It is wakf land

When a city mayor presents a man with a "key to the city" that city is as much the private land of the possessor of that key as the Temple Mount is in posssession of the Waqf.

The gates into and out of the plateau are completely controlled by Israeli police officers. A special unit is in charge of deciding when and who may enter - and the Waqf has the power to disagree with these decisions (the same power I have over the land). Ariel Sharon ascended in defiance of the Waqf's wishes. Hillary Clinton ascended and entered the Dome of the Rock in defiance of the Waqf's wishes. So did Pope Benedict (he knows which part is holy and which part is for money changing). And so too the tourists who go up every weekday from Sunday though Thursday - contrary to the my and the wishes of the Waqf. The plateu is patrolled at all times by between 30 and 50 (on average) Israeli police officers armed with large machine guns, grenades, crowd dispersal weapons and heavy body armor. The Waqf has neither control nor legal claim to the land which was taken from Jordan, annexed by Israel, and from which Jordan officially withdrew any claim years ago.

Legally the Temple Mount plateau is no different than Kikar Zion, Kikar Shabbat or Kikar ha-Iriyah.

[george]

test

[Radical Feminist]

YL writes"They'll split apart, like amoebas, and reproduce asexually. "

I remind you that asexual sex is forbidden by Jewish law and causes the offender to grow hair on their palms.

[A. Nuran]

This is the logical extension of Charedism's iron control over sexuality. I would not be surprised to see it evolve even further. Kollel as well as yeshiva will be dorm life. Charedist men will live there. They will visit their wives' apartments for sex. When boy children are six or seven they'll move into the men's lodge.

After all, isn't men and women sharing a home a custom of the goyim?