The suit to end the forced gender segregation at funerals was filed by a woman, Susanne Ayad, who directly suffered from this discrimination. She was aided in her suit by the Israel Religious Action Center of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, which was founded by the Reform Movement in 1987 and acts as its public and legal advocacy arm of the movement in Israel.
Above: illegal gender segregation signs in the the Givat Ram cemetery in Jerusalem in December 2013
Israel’s Highest Court Outlaws Forced Haredi Gender Segregation At Funerals
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Israel’s highest court ruled yesterday that forced gender segregation at funerals, most often employed by haredi rabbis, is illegal, the JTA reported.
The ruling overturned two lower court rulings that dismissed a lawsuit filed four years ago against the official government hevra kadisha (burial society) of the City of Netanya.
In 2013 after a widespread public outcry against this forced gender segregation, almost always ordered and enforced by haredi rabbis employed by the state, Israel’s Ministry of Religious Services issued a memo telling rabbis not to gender segregate funerals unless specifically asked to do so by the immediate family of the deceased.
That move reduced the number of such incidents.
But ministry orders are not the same as laws, do not have the same legal force as a law passed by Knesset, and can easily be changed at the whim of whomever is the current minister of religious affairs. That position was just returned haredi hands by the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, making the court’s ruling yesterday especially important to women’s rights and anti-discrimination activists.
The suit to end the forced gender segregation at funerals was filed by a woman, Susanne Ayad, who directly suffered from this discrimination. She was aided in her suit by the Israel Religious Action Center of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, which was founded by the Reform Movement in 1987 and acts as its public and legal advocacy arm in Israel.