For the second time this month, the Tel Aviv District Court postponed ruling on a petition asking it to order the municipality to allow sex-separated prayers on Yom Kippur on public grounds.
In the hearing on Thursday, Judge Erez Yakuel instructed the municipality to obtain by Sept. 19 a position paper from the Tel Aviv Religious Council, which is subordinate to the Chief Rabbinate, on the municipality’s claim that Jewish law does not require a divider to separate the sexes when praying outside.
The municipality claimed this at a preliminary hearing last week on a petition by 14 residents and the Rosh Yehudi group, whose mission statement is strengthening Jewish identity. The petitioners went to court following the municipality’s refusal last month to issue a permit for the annual Yom Kippur prayer that Rosh Yehudi has been organizing at Dizengoff Square in recent years. The holy day begins this year at sunset on Oct. 11.
The events of last year’s Yom Kippur prayer at Dizengoff Square, which Rosh Yehudi held with a permit, shocked Jews and others across the world. Secular activists interrupted the event, tearing down Rosh Yehudi’s dividers—frames made of flexible materials to symbolically separate the sexes while respecting the municipality’s ban on physical barriers. Some activists threw prayer books into the square’s fountain as they harassed and chased away Jews trying to pray on Judaism’s holiest day.
At last week’s hearing, the judge postponed ruling because he wanted the parties to compromise. Rosh Yehudi told the court it would move the event to anywhere in the city. The municipality insisted it could not allow sex-separated prayer because this would discriminate against women.