7 reasons the events of Yom Kippur in Tel Aviv are worrying signs about Israel

When is prayer not prayer but rather a political act of coercion and oppression -- and yet another slide towards radical religious dictatorship in Israel.

Anyone who cares about little things like freedom of religion, or women’s right to move around freely in public spaces, should be quite concerned by yesterday’s events in Tel Aviv.

Yes, yesterday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, a day when all of Israel stops – no cars on the roads, no businesses open, when all of Israel, like it or not, grinds to a halt out of respect for the Jewish Tradition. However on this particular Yom Kippur, a group of religious Jews decided to flex their muscle in the middle of the secular, liberal heart of Israel by sending women behind the curtain in the middle of Dizengoff. With the help of the police. And the retroactive support of the Prime Minister. Who used it to slur his political enemies. All this, by the way, despite the supreme court rulings that made the actions of this religious misogynist group illegal. The supreme court just last week ruled that gender segregation in public spaces in Israel is against the law. But that didn’t stop this group, which tried to do it anyway. Then all hell broke loose, and the group claimed to be victims as opposed to instigators, the police and prime minister supported them, and the rest of us are left with our jaws dropped.  

Why? Why am I so alarmed by all this? Let’s break it down. Here are seven reasons why these events have me worried. Very worried.

Watch this post in video with captions, or read the transcript below

(1)    The religious group purposely defied the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ruled right before the holiday that this group, Rosh Yehudi, “Jewish head”, could not erect gender dividers in the middle of the street. They did it anyway. Which is exactly what this coalition has signaled it may do if Bibi doesn’t like the way the Supreme Court rules on some of the things happening with his coalition. That is, he has signaled that he may simply defy the Supreme Court. He and his coalition members together have signaled that they may simply ignore the Supreme Court – which could be the beginning of the end of the Supreme Court, or possibly a microcosm of the constitutional crisis that is coming.

(2)    The police helped the religious group.

Members of the Israeli police physically pushed women aside. Not for the first time. They also did it recently on a "Day of Unity", a "tefillin day" that was organized in Tel Aviv. And when women came to also participate in this "day of unity", and were pushed aside by people who were praying in this “day of unity” – by men who didn't want women there – the police helped the men and pushed aside the women and started interrogating them and asking them for their IDs and all of that. So that recently happened, without the backing of the Supreme Court at the time. Here we have it happening again. The police, with this group, defied the Supreme Court, and pushed women aside. They physically removed women. Even though it is against the law.   Can you imagine? So the police has now become a tool of a religious radical misogynistic agenda.  They have the police on their side. This is actually happening. Even though it’s against the law. Don’t let anyone tell you that Israel will never be Iran. It’s already happening. The police are being used to shove aside women in order to support religious men and their religious agenda. We are here.

(3)    The Prime Minister publicly supported the religious group, not the Supreme Court

You would think that the non-religious I-eat-shrimp-on-Yom Kippur Prime Minister Mr. Bibi Netanyahu might have sympathy for a non-Orthodox public, the majority of Israelis by the way. But no. He immediately came out in full support of the religious radicals, and used the events to attack the left. He said, “there are no boundaries, no norms and no limitations on hatred from the extremists on the left.” So he is protecting a radical religious takeover of Tel Aviv, not civil liberties. Not the supreme court. We know, obviously, where his political loyalties lie.

(4)    The Prime Minister overtly lied about events.

Why are we even surprised? The 4-pinnochio liar-liar-pants-on-fire prime minister Bibi Netanyahu blamed the episode on the extremists on the left, when in fact the entire episode was a result of extremists on the religious right. He said the exact opposite of the truth. It is the right wing religious extremists who knowingly and purposely broke the law in order to take over public spaces and send women behind a curtain. Bibi twisted truth and reality, as is his specialty, and blamed events on “left-wing demonstrators rioted against Jews during their prayer.” Again, this is a complete distortion of events, the exact opposite of what actually happened. Nobody rioted against prayer. They protested gender segregation in public spaces, which is illegal and which violates women’s rights to freedom of movement. So that’s Bibi. Liar liar pants on fire.

(5)    The purpose of this is to turn all of Israel into an Orthodox place, including Israel’s public spaces

This group, Rosh Yehudi, overtly says that its purpose is to turn Israelis into orthodox Jews. You can call this “outreach” or “kiruv” if you want to whitewash this kind of missionary activity. But the bottom line is, it is an attitude which disrespects non-Orthodox Jews on the most basic level, seeing non-Orthodox Jews as not only wrong in everything, in their entire lives, but also as needing “fixing”. It is an attitude of people who think that the whole Jewish people must be Orthodox, and that it is their job to turn other people Orthodox. People who are not Orthodox need to be targeted and "fixed".  And not only do they fundamentally see non-Orthodox Jews as needing to be changed and fixed, but they see their divine mission as doing that, they think that they then have the right and almost a divine obligation to turn Israel’s public spaces into mini-Orthodox synagogues.  Just so we understand the end game. They have succeeded in doing that at the Western Wall and lots of other pockets around Israel -- Meah Shearim, or whatever it is. So, why not keep going? Tel Aviv!

(6)    In this version of Judaism, to be truly religious means to turn women powerless and invisible.   

We should stop talking about this in terms of gender “segregation”, as if it is dividing spaces into two equal parts, one for men and one for women, that are the same but just separate, like separate but equal. They are not equal. In this orthodox version of segregation, the men’s section is where life takes place as usual. It is where people speak, lead services, read from the torah, sing out loud, and do everything that jewish people do when they pray. The women’s section is for the spectators. Period. Powerless, voiceless, uncounted, covered up spectators. The men’s section is the shul where people do stuff, and the women’s section is the galleys. The observers. The audience. If there are zero women present, everything goes along as normal. Whereas, if there are zero men present, there is no shul. So let’s not think that this is just for the protection of women. That’s a lie. It’s for the removal of women so that men can have a women-free zone. No contamination by female bodies and voices. It is not gender segregation but the erasure of women.

(7)    Not a single member of the coalition thinks that there is anything wrong with any of this.  

While several members of the opposition have called out these events, and have accused the Prime Minister of sowing hatred and ignoring the rule of law, not a single member of the coalition has.

And why would they? The coalition is committed to legalizing gender segregation – or female erasure – including holding all-male events in their own conferences, as the communication ministry did just two weeks ago.

I would argue that the religious community has become extremely comfortable with the whole idea that it is their job to police the religiousness of all of Israel. To turn all of Israel orthodox, or orthodox practicing. As it is, the religious political parties have managed to control the marriages and divorces of all Israelis, laws about public transportation on Shabbat in Israel, and even the way people eat on Passover. This is already happening. It’s already here. This kind of behavior – the policing of Israeli Jews’ religiousness, and by the way everyone else who lives here — has been going on for decades, and only getting worse. And the religious community – and possibly everyone else – has accepted this idea that for certain religious Jews, being religious means turning everyone else religious.

Nobody in religious leadership seems to be questioning this, the basic idea that non-Orthodox Jews need to have their behavior regulated by religious people in power.

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Just ask yourself how far you would be willing to let the government into your personal life. Your religious life, your spiritual life, your everyday decisions. Controlling what you’re allowed to eat, what you’re allowed to wear, whom you’re allowed to marry, whether you can get divorced, who you sleep with, what you do in your bedroom? Are you willing to have a government with religious radicals in power poking around in your life and telling you where you can walk on the street, suddenly having the police come and physically push you aside to a different part of the street asking you for your ID because you are possibly breaking the law by walking down the street as a woman or whatever gender you happen to be that happens to be illegal in that spot? Whether you’re allowed to speak in public or whether you can sing in public, what you’re eating or wearing?

How much of that are you willing to have in your life regulated by the government with the support of the police?

Does this disturb you at all?

Well, we’re already here.

Don’t say Israel will never be Iran. We are fully on that path already.  

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