I had a nice little piece of trivia all ready to be written up for this week’s post, a light-hearted look at dental flossing and the vagaries of Google searches. But then, of course, life intervened, as it sometimes does, and calls of ‘Hold the front page!’ were heard in the editorial room of my head. So, personal hygiene will have to wait for another time, while we contemplate, instead, events in Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur eve.

For the last three years, Rosh Yehudi, an orthodox religious group, in a conscious act of outreach, has held two prayer services, at the start and the end of Yom Kippur, in Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv. These services have become very well attended by a range of congregants, from orthodox to secular (albeit a breed of secular that seems characteristically Israeli – secular but with a sense of respect for the traditions). The services have, in the past, accommodated both separate seating areas for men and women, with a dividing mechitza of wood or metal, and, further back, an area of mixed seating. The services have been largely celebrated as an inspiring example of mutual tolerance and of across-the-board identification with the Jewish nature of the state.

This year, in the build-up to Yom Kippur, the following happened.

1. Rosh Yehudi applied for a licence to hold its traditional services.
2. The Tel Aviv – Yafo municipality, under mayor Ron Huldai, refused to license gender-separated prayers in Dizengoff Square, arguing that gender separation is not permitted in the public space in the city.
3. Rosh Yehudi appealed the decision, and both a local court and, subsequently, the Supreme Court, upheld the municipality’s decision.
4. Rosh Yehudi decided to proceed with gender-separated prayer, as in previous years, albeit with Israeli flags replacing the solid mechitza of previous years.
5. On Yom Kippur eve itself, police made no attempt to enforce the municipality’s ban as upheld by the Supreme Court.
6. Demonstrators, finding the square impassable, then prevented the erection of the ‘mechitza’ of Israeli flags; some disrupted the prayers by shouting, sitting on seats designated for the other sex, and, in some cases, eating in front of congregants.
7. There were angry scenes between congregants and protestors. Many congregants appeared deeply upset by the anger. One protestor who dismantled a flag was detained and questioned by police.
8. Rosh Yehudi eventually decided to withdraw to a nearby synagogue and hold the service there.

Let me start with a couple of observations on the ruling of Ron Huldai and his municipality. Presumably, in the public swimming baths and in the beachfront facilities in Tel Aviv, there are separate changing rooms for men and women. Similarly, public toilet facilities in Tel Aviv are gender-separated, In other words, it is accepted by everyone that there are exceptions to the general rule that there is no gender separation in the public space. The municipality has therefore made a conscious decision that the halachic requirement to segregate the genders during prayer services should not be supported as an option at a prayer service in the public space. This is a decision that the municipality needs to explain, rather than hiding behind the general rule, to which it recognises that there are exceptions.

While it is at it, the municipality could also explain why it did not, at the end of June this year, similarly refuse a permit for the gender-segregated Muslim prayer on Tel Aviv beach marking Eid-al-Adha.

Let’s turn now to the leaders of Rosh Yehudi. Having, quite legitimately, taken their protest at the municipality’s ruling all the way to the Supreme Court, and had their appeal rejected, did the organisers genuinely think that creating a mechitza out of Israeli flags was not in contravention of the court’s ruling? Even if they did, did they honestly imagine that opponents of this plan would let it pass in peace? Are they really so tone-deaf to the discord that has been sounding on the streets of Tel Aviv and elsewhere for nine months now? Did they truly believe that their action would further their declared aim of creating a space for inclusivity, of attracting secular and non-religious traditional Tel Avivians. Or did they rather feel that to back down would look like weakness and would reward victory to ‘the other side’?

Next, consider the demonstrators. Their concern that the public space not be blocked or closed off and that the law be upheld does not appear to extend to every Saturday evening, when parts of central Tel Aviv become impassable, and when breakaway groups of demonstrators repeatedly, and illegally, block the major artery of the Ayalon, frustrating hundreds, if not thousands, of drivers and passengers. Equally, their outrage at Rosh Yehudi taking the law into their own hands and defying a municipal order led to them taking the law into their own hands, rather than allowing the legal authorities such as the police to decide on the appropriate action.

Following the events of Erev Yom Kippur, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security and head of the far right-wing Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, announced that he would hold a gender-segregated prayer service on Thursday evening in Dizengoff Square. After many other politicians publicly condemned this idea, Ben-Gvir backed down. In displaying what seemed suspiciously like restraint (but mat simply have been political expedience), Ben-Gvir ended up looking like the closest thing to a mature adult in the room. This in itself gives some indication of just where we are as a country. As I may have remarked in an earlier post, we are never going to be able to begin our essential journey back to a feeling of national unity until key players start caring less about who is right and more about what is right.

Meanwhile, on a lighter note, supermarket shopping in Portugal is clearly a more enjoyable experience than it has been recently in holiday-season Israel, and, in Zichron, the first rains arrived this Sunday, bringing Raphael toe-to-toe with his first rain puddle. Does life get any better than this?