STORY OF ON AGAIN OFF AGAIN CONCERT DILEMMA

AND THE CONUNDRUM OF THE HAREDIM

Ruling Too late: High Court bars gender-segregated concert, when it’s almost over Ultra-Orthodox officials celebrate as hundreds attend segregated Motty Steinmetz performance in Afula; dozens briefly squabble with Tiberias mayor who tries to protest event

The High Court on Wednesday overturned a local court decision allowing a gender-segregated concert, but the ruling came too late to stop the event from going ahead amidst celebrations from ultra-Orthodox officials.

The High Court accepted the petition from the Women’s Network, which said it contravenes the principle of equality and ruled that Nazareth District Court Judge Atef Eilabouni had overstepped his authority.

As part of his ruling earlier Wednesday, Eilabouni recommended that the municipality agree to a compromise in which the amphitheater be split in three for the concert, with a woman’s section above a men’s section as well as a mixed-gender area.

However, shortly after the ruling was handed down, Afula mayor Avi Alkabetz announced that the concert would be held with full gender segregation.

But the High Court ruling came just as the concert was ending.

HAREDIM ARE NOT INTERFERING WITH THESE SUMMERTIME MIXED EVENTS: 

The Fifth Docu.Text Film Fest kicks off August 18-22 at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem timesofisrael [but when it's a Haredi summertime event, they are vilified]

Anava Park in Modi’in has an adventure playground, splash park, duck pond, boating lake, café, picnic areas, biking trails, zipline and trampolining, and evening concerts in the summer.
AND ANY OF THESE 32 SUMMERTIME EVENTS: Top 32 things to do with kids in Israel in the summer

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox revelers came to hear pop-hassidic singer Motty Steinmetz.

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri from the Shas party excitedly addressed the crowd before Steinmetz took the stage, declaring the court’s reversal a victory for ultra-Orthodox Israelis.

“Whoever tried to coerce their lifestyle onto others lost today. They tried to impose their ways on to people who bought concert tickets according to their beliefs and in accordance with Halacha,” he said, referring to Jewish law.

Deri went on to lambaste Blue and White MK Yair Lapid, who supported the initial decision to bar the concert from being gender-segregated.

In lauding the initial decision, Lapid declared “we’re not in Iran. This is the state of Israel.”

“You’re right. This is not Iran. This is is a Jewish state,” Deri retorted, accusing Lapid of “inciting against the ultra-Orthodox public.”

Shortly before the concert kicked off, Tiberias mayor Ron Kobi arrived in an apparent attempt to provoke concert goers. Kobi has clashed with Haredi residents of his town over calls to limit their presence and influence in Tiberias.

Upon spotting the mayor on the concert grounds, a handful of attendees began crowding around him as others booed. Police eventually arrived at the scene and ushered Kobi out of the site.

The concert was the only one of over 300 events put on by the city over the summer that had segregated seating as it was aimed at the local ultra-Orthodox population.

The ruling sparked widespread outcry from right-wing lawmakers, particularly Haredi ones, who claimed that the court was preventing ultra-Orthodox Israelis from maintaining religious modesty customs.  timesofisrael

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit waded into the debate on public financing of gender-segregated events for the religious community on Wednesday, issuing a statement saying that they may be legally permissible under “special circumstances.”

Mandelblit offered his legal opinion in response to an appeal brought by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party against a decision by the Nazareth District Court to prohibit the Afula municipality from holding a gender-segregated musical performance at a public park. timesofisrael

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Personal opinion: The spiritual level of the Haredi society in this era of the Geula is something to be embarrassed about. Grown men and younger bochurim, idolizing “singers” even if they are “Frum” and even if “something needs to be offered during the Yeshiva ‘vacation’ (which is an oxymoron), so not Tznius and befitting of the religious Jew. Of course this is my opinion, but one can view a video HERE and see for yourself the state of religious affairs in 2019, just 20 years in which we hope to greet Mashiach.