Dizengoff Square is an iconic traffic circle in Tel Aviv that’s part of one of the city’s main shopping areas, thanks to the many designer shops and cafes that line its circumference. It’s not, however, where many people go looking for a meaningful religious experience. Except, that is, for one night a year. Since 2019, Dizengoff Square has hosted an annual mass prayer service of about 2,000 people, most of them wearing white, at the end of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.
The event, organized by Rosh Yehudi, a nonprofit that encourages Jews to embrace a religious lifestyle, has become a new holiday tradition cherished by many devout and seculars alike, in part because it connects their two groups at a time of growing polarization. But this year, that polarization seems to have caught up even with the Dizengoff Square prayer.
Last month, the Tel Aviv Municipality told the organizers that they could not erect a mechitzah – a physical barrier used during prayers to separate men from women in accordance with halacha, Orthodox Jewish law.
In response, Rosh Yehudi announced that the event would not be held unless the city withdrew its stipulation, because this would violate halachic principles. It is also seeking a court injunction against the city’s decision. The Tel Aviv District Court on Thursday rejected Rosh Yehudi’s petition. The group has not said whether it plans to appeal.
The dispute sees Mayor Ron Huldai, who is running for reelection next month, facing criticism that the city he runs is falling short of its own pluralistic principles. Advocates of the city’s ban on a mechitzah at the event, on the other hand, praise the move as a blow against religious coercion.
Seen more broadly, the dispute over the Dizengoff Square prayer service is a sobering example of how an initiative that once transcended Israel’s religious-secular divide has this year deepened it, amid the ideological clash over religion and state in connection with the government’s judicial overhaul.
Whereas synagogues remain unaffected by the municipality’s new policy, “the Municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo has declined the ‘Rosh Yehudi’ association’s request to conduct Tishrei holiday events and prayers, including Rosh Hashanah, in multiple public areas within the city,” Asaf Eshel, a senior spokesperson for the municipality, told The Times of Israel, naming the Hebrew calendar month. “The sole granted permission is for hosting the collective Ne’ilah prayers on Tsina Dizengoff Sq., with a stipulation against gender segregation during the prayer session,” he wrote in a reply to a query.
The mechitzah would infringe “upon freedom of movement based on gender [and] will not be tolerated,” he added.
In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that enforcing sex segregation in some public spaces is illegal if it infringes excessively on individuals’ freedom of movement. However, the ruling made significant exceptions, stipulating it may take place if alternatives exist and depending on the degree of disturbance caused. The Magistrate’s Court in Tel Aviv will soon have to decide on the law’s applicability in the case of the Yom Kippur prayer.
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We love Hashem. We love Am Yisrael. We love Toras Yisrael. We love Eretz Yisrael.
How sad that in Eretz Yisrael, Jewish people have legislated that keeping Torah in the public sphere is illegal.
