The ads signed by the rabbi of the city of Bnei Brak, the rabbi Moshe Yehuda Leib Landa, calling on the female public to observe the rules of modesty on the holiday of Purim and not to congregate on the streets of a city - succeeded this year in angering MK Ksenia Svetlova from the Zionist Camp, who is demanding that the Bnei Brak municipality remove what she calls "exclusionary signage" from across the city.
The ad that managed to anger the MK stated: "Based on the experience of what happened on Purim night on the streets of a city, I appeal to the parents of Beit Israel and the educators to warn the girls not to go out on the streets of a city on Purim night. All due respect, Bat Melech, to stay inside and celebrate the joy in their homes in every family, God forbid, from going out on transportation to events and the like.".
The city rabbi then turns to the "students and yeshiva students" and asks: "To observe the joy of Purim, which is the joy of a mitzvah, not to turn it into debauchery, and to be very careful within the bounds of modesty. The crowds in the streets are the kind of rascals who exploit the time of joy for debauchery and theft, and it is a great disgrace to stand around them.".
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The rabbi further reads: "And we have the duty to remove this scourge from our streets.".
In a post she published on Facebook, MK Ksenia Svetlova uploaded a photo of the ad - and wrote: ""Who said women should be excluded and didn't accept it?" In this ad, which, to be honest, would look great in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, the rabbi of Bnei Brak demands that women 'not go out into the streets of the city on the night of Purim.' Why? Like this. Because a woman's place is in the home, and joy, Purim, and the rest of life's pleasures are for men only.".
Svetlova, who apparently has difficulty reading rabbinical proclamations, continues and writes: "And another interesting nod to all lovers of women's exclusion: 'We have a duty to remove this scourge from our streets.' Remember this word: scourge. Daughter? Wife? Sister? Niece? Mother? No, no. Just a scourge that needs to be removed from 'our streets.'.
""And I say - it is not and cannot be that the laws of the State of Israel do not apply to many parts of it. This horrific division begins at a very young age - with separate education, with exclusion and hatred of foreigners. This is the case throughout the country, not just in Bnei Brak. Then it continues into adult life, with opacity, an inability to accept the other, and a lot of gratuitous hatred.".
In her opinion, "The Bnei Brak municipality should remove these signs that denigrate Jewish culture and heritage and the great women in our history, such as Deborah the prophetess, Yael the wife of Heber the Kenite, and Ruth the Moabite, who would today be forced to be ostracized from the street.".
And she has "another point to think about: if this was the practice during the Megillah period, we wouldn't have heard about Queen Esther, and probably the Purim miracle wouldn't have happened.".
At the end of the post, she wrote: "I urge you to share the post, until this degrading and ostracizing signage is replaced with calls for all women and people of the city to celebrate the holiday. A miracle that happened thanks to a woman, and she is Queen Esther.".
A source in the Bnei Brak municipality told Haredim 10: "It's a shame that the MK is speaking about something she doesn't understand. What the ad is about is not the women, but the young people who riot in the streets out of debauchery.".
