Ministry of Justice complains: Separation between men and women at Hilula in Meron

June 29, 2014   

A Justice Ministry team examining the phenomenon of women's exclusion from the public sphere submitted an activity report to the government today (Sunday).

The Movement for Governance and Democracy claims that the Ministry of Justice personnel do not abide by their decisions or the rulings of the Supreme Court, and therefore the movement calls on the government to disband the team.

Attorney Simcha Rothman from the Movement for Governance says that, according to the report, the team is acting in violation of the Law Prohibiting Discrimination in Products and Services, and is trying to impose an extreme interpretation that is contrary to the law on various government agencies in the State of Israel.

Attorney Rothman explains that the Law Prohibiting Discrimination in Products and Services explicitly states that "the existence of separate frameworks for men or women, when non-separation would prevent part of the public from the provision of the product or public service, from entering the public place, or from providing the service in the public place, provided that the separation is justified, taking into account, among other things, the nature of the product, public service or public place, its degree of essentiality, the existence of a reasonable alternative to it, and the needs of the public that may be harmed by the separation - should not be seen as discrimination.".

""The team chose to ignore this section of the law and in effect established an interpretation that is not even consistent with the Supreme Court ruling that permitted segregation. The Justice Ministry officials gave an extreme interpretation to the point of an almost blanket ban on segregation," says Attorney Rothman.

In the team report submitted today, Justice Ministry officials complain about the separation of men and women in Meron during the Hilula, an event with distinct religious characteristics, even though according to the law and Supreme Court rulings, there is no prohibition against maintaining segregation in this place.

The chairman of the Movement for Governance and Democracy, Yehuda Amrani, says that the Justice Ministry team, which was intended to clarify the scope of the phenomenon of women's exclusion, its severity, and ways to address it, did not include members who were familiar with Haredi society or the reality on the ground, but rather the team was composed entirely of lawyers from the Justice Ministry. "This is a fundamental failure that indicates a complete disconnect from the Israeli discourse and reality.".

Amrani claims that by doing so, "the team has effectively become a tool of struggle and persecution against the religious and ultra-Orthodox public, without any justification, and therefore the government must order the dispersal of the team and the cessation of its activities, which is contrary to the law and case law.".