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Noah Efron
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A holy Yom Kippur in Dizengoff Square

Should gender-separated prayers be allowed in Tel Aviv's famed public space? This year calls us to ask a different question
Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv, October 7, 2024 (Noah Efron)
Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv, October 7, 2024 (Noah Efron)

For the sins between a person and God, Yom Kippur atones. For sins between one person and another, Yom Kippur does not atone; not until the one reconciles with the other.(Mishna Tractate Yoma, 8:9)

“Jewish and Democratic is the Israeli Ethos.” These seven words, taken from the Knesset website, seem like a simple declaration. They read like an answer to a question, maybe: “What makes Israel tick?” or “What are Israel’s most cherished values?” But, in fact, they are more of a question than an answer, more of a problem than a solution.

The easy pairing of “Jewish” and “democratic” goes back at least to Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which in one paragraph “declare[s] the establishment of a Jewish state” and in another says that this Jewish state “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.” If the authors and signatories of the Declaration noticed that the Jewish nature of the state they declared might conflict with the complete equality irrespective of religion, race and sex that they promised, none of them let on.

But of course they conflict. Whatever “Jewish” might mean, it is rooted in an ancient religious faith, with sacred books and binding traditions, while “democratic” is secular in nature. “Jewish” favors one particular people, while “democratic” holds as an axiom that all people are equal and deserving of equal treatment. “Jewish” is exclusive, “democratic” is inclusive.

The tensions between Jewish and democratic are hardly theoretical. One out of every five Israelis is not Jewish. Can they really be said to have “complete equality of social and political rights” in a “Jewish” state? Can they be expected to sing a national anthem that starts, “As long as the heart within the Jewish soul yearns forward toward the East, … our hope is not yet lost”? Can they thrive using a calendar with religious holidays they do not celebrate, learning history that does not describe their ancestors? And even among Jews, there is great disagreement about just what it means to be “Jewish.” Can secular Jews really be said to have “complete equality of social and political rights” if they need a Rabbi to marry, divorce or be buried?

Issues like these have been argued and legislated for as long as Israel has been around. In some areas, compromises (sometimes messy ones, sometimes ugly ones) have been found. Rabbis still do weddings here, but marriages consecrated abroad, including lesbian and gay marriages, are recognized by the state. Stores can stay open on Shabbat, in some places and at some times. But conflicts between “Jewish” and “democratic” remain, and figuring out how to balance the two is one of Israel’s greatest, most enduring and most commonplace social and political challenges.

Right now, the High Court of Justice is trying, the latest of countless efforts, to puzzle out the balance in an appeal of a case called “Rosh Yehudi, et. al. V. the Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa.” “Rosh Yehudi” (which may – or may not — best be translated as “Yiddishe Kopf,” though their website renders it as “Jewish head”) is an Orthodox outreach group that encourages people in the city “to observe the Torah out of reverence for God, while listening to the life that is being woven here in Israel.”

READ: Despite winning court battle, group cancels outdoor Yom Kippur prayers in Tel Aviv

During the pandemic, “Rosh Yehudi” took to holding some of their Yom Kippur services in Dizengoff Square. They did this, at first, to follow Health Ministry limitations on the number of people allowed to congregate indoors. But outdoor prayers in the most storied public square in Tel Aviv, and probably in all of Israel, suited them. For one thing, passers-by joined them. For another, there was something triumphant about praying the most hallowed prayers of the year on the holiest day of the year, in what many people see as the Holy of Holies of secular Israeli life. This fit their view of what it means for Israel to be a Jewish State, which is a state in which yiddishkeit can be found everywhere: in schools, on stage and TV, in the army, at the Knesset, in the courts, and in city streets and squares.

It was mostly for the same reasons that some secular residents of Tel Aviv-Jaffa objected to Rosh Yehudi’s Yom Kippur services. For one thing, it felt like the group was proselytizing. Parents worried that their kids would bike by (on Yom Kippur, the streets of Tel Aviv, relieved of motorized traffic, become thoroughfares for children on bicycles), be intrigued by the group praying in the square, and one thing would lead to another. For another thing, there was something debasing about the symbolic center of secular Israeli life being taken over, even just for a day, by people in yarmulkas and tallises, doing whatever they do. The whole thing is at odds with their view of what it means for Israel to be a democratic state, which is a state in which religion has no place in schools, on stage and TV, in the army, at the Knesset, in the courts, and in city streets and squares.

And, there was another reason why some secular Tel-Avivians objected to the prayers. Like in pretty much all Orthodox services, Rosh Yehudi segregates men from women; each sit in their own section, divided by some sort of barrier (a mechitzah, in Hebrew), usually a free-standing screen. To some secular residents, dividing women from men has a Handmaid’s Tale vibe, a concern bolstered by the fact that women are prohibited from leading prayers, reading from the Torah, or doing much of anything else as part of the service. What’s more, Tel Aviv-Jaffa has a city bylaw on the books outlawing gender segregation at events that the city pays for or hosts on public property. To many people, Rosh Yehudi’s Yom Kippur services at Dizengoff Square were in violation of this bylaw.

It was with this in mind that, last year, the city gave a permit to Rosh Yehudi to hold services in Dizengoff Square but stipulated that the group could not up a physical barrier that would divide women from men. Rosh Yehudi litigated the thing all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the municipal prohibition of a mechitzah was lawful. On the day, Rosh Yehudi built a barrier anyway, out of wire fencing and flags. Secular activists showed up and a brawl broke out, leaving dozens of residents of the city, religious and secular alike, battered and bruised.

Secular activists take down a gender divider made of Israeli flags that was set up by the Rosh Yehudi group in defiance of a High Court order at a public prayer service in Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur. September 24, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

The rage of the thing was a shock to a lot of people in the city (I was one). Op-eds worried that the scrap was a harbinger of a civil war. Twelve days later, on Simchat Torah, October 7, Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis, and everything changed for all of us.

Well, not everything. This year, Rosh Yehudi again requested a permit to pray, with a mechitzah, at Dizengoff Square. This time the city refused the request flat-out, saying a decision had been taken not to allow prayers of any sort in public squares this year: “This municipal policy applies to anyone who asks [to pray in the public square on Yom Kippur], regardless of their religion and beliefs.” The decision is explained in a 32-page brief the city produced for the court. It begins by explaining that the local government will do whatever is needed to make sure that everyone who wants to pray on Yom Kippur, or any other day, has a place to do it:

there are prayer services in about 500 synagogues in the city, … 120 of which are owned by the Municipality, [and] the Municipality provides help to synagogues so they can have orderly services, each according to their own beliefs.

What’s more, the brief said, anyone who wants to pray in public is free to pray in public, in whatever which way, just as everyone is free to sing in public when the spirit grabs them.

Still, the City argued, it is always the job of local government to manage public spaces so that they serve everyone as much as possible, and all the more so for a city as diverse (queer and straight; Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze; black, white and brown; old and young; left, right and center; religious, secular and in-between, and every other divide you can imagine) as Tel Aviv-Jaffa. The City argued that giving over a city square to a small group that wants, for one crucial day, to turn it into a synagogue that most people have no use for, and some experience as an affront, is a dereliction of its duty to manage the public square in a way that best serves the most residents. This is true for any prayer service taking over any public square, the City says, but it is especially true for services run by men, with women seated off on their own. The balance is always a tricky one. Streets are barricaded and traffic snarled each year for a marathon that most city residents don’t run, and for a Pride Parade that most residents don’t march in.

The City’s brief is a beautiful document, citing Theodor Herzl and Avraham Isaac Kook, Yosef Karo and Maimonides, the Hafetz Hayyim and Yechiel Michel Epstein. Rosh Yehudi’s briefs are splendid, too, also enlisting Herzl as a prooftext, as well as Chief Justice Aharon Barak and philosopher Alain de Botton, historian Shlomo Avineri, sociologist Emile Durkheim, theologian Roger Trigg, and political theorist Richard Dworkin.

Taken all together, the hundreds of pages of documents produced by both sides of this case offer a masterclass on the paradoxes of liberalism, on how to balance conflicting systems of beliefs in a democracy, on what a city is for, on what prayer is for, on how public conflicts should be resolved and a lot more. Taken all together, the court documents take another small step towards figuring out how to make “Jewish” and “democratic” agree.

The problem is, on Wednesday the High Court is set to rule one way or another. One side will win, and the other will lose. Secular activists have already pledged that if the Court rules in favor of Rosh Yehudi, they will be on hand to break up the Yom Kippur services, as they did last year. And if last year is any guide, if the high court rules against Rosh Yehudi, there is every chance that they will try to hold their services anyway, with separate sections for women and men. In either case, it looks like we are barreling back toward what happened last year.

But at least one thing is very different this year than last: Dizengoff Square itself. Last year, it was just a city square. Since October 7, Dizengoff Square has become a kind of shrine to the victims. No one quite planned this. Families and friends just brought pictures of their loved ones and yahrzeit candles, and hand-written notes, and all sorts of artifacts, things that once belonged to the kidnapped and killed.

Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv, October 7, 2024 (Noah Efron)

It started in October, and it’s kept up ever since. Go any day, and you’ll see flickering candles. Go after a rain, and you’ll see that someone has replaced waterlogged photographs with new ones. The place is now a place of mourning. The place is now sanctified. Last year, it was unsettling that the square became a battleground on Yom Kippur. This year, it would be a transgression, a sin against the victims of October 7.

What we should do, all of us – Rosh Yehudi people, secular activists, and all the rest of us – is this. Whatever the Court rules, let’s ignore it. No matter what we think about this complicated issue, let’s all of us, on all the sides, try to look at what we do on Yom Kippur through the prism of what is Menschlich, what is decent, rather than what is and is not legal. Let’s do what is right, instead of insisting on doing what we have a right to do. And what is right, this year, is to leave Dizengoff Square to be what it has become: a hallowed place dedicated to the people we lost last year, and the people kidnapped who we pray will come home this year. Those who worship should worship where they always do, and if there is not enough room, the city has offered to erect a big tent outside with as many chairs as they need. Those who dislike religion should do that where they always do.

Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv, October 7, 2024 (Noah Efron)

And the argument should go on, in City Hall, in synagogue sanctuaries, in university seminar rooms, on the pages of the papers, in public meetings. By next year, hopefully, the hostages will be home, the dead will be mourned, Dizengoff Square will be back to being what it was. The poet Yehuda Amichai wrote, “I spread Yom Kippur across the whole year. Grapes ripen in their time. So how can sins, and their atonement ripen in one day?” We have all year to fight. We have a big, beautiful city to fight in and fight over. Let’s leave Dizengoff Square be for this one holy day.

About the Author
Noah Efron is a member of Tel Aviv-Jaffa's City Council, representing the green party, Hayarok Bamerkaz, and chair of the municipal Committee on Pluralism and Committee on Environment & Sustainability. Efron hosts TLV1's 'The Promised Podcast', which is generally considered the greatest contribution to Jewish culture since Maimonides. He is also chair of the Graduate Program on Science, Technology & Society at Bar Ilan University. He's written lots about the complicated intertwine of science, technology, religion and politics. His biggest regret is that he is not NORA Ephron.
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