Accommodating the special needs of religious Jews whose standards of modesty go beyond the letter of the law should not be a problem as long as it doesn’t inconvenience others. But often ideology gets in the way of that. Which boils over into hatred. It doesn’t matter what the ideology is. When one ideology is honored at the expense of another, that is unjust. And that is the cause of much of the heated divisiveness that exists in in Israel today.
Two very different reactions illustrate this sad reality. (One of which on the secular side I recently discussed.) The subject is gender separation. If you are an observant Jew, gender separation is a modesty issue. If you are a secular Jew, gender separation is sexist and an unnecessary inconvenience.
Is it possible to accommodate both perspectives? I think the answer is yes - if we take common sense into consideration. There are times when gender can be separated and times when they should not be. But when ideology is the only guide, then one side will always win at the expense of the other.
This brings me to an opinion piece in the Times of Israel by Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll. Who said the following:
“Some will gain and no one will lose.” So said Idit Silman, Israel’s minister of environmental protection, of the plan to add extra hours for gender segregated times before and after public hours at the natural pools in two nature reserves.
Unfortunately, adding gender segregated spaces means we all lose.
How can I, a religious woman, who theoretically should be glad for the opportunity to swim among only women, feel this way?
Because separate is almost never equal
We all lose? This implies opposition to gender separated facilities. I sympathize with her concerns. But not her implied solution. An example of what she is talking about is the following:
… members of the (Bnei Brak) city council decided to see whether the women’s days at the beach were “kosher” enough. After investigating (with binoculars), they determined that the separate beach was not acceptable after all, and canceled the buses that went from the city to the beach. They did not forbid the beach, but, practically speaking, they removed it as an option. Now women who want to go to the separate beach must take two buses or wait with hordes of other women for an infrequent bus to a more distant separate beach.
Her implied opposition to separate gender facilities because they are unequally applied to women is an injustice to the very people she wants to help. These women will have no place to go swimming if there are no gender separated beaches anywhere.
This is where common sense comes in. Fairness demands that religious sensitivities be accommodated in ways that do not treat women as second class citizens. Which they often are. Instead of always inconveniencing women for purposes of modesty, men ought to share the burden of inconvenience. Let the men take two crowded busses to remote locations.
Women should not always be the ones to pay that price. If one gender must be inconvenienced for purposes of modesty it ought to be shared by both sexes. The burden cannot always be heaped upon women.
As Shoshana noted beaches are not the only area where gender segregation is always at the expense of women. This is where the strict letter of the law be applied instead of forcing the stringencies of one group upon the other. So that such things as men and women using sidewalks on different sides of a street ought never to allowed on a public thoroughfare. Even in their own neighborhoods. In private areas - if that's want, they can implement it there.
Public transportation should never be sex segregated. Even in neighborhoods where this is a preferable stringency. If on the whole they choose to do so, they can self segregate as a practical matter. But if someone gets on the bus that does not wish to do that, they ought to have the right to sit where they choose. The letter of the law will still be followed.
By the same token, if a secular Jew is asked to change seats with someone whose modesty standards go beyond the letter of the law, if it doesn't inconvenience that passenger to change seats they ought to do so as a common courtesy.
I don't know. To me this is all common sense.
