Times of Israel reports that yesterday a unanimous 3-judge panel of Israel's Supreme Court ordered the municipality of Tel Aviv to permit the Orthodox Jewish outreach organization Rosh Yehudi to hold outdoor sex-separated Yom Kippur services. According to the report:
The ruling comes after the Tel Aviv Municipality refused to allow such a service with a gender partition anywhere outdoors in the city, citing a municipal ordinance banning public gender separation and despite being requested by the court to agree to such a compromise.
Last Yom Kippur, Dizengoff Square was the scene of a violent struggle between secular activists and a group of Rosh Yehudi worshipers when the organization defied a municipality ban on a prayer service with a gender partition, a decision upheld by the courts, by setting up a barrier made of Israeli flags....
During Wednesday’s hearing, the three justices were highly critical of the Tel Aviv Municipality’s position, accused it of discriminating against Orthodox worshipers and were frustrated by its refusal to countenance the compromise suggested by the court to move the prayers to Meir Park....
The ruling itself, ordering the municipality to accept the compromise the court offered, was issued without the reasoning behind it due to the time constraints of the case, coming just days before Yom Kippur which falls this Friday night and Saturday.
