Here is a picture from the entrance to the Abu Kayak rafting site along the Jordan River from earlier today. It was posted to Facebook commenting on the need for appropriate entertainment opportunities for the Haredi community and that the Haredi community deserves to be serviced equally as everyone else is. The suggestion being that the current situation is inadequate with just several days over the summer designated at such sites for the religious public. Being a day designated for the religious public basically means people are requested to come fully dressed and not scamper around shirtless or in bikinis. As you can see in the picture, it does not mean the morning is hours for men only and the afternoon hours are for women, or Mondays for men and Tuesdays for women.
posted by Leah Aharoni
Now, something here makes no sense to me.
A concert in the park must be 100% separate. Even a compromise (recommended by the judge but rejected by all parties involved including the Haredi parties) to have a mens section, a womens section, and a family section is not good enough, but the Haredi community demands the event to be completely 100% separate seating.
Yet, a water park, rafting on a river, where people are swimming int he water and splashing and getting wet and soaking their clothes, that is perfectly fine to be mixed, family style.
That makes no sense.
I'll tell you what the difference is, as I see it.
The difference is that one event, the water park, is populated by people who want to go have fun. By their own initiative. Most people in the Haredi community, not everyone of course, want to have fun and do thigns with their family. They go out to concerts and sit mixed seating with their families. they go to the parks all over the country and are fine with the crowds being mixed. They go to hikes on trails, they go bowling, they hike through the river, all with mixed crowds. At the annual Sukkos concert in Bet Shemesh with no official separation (there is a sectioned off area for separate dancing), hundreds of Haredim show up to enjoy. No separation necessary. Most Haredim want separation at weddings and in shul, and that is mostly it.
The other event, the concert in Afula, is arranged by askanim. Askanim like to tell people what to do. According to the askanim, the Haredim need 100% separation. Nobody is even willing to speak up and say "I am perfectly fine with family style seating", probably because they are worried about the askanim getting them thrown out of shul and their kids thrown out of school. People are only rarely willing to oppose askanim publicly.
I think it is a shame that the community cannot have events catered to their needs and desires. I understand the legal claim against it, but I do not understand the limit of the opposition. Yet, with everyone upset that this womens lobby that appealed against it, and the judge that ruled against, claiming that they are patronising and telling the Haredim how to live their lives - I just want to say that most Haredim are perfectly fine with mixed, family-style, events, and had this concert been planned this way to start (not including Motti Steinmetz who personally would not sing at such a concert but other performers would and do), nobody would have said boo except a few askanim. As much as the womens lobby and the judge wants to tell people how to live their lives, the haredi askanim are equally as guilty of this.
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