Attorney general blocks plan for sex-segregated swimming at 2 natural springs

Gali Baharav-Miara’s office says legislation is required for making the change, prompting a Haredi lawmaker to pledge to advance a bill on the matter

Cnaan Lidor is The Times of Israel's Jewish World reporter

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara speaks during a conference at the University of Haifa, December 15, 2022. (Shir Torem/ Flash90/ File)
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara speaks during a conference at the University of Haifa, December 15, 2022. (Shir Torem/ Flash90/ File)

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has vetoed the Environment Protection Ministry’s plan for sex-segregated swimming at a number of natural springs.

Baharav-Miara’s decision Thursday follows the suspension last week by her office and by legal advisers of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority of a pilot program announced by Environment Protection Minister Idit Silman at two nature reserves in August.

Silman’s plan was to add after-hours time slots at the two reserves – Einot Tzukim and Ein Haniya near Jerusalem — for religious Jewish and Muslim visitors whose observance precludes bathing with members of the opposite sex.

In a statement, the Attorney General’s Office wrote: “Following the review of the plan led by the environment protection minister for sex-segregated swimming in nature reserves in the summer, it was clarified that this requires authorization in legislation. Under the current legal situation, the Nature and Parks Authority is not certified to limit entry to its facilities on the basis of gender. It requires explicit, certifying legislation.”

Whereas Israel has 16 beaches with segregated swimming arrangements, none of the dozens of nature reserves with water springs accommodate this modesty-based constraint.

The issue is controversial in Israel, where many seculars fear religious coercion by the right-wing and religious government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Many religious Jews feel marginalized by what they view as a liberal elite in the judiciary and other centers of power.

Minister of Environmental Protection Idit Silman speaks during an Interior and Environmental Protection Committee at the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem, on March 20, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Under the current laws, segregated swimming infringes on equality even if it happens after hours, Baharav-Miara is reported to have told Silman in a conversation.

Moshe Gafni, a leader of the Haredi United Torah Judaism party, criticized the move as discriminatory and added that it lends impetus to a bill that he submitted earlier this year for regulating sex-segregated swimming at nature reserves.

“The other side apparently is not interested in compromise,” Gafni wrote in a statement, seemingly treating the attorney general’s interpretation of current law as opposition action.

“My bill for regulating the issue is on the table at the Knesset and, in lieu of the planned pilot program, we will need to advance it so that the demographics interested in segregated swimming in Israel will also be able to enjoy Israel’s natural resources,” he added.

A waterfall spills into the Hexagonal Stream in the Golan Heights. (Courtesy of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority)

Silman did not respond immediately to a request for a reaction to the attorney general’s decision. Israel Hayom quoted sources close to her as saying: “The push for equality and pluralism ends when it comes to the needs of the Haredi and Arab devout public. As far as the attorney general is concerned, there’s no room for measured and understanding civic agreements across sectors on implementing the preferences of the public in all its diversity.”

Moriya Litvak, the director of Yehudit, a conservative women’s rights organization, said in a statement that the attorney general’s decision was proof of the necessity of the government’s judicial overhaul, which aims to weaken the judiciary and the justice system to bolster the power of elected officials.

“This shows us the need for a judicial reform that would safeguard women’s rights in the public space in a respectful and dignified manner, to counteract the actions of the attorney general, whose latest move discriminates against women,” Litvak said, referencing religious women who cannot swim in non-segregated spaces.

Liberal feminist activists, including Karni Ben Yehuda, a campaigner against segregated swimming, view the concealment of female body parts as patriarchal oppression. Litvak and others dispute this, arguing that religiously devout women are the driving force behind modesty in their circles.

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