Bar-Ilan University removes regulations requiring modest clothing, skullcaps

Institution officials say rules had not been enforced in recent years, citing diminishing percentage of religious students

By ToI Staff 24 October 2019, 2:14 pm

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The Bar-Ilan University campus in Ramat Gan (CC BY-SA Bar-Ilan University/Wikimedia Commons)

The religious-minded Bar-Ilan University has eliminated regulations that forbade immodest clothing on campus and obligated men to don skullcaps at Judaism classes, according to a report Thursday.

University officials told Haaretz that the regulations had not been enforced in recent years, citing the dropping percentage of religious students compared to secular ones.

Students had until now been required to sign a form indicating their acceptance of the regulations when starting their studies.

The text had encouraged men to wear yarmulkes at all times but demanded it in religious classes, while stressing that revealing clothing “is harassing and hurtful to the feelings of the campus population.”

The text still notifies students that the academic institution operates “in the spirit of the Torah and tradition of Israel.”

The university was formed in 1955 as an institution with a religious Jewish character. Its main campus is located in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan and it currently teaches some 19,000 students.