J'lem rabbi bans bikes for girls over 'modesty violations'

Eliezer Moshe Fisher rules that riding requires female cyclists to lift their skirts, which is a stumbling block for male purity

A Jerusalem rabbi has banned girls in his community over the age of 5 from riding bicycles, claiming it “constitutes a grave violation of modesty.”

In his ruling, Rabbi Eliezer Moshe Fisher said last week that riding a bicycle requires girls to lift their skirts to the extent that it becomes a stumbling block for maintaining male purity, according to the religious Kikar Hashabbat website.

“We are informing parents they are to prohibit girls aged 5 and over from this unacceptable behavior,” the rabbi’s ruling ordered his Nachalot-area community.

“Recently, modesty has been breached by young and adolescent girls riding their bicycles, such behavior constitutes a grave violation of modesty,” he announced in a document apparently publicly displayed in the area.

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Fisher made headlines in Israel in 2004 when he suggested to police that pig fat be placed on buses, in order to deter Muslim suicide bombers who may want to avoid contact with an animal they believed to be unclean.

A report by Maariv newspaper at the time said that Fisher had determined there was no halachic ban on such a practice.