The Chief Rabbinate and the Ministry of Religious Services in a filing with the Supreme Court agrees that the use of an attendant during immersion at a ritual bath will be changed from mandatory to optional.
The state religious bodies were responding to a suit filed by ITIM, a group that supports Israelis in their encounters with the country’s religious bureaucracy.
“Female mikveh bathers can decide for themselves whether to follow this halachic rule (immersing in the presence of the female mikveh attendant), including bathing by themselves or with the company of a friend, while the local religious council and its employees will not condition the bathing with the presence of the female mikveh attendant during the ritual bathing,” reads the response, delivered Wednesday morning to the court by the state attorney’s office, according to ITIM.
Minister of Religious Services David Azulay visits a luxury mikveh in the Israeli settlement of Alon Shvut, as he tours the Gush Etzion bloc on August 25, 2015. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
The response clarifies that the religious position of the Chief Rabbinate is that immersion in the mikveh must be done in the presence of a female mikveh attendant, and that signs to that effect should hang in all mikvehs.
— JTA
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