Tel Aviv Municipality and Rabbis Reach Court-Validated Selichot Agreement
The Community Rabbis Association and Tel Aviv Municipality reached an agreement validated by the District Court, allowing the Selichot event at Tel Baruch Beach to proceed as planned.
The Community Rabbis Association announced today (Friday) that it has reached an amicable agreement with the Tel Aviv Municipality, which has been given the validity of a ruling by the District Court.
According to the understandings, the Selichot event featuring Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv this coming Saturday night at Tel Baruch Beach in Tel Aviv will take place as planned, starting at 23:00.
Yesterday (Thursday), the Community Rabbis Association petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court against the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality after the latter refused to allow a mass Selichot service with physical partitions at Tel Baruch Beach on Saturday night.
According to the association, although the municipality had issued provisional approval for the event—planned with the participation of Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, City Rabbi Zevadia Cohen, and neighborhood rabbis—it conditioned it on a ban against gender segregation using physical barriers, which they argued violated the participants' freedom of religion and prevented proper prayer.
It should be noted that the Supreme Court ruled last year that there is no problem holding segregated prayers if they do not take place in an "intensive" location, such as Dizengoff Square or Habima Square. In this case, the prayer is scheduled for late at night at a secluded beach on the city's outskirts. It must also be emphasized that the term "segregated" did not appear in the agreement between the municipality and the rabbis.
