The Yom Kippur prayer events in Dizengoff Square, organized by the Jewish Head organization headed by Israel Zeira, and turned into an out-of-control arena of conflict, continue to reverberate.
Just before the fast begins: Clashes at Dizengoff Square over gender segregation at Kippur prayer// TPS Eitan Elhadez
Less than a day after the Tel Aviv municipality revoked the organization's permit to hold public events in the city, claiming that the organization violated the conditions it undertook by holding the event under gender segregation, the organization did not surrender and is petitioning the District Court against the decision.
The organization's administrative petition was filed in court against the Tel Aviv municipality and the Israel Police. According to a "Jewish head," the municipality made an improper and unauthoritative administrative decision to punish the association with bias and extraneous considerations, by canceling all the permits it had lawfully issued at the request of a "Jewish head" in advance, as a step towards the start of the Sukkot holiday.
"The municipality is caught up in false propaganda"
In the application, the "Jewish Head" association notes that in the written hearing process, it complained to the municipality that it should be regretted that the Tel Aviv municipality, an administrative authority from one of the largest local authorities in the country, was perceived as false propaganda as a crop according to which the association violated the stipulation preventing "gender separation by physical means" in the Kol Nidre prayer on the eve of Yom Kippur 5724 and never happened.
Demonstrator against gender segregation in Dizengoff Square for worshippers: "There is an attack here in the public space" // Gideon Markowitz
According to her, she complied with the observance of the permit, as written and written, and did not maintain any gender separation by physical means during the Kol Nidre prayer and the closing of Yom Kippur 5724 at Dizengoff Square.
In the petition, the association added that the Israel Police, as the person responsible for enforcing any law in the public sphere, whose officers were present at Dizengoff Square on the eve of Yom Kippur 5724, unequivocally determined that the petitioner did not violate either the respondent's instructions or the rulings of the courts or the provisions of the law.
Clashes at prayer in Dizengoff Square, photo: Gideon Markowitz
Clashes at Dizengoff Square on Yom Kippur, photo: Gideon Markowitz
Removing the partition in Dizengoff, photo: Gideon Markowitz
The clashes at Dizengoff Square, photo: Gideon Markowitz
Clashes at Dizengoff Square during Yom Kippur prayers, photo: Gideon Markowitz
The association added to this the words of Israel Police spokesman Eli Levy, who stated in an interview on the eve of Yom Kippur that "no partitions were erected in Dizengoff Square on the eve of Yom Kippur," and that "the High Court's decision was respected by the prayer organizers."
Regarding the municipality's claim that a stage was set up in Dizengoff Square and that the municipality did not allow a stage to be placed at the event, the association clarified that it "wondered whether the municipality lied to the district court, in a proceeding to which the association was not a party, and the need for a stage stems from the need for a bimah in every synagogue and in every mass prayer event so that everyone will hear the prayers of the cantor, who passes in front of the ark/stage."
Huldai (archive), photo: Gideon Markowitz
In its view and defense, the association said that "this is an integral-essential part of the prayers of the High Holy Days: a cantor who goes up on a high pulpit so that everyone can hear him pray aloud, answer amen, and that he will fulfill the obligation of prayer to all those who do not know how to pray, and the association holds a structural engineer's permit for the stage, which it received in advance."
The association: Last year the municipality boasted on the stage
It also notes that it is not for nothing that the formal respondent did not dismantle the stage and did not demand that the organizers dismantle it, and that at the prayers held by the petitioner last year, there was a stage in Dizengoff Square. That didn't stop the municipality from boasting about filming the event and displaying it in its "town square" on Facebook.
The association is asking the court to cancel the municipality's decision to revoke each of the permits it issued at the time, and to order that the municipality must also hold an oral hearing for the association, including presenting evidence and witnesses to its justification.
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