To the editor:

Jerusalem, Israel.

Another win for UK’s Hassidic women. On Wednesday, the 3rd of June, the Equality and Human Rights Commission informed the Hassidic Belz community that its ban on Belz women members' driving their children to its two Yeshivas was “unlawful under the Equality Act 2010”. The Yeshivas/schools - Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass, a boys’ primary school, and Beis Malka, a primary school for girls - are located in North London. The Guardian newspaper reported the following about the ruling, on Friday, 5 June,

“The schools had said that, from August, any child driven to school by their mother would be turned away at the gates. The letter said the ban was based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel.

But now Ahron Klein, chief executive of the schools, said the ban was made without the approval of the governors and that mothers would be able to drive to the schools.”

Of course, any prohibition against women driving is not part of the Halacha - translated as "the path that one walks", but commonly viewed as the collective body of Jewish religious laws derived from the both the written and oral Torah and the Talmud - rather it is a paternalistic, manmade rule, under the guise of tzni’ut.

A woman from the Belz community, or someone on behalf of an aggrieved Belzer woman, more than likely complained about the ban. Since the ban began in August of 2014, the beginning of the school year one can be reasonably sure that if a woman wants to remain in the Belz community she must obey the Rebbe’s edict as set forth in the letter. Indeed, as is well known, many Hassidic women, Belz included, follow their Rebbe’s edicts joyfully and absolutely, without any hesitation. I now live close to the Ger - in Hebrew Goor - community in Israel, and my father grew up in a Ger home, I can attest to the blind and unquestioning obedience of the Chassidim in that sect, regardless of their gender. If a Ger Chasid or a Ger woman, does not follow the Rebbe’s edicts that person will be punished or worse, cut-off by the sect, including in many cases one's family.

In the UK Belz case the "mistake" that the educational administration made was putting what was purported to be a “recommendation” from their Rebbe, in writing: Something that they will likely never repeat.

That error led to an excellent result: the sect's women are now legally required to drive their children to school and doubtless other places, as well, e.g., to shop. However, it is widely known that Hassidic women are in need of more freedoms. They, like Muslim women in Saudi Arabia, are required to separate themselves from men. For example Ger women are forbidden to speak

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to men other than those in their nuclear family, this includes cousins and uncles. They are also forbidden to walk with their husbands. Separation of the sexes is absolute.

There are those who believe that change must come from inside the Hassidic sects, or from the greater Jewish community, including in London. For example, by censuring actions by Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth England which, could include disallowing Chasidim from minyanim. But, that has not and will not occur. One might ask why. The reason: Chief Rabbi Mervis does not have the courage of his religious convictions.

Indeed, neither does Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, David Lau, or his father, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, formerly Israel’s Ashkenazi Rabbi, and now the chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv. Similarly, the Rabbis of America’ Orthodox Union do not have the courage to speak out. Their view is that this is not their Gisheft – Yiddish for business. Thus, crimes committed by Hassidic men, whether honor killings in Israel, beating of wives and children worldwide, starving their families because learning is more important to them than their families’ well-being, are just overlooked by the Orthodox community.

Why do Hassidic women and children suffer abuse at the hands of their husbands and fathers, and no one speaks out for them? Not the sects Rebbes, their underlings or the greater Jewish community. Are Jews so daft or devoid of chesed? Remember, it is the extremely rare occurrence when a Hassidic woman has the mettle to voice her concerns, or her outrage. Consequently, because Jews do not scream Gevalt – the Yiddish expression of fear or shock – government entities and human rights groups must challenge the practices religious and other groups that repress women, under the guise of some practice that men instituted. It is a “shande for the goyim” that they must do our work, as did the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission.

American Jews, particularly New Yorkers, who are neighbors of the Hassidic sects, many of whom that are predominate across Brooklyn, but also live in every borough of the city, must take a role in ferreting out abuse in the Hassidic community, because it festers there, and women and children are quietly enduring abuse. Let’s be clear, we Jews are not immune from the barbarism that is so fundamentally a part of human nature. And, because the U.S. has no human rights law, anti-discriminatory laws, whether Title XI of the Higher Education Amendments of 1972 and its 1975 regulations, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, its amendments, and the regulations or their state equivalents, must be employed to free girls and women in the Chasidic community from their suffering.

Maltreatment

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