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Driving Miss Delilah: Leading Israeli Rabbi Bans Women From Driving

The chief rabbi in the city of Holon, Avraham Yosef, has issued a religious decree banning women from driving — again bringing extremists in both Islam and Judaism to a mutually agreeable position with regard to women’s rights.


Yosef insisted that, absent an emergency, women should not drive because it undermines modesty and chastity. Yosef is a Sephardi representative on the Chief Rabbinate Council (Moetzet Harabbanut Harashit).

It appears that another Rabbi, Shmuel Halevi, issued a similar ban saying that suggestive looking women were causing auto accidents.

New York city authorities yielded to demands from Hasidic religious leaders to remove bike lanes to discourage women from biking through their areas.

Previously, Yosef issued an order that Israeli judges and senior figures in the government could not join in a prayer quorum. Because they did not accept the supremacy of the Torah in disputes, he insisted that “[w]e must ignore their existence, as if they were just air.”

He further explained “The judge himself, even if he knows how to pray very well, even if he knows how to do everything excellently – from the moment he was appointed judge he made himself unworthy of joining a quorum . . .Even if he promises that all his rulings will be in keeping with the Shulchan Aruch, he has still lifted his hand against the Torah of Moshe Rabbeinu and is not worthy of joining anything holy.”

Source: Malaysian News and Reddit

Jonathan Turley

56 thoughts on “Driving Miss Delilah: Leading Israeli Rabbi Bans Women From Driving”

  1. “Yosef insisted that, absent an emergency, women should not drive because it undermines modesty and chastity.”

    So I guess men should not drive either then. Or is it OK for men not to be chaste?

  2. “Ms. EM,
    Did you watch Hit Parade? My mom and sisters did so I got to see the program and actually looked forward to the weekly presentation.”

    I watched “Your Hit Parade” avidly because my parents did and we had only one TV. I became turned off by it and it made me angry due to their longtime refusal to recognize Rock and Roll as legitimate music. I did like Snooky Lanson though.

  3. Okay, I really like that P. Page song as one of my favorites. I sang it often, via request, to my little nieces, nephews, and cousins and then my son when he was young.

  4. FF Leo,

    I think I may have watched the show. It sounds familiar. I definitely remember watching Rosemary Clooney and Patti Page on their TV shows.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AkLE4X-bbU&fs=1&hl=en_US]

  5. Ms. EM,

    Did you watch Hit Parade? My mom and sisters did so I got to see the program and actually looked forward to the weekly presentation.

  7. Gee, it’s too bad that men aren’t hermaphroditic. Then again, who could they blame for things like getting into car accidents if there were no women around.

    😉

  8. Well, some of us boyz was so po’ back in the day we didn’t have to worry about causin’ a car accident. Without wheels we had to be:

  9. Anonymously Yours
    1, January 8, 2011 at 7:58 am
    The number one causes of auto accidents are females in college city’s…You don’t believe me…go in the spring time to Austin…Its hard to keep your eyes on the road…wait these women are not driving…its still hard though….

    =============================================================

    You can look but you can’t touch … 🙂

  10. Pingback: Huh? A Jewish fatwa. | Whatever Works

  11. I am a woman. Many years ago when running through upper Manhattan in my runner’s shorts and tank shirt, I came across a Hasidic man. He looked and me and shrank back in horror covering his eyes as if he had seen the devil. This was in the late ’80’s. I was pretty insulted but didn’t want a confrontation. What’s the point?

    Meanwhile, Israeli economists are predicting economic Armaggedon unless the high percentage of Orthodox get off the dole and actually go to work. They are paid by the State of Israel for “reading Torah”. This may work if the numbers are kept down, but the Orthodox birth rate is astronomical compared to secular Israelis.

  12. The number one causes of auto accidents are females in college city’s…You don’t believe me…go in the spring time to Austin…Its hard to keep your eyes on the road…wait these women are not driving…its still hard though….

  13. Swarthmore mom
    1, January 7, 2011 at 5:45 pm
    No religion religion sounds good – no hell, no rules just spirituality.

    =======================================================

    There you go … just spirituality!

  14. Crazy cretins worry about women behind the wheel, while they should worry about getting the first self-driving cars to the public.

    It will have taken us more than a century to finally make the automobile live up to its name.

    Progress is a slow process, I guess?

    With people like the rabbi here behind the speakers, kinda figures.

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