A ruling issued by Jerusalem Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar halted a long-standing custom of women, married and single, to immerse in a mikvah ritual bath the day before Yom Kippur to heighten their sense of spiritual purity.
Earlier this week, Amar sent a letter to Rabbi David Banino, head of the Jerusalem religious council’s mikvah department, telling him that mikvah directors and attendants should not allow women to immerse in the mikvaot they operate unless it is the correct night for them to immerse, according to Jewish family purity laws.
This would exclude married women, singles, divorcees and widows who wish to immerse in a mikvah for spiritual purposes ahead of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
The motivation behind Amar’s ruling was what he described as "awful promiscuity." He explained that in current times “we have arrived at a situation so awful that things which we were embarrassed to think about in private and in inner sanctums have become a symbol of freedom and progress.”
Today, he explained, “People who are modest are considered to be mentally ill and oppressed, and people glorify in abomination.”
Amar’s concern regarding promiscuity appears to be a concern that unmarried women who immerse in the mikvah will then justify having sex outside of marriage.
Under Jewish law, married women must immerse themselves in a mikvah following the completion of their menstrual cycle, before they are permitted to have sexual relations with their husbands again.
In recent years, some religiously observant, unmarried women who wish to have sexual relations with their partners have also sought to immerse in a mikvah first, a practice the Chief Rabbinate and some local rabbinates have sought to ban.
Amar’s directive to stop women from immersing for spiritual reasons on Yom Kippur was strongly criticized from several quarters, however, including the Itim religious services advisory organization.
In a letter to Religious Services Ministry director Shimon Ma’atok, Itim attorney Meira Friedman said Amar’s decision was illegal and harmful to the religious traditions of women in Jerusalem who are accustomed to immersing in a mikvah on Erev Yom Kippur, noting that the custom has been in practice for generations.
Friedman argued that closing women’s mikvahs due to promiscuity and not men’s was a form of illegal gender-based discrimination and violated laws regarding freedom of religion.
“It is unfortunate that on the eve of Yom Kippur, a time when Jews unite in reflection and humility, the Jerusalem religious council is choosing to divide Jews,” said Itim director Rabbi Seth Farber.
“The custom to immerse in the mikvah in anticipation of Yom Kippur is well documented in religious sources and the women who wish to practice this custom should not be prevented from doing so because of unfounded fears of ‘licentiousness.’
“Though this decision was taken at the last minute, Itim will consider legal action to ensure that this doesn’t happen in the future.”
Following Itim’s appeal to the Religious Services Ministry and media reports, the ministry decided to open two mikvahs in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, one on Minhat Yitzhak Street, on the corner with Ohel Yehoshua Street in the Givat Komuna neighborhood, and the other at Zevin Steet 2 in Neve Yaakov.
Yotvat Weil, 40, from Jerusalem, has been going to the mikvah on Erev Yom Kippur for the last eight years, and sought to go on Wednesday as well with her two daughters but discovered that her local mikvah was shut.
The mikvah attendants said they had been told to say the mikvahs were closed due to coronavirus, despite the fact that men’s mikvahs remain open.
Weil eventually went to a private mikvah outside of Jerusalem to immerse, along with her daughters, since the ministry’s instructions to open the two mikvahs came after she had already found alternative arrangements.
“This is unbelievable. Women immersing in a mikvah is a custom dating back at least to the 9th century. This is an ancient custom, it is a spiritual immersion and one which is about [spiritual] connection before Yom Kippur,” Weil said.
“Immersion in a mikvah is personal, and here they are forcibly preventing women from doing so in this violent manner,” she continued.
“This is something which belongs to women, yet Rabbi Amar with this aggression is essentially saying he is the owner of women’s bodies and the owner of my mitzvot and those of all women.
“Women have freedom over their bodies and freedom to fulfill mitzvot for themselves," she said. "Someone who wants to lock mikvahs can make other decisions and no one stops him.”