Authorities in a southern Israeli city have threatened to close its only shopping centre after the Charedi sect whose members own it allegedly ordered the removal of any images of women from the site.
The major mall in Arad was recently acquired by the Gur Hasidim group, according to Haaretz.
In recent days, though, the new owners reportedly demanded that all “female symbols”, including pictures of female models, be removed.
One kiosk owner told Ynet: “[The new managers] came here and said there can’t be a picture of a woman at the stand. Before that, most of the stand was filled with photos of couples — Valentine’s Day, weddings, families. But she demanded that there be no presence of a woman.”
Shopkeepers also reported female mannequins being dressed more modestly, in line with Charedi standards rather than those of the general population.
This practice is common within Charedi-majority areas due to the community’s strict interpretation of religious modesty laws, but the municipal government in Arad insists it is a “secular city” (though around 80 per cent of the population is Jewish) and that the ban on female imagery is illegal.
In response to the reports, Arad’s mayor, Yair Maayan, said: “We will not allow any party to influence the character of a city in which an overwhelming majority of residents are secular and which functions as a secular city alongside religious and Charedi communities that respect everyone.
"If the violation of the law at Arad Mall and the harm to women do not cease, the municipality will act to close the mall immediately.”
Likewise, Haim Shiman, the municipality’s legal adviser, declared that the ban is “severe, improper, and illegal” and “directly harms human dignity, gender equality, and the fabric of public life in the State of Israel in general, and in the city of Arad in particular, which is secular and liberal”.
"[The] systematic exclusion of women from the public sphere is not an innocent cultural matter but prohibited discrimination...[it] normalises the erasure of women, presents their very appearance as improper, and subordinates the public sphere to extreme views that are not consistent with the fundamental values of Israeli society,” he added.
Menachem Kain and Simcha Greenbaum, the Gur Hasidim members who bought the mall, insist that they are not forcing anyone to remove images of women, but claim they simply spoke to retailers regarding the potential economic benefits of attracting more Charedi customers.
Recounting one such conversation, Greenbaum said: “I told the owner that once the place invites our community, they will come and then you’ll make money. This isn’t politics; politics is at city hall.”
"We know the needs of the residents,” he went on. “That’s what it means to be on the ground. We are people of Arad and we know every corner here. To this day, there are residents of Arad who have never set foot here.”
“Arad is a small city,” said Kain. “For this mall to succeed, 100 per cent of the public needs to come here, including the Arab sector. Until now, the [Charedi] sector wasn’t here, even though it makes up more than 50 per cent of the city.
"These are large families with children who don’t shop online but in physical stores. That’s a very strong consumer force.”
But some business owners who opposed the apparent changes claimed that they had received a letter from management saying that their lease was not being renewed, while another predicted that most of the existing shops would be gone “in six months or a year”.
"They want this to be a mall with business owners from their community, with customers from their community, and there won’t be room for us,” they added.
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