National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the Kaplan Force protest organization will hold opposing evening prayer services in Dizengoff Square on Thursday, they announced following the events of Yom Kippur.
The announcement was made after multiple fights broke out in Tel Aviv and other cities in Israel on Yom Kippur over gender-segregated prayers in public spaces.
The biggest fight broke out in Dizengoff Square on Sunday evening as the worshippers began the holiday’s opening prayer of Kol Nidrei. Some members of the congregation set up a partition to separate between men and women despite bans on segregation issued by the municipality and maintained by the High Court.
In response, protestors disrupted the prayers, and the incident devolved into unrest and fights in which two were arrested.
Be-Gvir and Kaplan Forces announced their prayer services
Following the incidents, Ben-Gvir announced his prayer service which is planned for Thursday at 5 p.m.
“I say to those anarchists, we, Otzma Yehudit and I, are coming on Thursday for evening prayers in that same place, and let’s see you trying to remove us,” he said in a video he released on Tuesday. “And I call on everyone: secular people, religious people, traditional people, Ashkenazis, sephardim… Prayer belongs to everyone. This is a Jewish nation.”
Following Ben-Gvir’s announcement, the Kaplan Force announced their prayer service “for the democracy and unity of Israel” which is set to take place an hour-and-a-half after Ben-Gvir’s.
They added that their service would be held “without social segregation” and that their service had been given official approval by the Tel Aviv Municipality which Ben-Gvir’s had not.
Commenting on the events of Yom Kippur, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai said on Monday night that gender segregation in the public sphere goes against the city’s nature and that he would not allow anyone to do so. He also added that anyone who couldn’t respect that wouldn’t get municipal approval for events in the city’s public spaces.
Ben-Gvir did not mention whether his prayer service would include separation between men and women and didn’t respond to a request for comment on the matter.
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