Israel has rejected a billboard campaign by Reform Jews that urged female passengers at Ben-Gurion Airport not to give up their flight seats to ultra-Orthodox men refusing to sit next to women.
The Israeli Religious Action Centre (IRAC) had hoped to run a billboard campaign at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv during the Jewish holiday Passover.
Responding to the campaign on Twitter, MK Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi) called the Reform movement “a bunch of trolls.”
Some ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, Jewish men say their religion’s modesty laws forbid them from sitting beside any woman who is not their wife.
However, the IRAC said it believed female passengers were still being discriminated against since the ruling.
IRAC said it had reached an agreement on the fee to display the ads when the airports authority denied permission, on the grounds that “we steer clear of any advertising that is political or divisive”.
It had also planned to display the adverts at New Jersey’s Newark International Airport, which is used by high numbers of ultra-Orthodox Jewish passengers. But it decided to focus on Ben Gurion due to costs.
“It makes much more sense to do this in Israel, which is where the main problem is,” said Ms Sattath.
> Shiuly Akter
Israel Block Airport Adverts Urging Women to Deny to Give up Seats
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