"If women walk around immodestly, there will be no protection": Rabbis call to bypass the new beach in Tiberias

The short, beautiful, and familiar road leading from the center of Tiberias to the south, only about 4.5 kilometers long along the promenade by the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, near the old cemetery and up to the tomb of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, continues to serve as the scene of a religious-social battle over the character of Tiberias and perhaps even a much broader national conflict. The reason is the new mixed-gender beach, "HaTrapez," which was recently prepared by the Tiberias Municipality at the southern entrance to the city. The topographical structure of the area, where the sidewalk and the road overlook and peer down at the beach strip, has become, according to Haredi sources, a terrible obstacle to modesty for tens of thousands of believers and yeshiva students who are on their 'bein hazmanim' vacation and visit the holy sites in Tiberias, including the tombs of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, the Rambam, Yochanan ben Zakkai, and Rabbi Akiva.

However, now the local struggle is shifting gears and crossing city limits. In a flyer distributed in Haredi neighborhoods under the headline "A Grave Warning for the Sake of the Sanctity of the Camp," the rabbinical leadership issued a dramatic directive: a sweeping ban on passing through the coastal route near "HaTrapez," and an explicit instruction to travel via an alternative, bypass road through the Poriya ridge, from the southern side of the city. In practice, the meaning of the rabbinical directive is replacing a simple and short trip of a few minutes with a long and prolonged route of about 30 kilometers.

"And he who guards his soul and the souls of his household shall not pass by the entrance of sin, Heaven forbid (Rachmana Litzlan), until the matter is corrected and approved by the rabbis," the flyer states, citing the Talmudic source regarding "if there is another way."

Furthermore, educational institutions, yeshivas, and summer camps were called upon to completely refrain from bringing groups along this route.

Tension surrounding the HaTrapez beach began several weeks ago. At first, representatives of the Haredi public on the city council tried to present a compromising line. Shimon Cohen, a member of the municipal coalition from the "Ma'aminim b'Tveria" faction, proposed a concealment solution: "We came with a demand, a modest request, nothing more: we did not ask to close the beach on Shabbat or holidays. We asked for a nice partition, some kind of flowers or bushes to separate the sidewalk from the beach. Do not force us to see things we do not want to see. The city belongs to everyone." However, the tone escalated quickly. Local rabbis, including Rabbi Yekutiel Ohav Zion, an associate of Rabbi Dov Kook, arrived at the beach strip and issued much sharper warnings, drawing a direct link between the sights at the beach and the security and safety situation:

"In a place where there is promiscuity and women walk around immodestly, there is no protection. Soldiers die not because Haredim do not enlist, but because there is promiscuity. If naked women walk around and everyone passing by in cars sees bad things - there will be many disasters."