Ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups find the female image ‘offensive’ and women’s voices seductive so they ban both. In recent months, women’s faces have disappeared from billboards across the city due to defacement of posters with women on them.

Despite being successfully challenged in Israel’s Supreme Court, segregation of women on buses serving ultra-Orthodox neighbourhoods still persists. During a recent Jewish holiday attempts were made to establish gender-specific sidewalks in Mea She’arim. In state religious schools, where boys and girls once studied together as a matter of course, they are now being segregated from first grade. The Orthodox Haredi Kol Berama radio station has banned women broadcasters and prohibited the broadcast of songs by female vocalists and interviews with women.

And you thought only Islam was anti-woman?

On the bright side, secular activists are fighting back. Hila Benyovich-Hoffman organised a series of demonstrations last week in which hundreds of women gathered for ‘singalongs’ in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Beersheva to demand their right to a public presence…

The above are just a few more reasons why religion has to be a private matter and kept out of the public space.

Via National Secular Society’s Newsline.