Wedding Hall Installs Mechitzah in Elevator

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elevator-mechitzahThe Armonot Chein Hall has recently established an elevator with a mechitzah, separating it into two, with one side for men and one side for women.

The hall’s owner, Rabbi Yosef Cohen, a noted baal chesed and askan, is reported as saying that the use of the mechitzah is not mandatory and is decided by the renter of the hall.

Other halls have long had separate elevators for men and women, but this seems to be the first with one elevator divided by a curtain.

A local Yerushalayim rov who Matzav.com Israel spoke to said that while the goal is a good one, its implementation is not. “We need not be frummer than our gedolei olam, the einei ha’eidah, who have never advocated such a thing,” he said. “There are variables here that were not considered. Every decision has many different impacts, which is why proper guidance should be sought for such things.” He would not elaborate.

{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}


7 COMMENTS

  1. Rabbi Aharon Kotler, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenitzky attended many weddings with mixed seating, including the weddings of their own children.

    Rabbi Yosef Breuer, who was expert in all of shas, was not in favor of separate seating, because he believed weddings were a good place for Jewish boys and girls to meet.

    SOURCE:
    Mixed Seating at Weddings
    by Harry Maryles, 2006/2/23
    http://haemtza.blogspot.com/2006/02/mixed-seating-at-weddings.html

  2. Correction: I just found out that Armonot Chen is opening a hall in Yerushalayim in addition to their Bnei Brak halls. Terrific news!! Now there will be another subsidized place for Bnei Torah to make chasunas; Rabbi Cohen is a tzaddik and is known for giving yesomim his wedding hall for free. THAT should be the news – the huge chessed, engaged couples not having to wait longer until their wedding in order to book a reasonable hall, NOT the “hot news” that there’s an elevator with a mechitza. It is odd, for sure, but most likely it is only up if the baal hasimcha will ask for it. Many chareidi halls in Israel have separate entrances for men and women, some of them leading to separate elevators, so this is not a tremendous chiddush. Matzav should stress the chessed, NOT the mechitza.

  3. This is utterly ridiculous. I never heard of someone going off the derech because he went in a mixed elevator & btw this would not even help for yichud

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