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NewYorkTimesRailsAgainstHasidicSingle-Sex
SwimmingatPublicPools
ByBrian Schaefer
June 5, 2016

(JTA) An only-in-New-York story about a public swimming pool that offered women-only swim periods for the areas
Orthodox community turned into a full-blown media firestormwhen the New York Times weighed in on the subject.

The pool, located in the heavily OrthodoxWilliamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, had been offering women-only hours
sincethe 1990stoaccommodatethose whosereligious sensitivities forbid women and men from swimming together.

Last week, the Parks Department cancelled the women-only swim periods after an anonymous complaint was made to the
citys Commission on Human Rights, only to reverse itself following objectionsby Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox
politician representing the nearby Borough Park and Midwood neighborhoods.

HasidicSingle-SexSwimmingSparksNewClashWith
NewYorkLawattheLocalPool
Josh Nathan-KazisJune 1, 2016

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That reversalled to a strongly worded editorial in the Times Wednesday,which assertedthat setting aside a special time
fora religious group at a public facility violated the laws of New York City and the Constitution, and commonly held
principles of fairness and equal access.

The cityshuman rights lawis quite clear that public accommodations like a swimming pool cannot exclude people based
on sex, the editorialargued, adding that the current practice has a a strong odor of religious intrusion into a secular
space.

The Times editorial drew a swift backlash from parts of the Jewish community, who accusedthe paper of unfairly rejecting
a reasonable religious accommodation and of applying a double standard to Orthodox Jews.

Seth Lipsky, the founding editor of the New York Sun and a former editor of the Forward, wrote a heated missive in theNew
York PosttitledLet My People Swim and Damn the New York Times.

In a letter to theTimes,Rabbi Avi Shafran, the director of public affairs forAgudath Israel of America, a haredi Orthodox
umbrella organization, called the women-only hours a reasonable accommodation, according to the Jewish Daily
Forward.

Rescinding the special sex-segregated hours would be the equivalent of a sign saying, No people with traditional values
allowed, he wrote. The classical concept of modesty that is embraced by many citizens may have its roots in religious
systems. But reasonable accommodation of the needs of such New Yorkers is not an endorsement of any religion.

A Rockland County, New York group associatedwith that areas hasidic Satmar community,theOrthodox Jewish Public
Affairs Council, also releaseda statement,saying,The hypocrisy and inflammatory language in the New York Times is
astounding in many ways. It pointedto a February story in which the Timesreported favorably on accommodations made
at a public housing projectin Toronto that offered a womens-only swim period for Muslim women.
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If it is great when the wishes of women in the Muslim community are accommodated, why is it a problem when the same is
granted to women in the Orthodox Jewish community? the council asked.

In Tablet Magazine, Yair Rosenberg pointed to examples in St. Paul, Minnesota, San Diego and Seattle in which
accommodations made for Muslim women to swim without men were applauded in some cases and sparked controversy in
others. But hequestioned why the Timeseditorial failed to mention these precedents and focused exclusively on Orthodox
Jews.

It is exceedingly odd that the national paper of record only excoriated the practice of sex-segregated swimming when it
became aware of religious Jews engaging in it, and even then, omitted the identical practices of religious Muslims, he
writes.

Hikind, meanwhile, called the citys decision to continue the separate swimming hors a major victory for human rights.

It is a major victory for the people, and the community can rest much easier this Shabbos knowing that men and women
can continue to swim separately, he wrote in a statement.

The NYC Commission on Human Rights andthe Parks Department continue to review the pool policies,a spokesperson
toldGothamist.

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