Haredi Beit Din Bans All-Female Zumba Dance/Exercise Classes And Female Running Due To Bouncing Female Body Parts

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com



A beit din (religious court) in the haredi West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit has banned female-only Zumba dance/exercise classes and female running, the Israeli Hebrew-language news website Mako reported according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.



"Recently our city has seen the opening of classes employing the South American 'Zumba' method. After having established that both its form and manner, the activity is entirely at odds with both the ways of the Torah and the holiness of Israel, as are the songs associated to it, I hereby announce that the organization and participation in such classes is forbidden,” the beit din of the Ashkenazi haredi community in Beitar wrote.



The rabbis reportedly banned running and Zumba after more extremists elements in the haredi community there complained, in large part because they consider the activities to be immodest because they cause parts of the female body to move and be noticed.



Mixed male-female dancing is already prohibited under normative haredi Jewish law.



These extremists want “to turn our city into Afghanistan, and we won’t go along with it. The rabbis and judges can’t determine whether or not we participate in Zumba classes. I’m sick of them strangling us with these illogical halakhic [Jewish legal] rulings,” and infuriated local resident reportedly said.



Ha’aretz notes that while it is unclear what will happen to women who flout the beit din’s ruling, Beitar Illit has a history of vigilante violence carried out against people who violate local haredi modesty rules.



In fact, in February two haredi men in Beitar Illit were arrested for allegedly threatening and attacking residents whom they deemed to be immodest. The two haredi men were part of larger haredi modesty squad. Both men worked for the city as youth counselors. The city’s haredi mayor was questioned by police on suspicion that he knew about the modesty squad’s violence but failed to stop it. He also allegedly told residents who complained about the modesty squad violence not to report that violence to police.