Michael Malkieli
Michael MalkieliShlomi Cohen/ Flash90

MK Michael Malkieli (Shas) welcomed the decision of the Tel Aviv District Court on Sunday which forced the Tel Aviv municipality to allow Chabad to hold a rally in Rabin Square with separate seating tomorrow.

"The court's decision to approve the Chabad event in Tel Aviv, with separate seating, is a blessed ruling. There is a limit to the hypocrisy and self-righteousness of these bleeding hearts that impose secular coercion upon us," said MK Malkieli.

Knesset Member Yinon Azulai of Shas also praised the court's decision. "Today, Huldai received a lesson in democracy from the court, which in a precedent-setting move ruled that there is no room for secular coercion in the city of Tel Aviv."

Ne'ama Zarbiv, the chairperson of the Shoveret Shivyion organization, also congratulated the Tel Aviv Municipality on its decision to allow men and women to attend an event in which they are separated in Rabin Square.

Huldai's unilateral decision, contrary to the position of the women who participated in the event and made without hearing them out, was a serious violation of their individual freedom to decide what was good for them," she said.

However, she said, "The current saga has been flooded with a deep and serious problem that has many other aspects. This demonstrates the importance of women's associations who can raise their voices against those who are trying to impose their positions on them by cynically using the expressions 'human rights' and 'women's rights.'"

Earlier, Deputy Chief Justice of the Tel Aviv District Court Kobi Vardi ruled this afternoon, Sunday, on a petition which sought to enable Chabad’s “Messiah in the Square” event to be held tomorrow in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square.

The event was scheduled to coincide with the Hebrew calendar date of the 12th of Tammuz, which marks the release in 1927 of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, from Soviet prison, following his imprisonment for his attempts to keep Judaism alive under Communist rule.