Zionist religious leaders call for separate gender-segregated accommodations for observant students in Israeli universities

• Citing the desire to preserve modesty in their academic environments, conservative advocates are attempting to get secular higher education institutions to create separate, gender-segregated learning spaces for students from the Zionist and ultra-Orthodox communities.
• Organizers have discussed building a “purchasing group” model, gathering students into groups based on field of study in the hopes that universities would “bid” on them, introducing pressure to include gender-segregated classrooms.
• Although the attempt may signal a new, much-welcomed openness to university studies by ultra-Orthodox communities, higher education officials say that any attempt to create gender-segregated education at non-religious universities would be terminated.

More on this story at Haaretz.

(Image Credit: Eliyahu Hershkovitz/Haaretz)