The 'Kosher Sidewalk' in Tiberias: The Municipality's Solution to Prevent 'Immodest Sights'

The Tiberias municipality has begun paving a dedicated 'kosher sidewalk' on the roadside, on the side farthest from the beachfront, in an attempt to prevent further escalation of the religious-social storm surrounding the mixed 'Trapez' beach. The step follows a sweeping ban imposed by the rabbinic leadership on passing along the beach route, and calls to travel an alternative longer route via the Poriya ridge. Similar halachic roads have been paved in Tiberias in the past, including the 'Kohanim Road'.

The Tiberias municipality has begun paving a dedicated 'kosher sidewalk' on the roadside, on the side farthest from the beachfront, in an attempt to prevent further escalation of the religious-social storm that is stirring Tiberias and the entire country. The new path is intended to provide a practical solution for those who fear being exposed to 'immodest sights' on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and to allow passage nearby without being exposed to the mixed beach where men and women bathe together in immodest attire. The unusual municipal step comes following an escalation in the struggle over the 'Trapez beach', the new mixed bathing beach recently inaugurated at the southern entrance to the city. The topographical structure of the area, where the sidewalk and road dominate and overlook the waterline, has become, according to Haredi factors, a severe modesty obstacle for tens of thousands of believers and yeshiva students who come to the holy sites in Tiberias, including the tombs of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, Maimonides, Yohanan ben Zakkai, and Rabbi Akiva. The short and familiar road, leading from the city center southward to the tomb of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, along only about four and a half kilometers, has become the focus of the struggle. The local tension recently crossed the city limits and became a national debate, after a proclamation published in Haredi concentrations under the title 'Severe Warning for the Sanctity of the Camp' ordered a sweeping ban on passing along the beach route near the 'Trapez'. The rabbis called on the public to travel an alternative, bypassing route via the Poriya ridge – an instruction that means converting a simple drive of a few minutes into a lengthy route of about 30 kilometers. 'And one who guards his soul and the souls of his household shall not pass over the threshold of transgression, God forbid, until the matter is rectified and approved by the rabbis,' the proclamation stated, citing the Talmudic source 'Iy d'ika darcha acharina' – if there is another way – alongside a call to educational institutions and summer camps to completely avoid bringing groups along this route. The beginning of the struggle was actually in calls for compromise from within the city council. Shimon Cohen, a member of the municipal coalition from the 'Maaminim BeTiberias' faction, initially proposed a solution of visual concealment: 'We came with a demand, a modest request, nothing more: we did not ask to close the beach on Shabbat or holidays. We asked that there be a nice partition, some kind of flowers or bushes to separate the sidewalk from the beach. Do not force us to see things we do not want to see. The city belongs to everyone.' But tempers escalated quickly, and local rabbis, including Rabbi Yekutiel Ohav Tzion, one of Rabbi Dov Kook's confidants, arrived at the scene and issued harsh warnings, claiming that in a place where there is immodesty there is no protection, and that these sights are directly related to the security and safety situation. The new modesty sidewalk is not the first time that building transportation infrastructure in Tiberias requires complex halachic solutions and special engineering projects. About 15 years ago, when a road on a main street in the city was widened, large eucalyptus and ficus trees, decades old, were uprooted to pave a 'Kohanim Road' in their place. In municipal documents from that period it was written: 'Tiberias is an ancient city over 2,000 years old... In Tiberias there are cemeteries covering most of the area around the ancient city. As a result, kohanim are unwilling to use the traffic routes in Tiberias in the city center area. The Government of Israel decided to budget projects for paving halachic roads to allow the passage of kohanim.' Even before that, two similar roads were paved in Tiberias, based on the same halachic solution: on Highway 90, under the old cemetery, and on Yohanan ben Zakkai Street, which intersects with Jordan Street. The engineering technique of creating 'kohanim voids' allows kohanim to travel above an area beneath which ancient graves were discovered, by placing two layers of concrete beams in the shape of an elongated Hebrew letter 'het' on a concrete surface cast over the graves. From the space created between the hollow concrete layers, a pipe is stretched outward to prevent sealing the space, and above the beams the road is paved and becomes permissible for kohanim to pass.