Summary: The Knesset indicated that the law "stipulates an amendment to the Student Rights Law, allowing higher education institutions to offer gender-separate study tracks for obtaining advanced academic degrees."

In the final hours of its term, the Israeli Knesset approved a bill allowing academic institutions to open separate tracks for men and women in master's and doctoral studies.

The new Israeli law came after the entrenchment of gender segregation in schools and universities, particularly for the Haredi community, which constitutes about a quarter of Israel's population, and stipulated that separate academic tracks are not discrimination but fall within the "freedom of action of the academic institution."

For the 'Haredim'

The law opens the door to forcing those institutions to segregate by gender, and entrenches this segregation in public spaces within academic institutions that currently apply it, but prohibits it on the campuses of institutions that do not adopt gender segregation outside classrooms.

The Knesset indicated that the law "stipulates an amendment to the Student Rights Law, allowing higher education institutions to offer gender-separate study tracks for obtaining advanced academic degrees."

The law stipulated "that segregation within separate tracks in mixed educational institutions be limited to classrooms and to female and male students who desire it."

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A statement from the Knesset indicated that "the Council for Higher Education currently allows higher education institutions to offer separate study tracks for males and females, limited to bachelor's degree programs."

It added that the new law "aims to enable individuals who refrain from participating in mixed academic studies due to their religious beliefs to pursue advanced academic degrees in a wider range of disciplines."

The bill was presented by Knesset member Limor Son Har-Melech, from the 'Jewish Strength' party led by Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Although the Haredim have had separate schools for decades, the establishment of institutes and colleges for them has become popular in recent years, where male and female students are segregated.

Universities Rejecting

The new Israeli law comes as a codification of a 2021 Israeli Supreme Court ruling that allowed organizing separate lectures for men and women at the bachelor's level under specific restrictions and conditions.

In Israel, there are entire neighborhoods where the Haredim live, such as Bnei Brak south of Tel Aviv and Mea Shearim in Jerusalem. These neighborhoods segregate males and females in public places, sidewalks, and even inside buses, where men sit at the front while women enter through the back door and ride in the rear.

Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman considered the new law "part of an attempt to turn Israel into an extremist religious state," calling on Israeli university presidents not to comply with the new law, which he described as 'insanity.'

Indeed, the administrations of Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University, Ben-Gurion University, Bar-Ilan University, the University of Haifa, the Open University, and the Technion rejected the law, with the Hebrew University considering gender-based segregation a 'direct harm to academic freedom, the quality of research, and the future of society as a whole.'

Tel Aviv University President Ariel Porat warned that the law 'may also affect non-Haredi students due to financial constraints that may lead some academic institutions to not allocate separate tracks only for Haredim, but to impose segregation on all students.'

Towards More Extremism

Political analyst Jalal Banna considered that although the law is non-mandatory and optional for academic institutions, it allows each academic institution to segregate by gender upon request from students.

According to Banna, this is a 'smart step, because religious students will ask university administrations to segregate, and those universities will agree in order to attract them,' adding that academic institutions 'do not need the new law because many of them already apply segregation among students, especially in the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv areas.'

According to Banna, there are institutions and centers belonging to the extreme religious right, working to influence Knesset members to prepare laws that lead to segregation. Pointing out that the segregation law comes 'as part of a large system that includes more religiosity and more extremism in Israeli society.'

Banna predicted the continued issuance of such laws 'as long as the ruling right-wing coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu exists,' explaining that these laws 'concern the relationship between the Jewish religion and the State of Israel regardless of the Palestinian issue,' and expecting that 'this will cause great resentment in Israeli society.'