the only people who seem to mind that the ladies are not allowed are those whos lives this has no affect on whatsoever. As an outsider I can tell you that these peoples women are infinantly happier than the halter top wearing liberated gals and they have a blast doing what they love to do by spending time with their sisters mothers and cousins celebrating in a way you cant understand. STOP applying standards and measuring sticks to a community whos geigemeter is so different from yours!

It's about this festival . Something totally different .

Go get a life (your own if possible, and not vicariously, someone else's) all of you. Loads of different smachot bet hashoeva, all over the country, so quit gripin', and start livin', ok? Hilarious how you profess to loathe the 100 shearim crowd, but you can't stop lookin' in on them and talkin' about them. Secret for you, they don't even know that you or I exist, honeybunches.

its what israelis would love to call a 'heppening', a festivity. There is no festival called simchat bet hashoeva.There is a festival of sukkot, shmini atzeret and simchat torah. It is a festive ceremony.

alternatively they are just a bunch of wierdo hypocrites!

I would prevent my wife and daughters to attend Mea Shearim festival: it's sucks!

Is this a mistake...are you reporting about Afghanistan?

from their neighborhoods. Who needs women anyhow,it is not like men need them to exist. Women are humans also and perhaps more human than these "religious men"!

Habad ("ultra orthodoxe" hassidic jews) invite all the jewish people, Women and men, to join their Simha bat ashoeva even in mea shearim! Stop looking at a minority and let seculars and other jews to think that all orthodoxe are sexist.

Be ready jewish people!!! Jesusalen your only true mashiaj is coming soon...

State Law Supremacy order of the day The Sukkot festival reports from “ autonomous area Meah Shaarim “ are rather vivid, colorful and aggressive. Their Rabbi decide / commands to his congregation how to behave when women from outside Meah Shaarim want to participate in these sectional Sukkoth festivities.- Here fist fight between rival section started with side of the segregated street is for women and which for men. Stones flew, rabbinical personalities have been reported as being enlisted to arbitrate / influence between the fighting streets side to restore their own order, without any outside / official assistance. Its repercussions will be carried far beyond Sukkot into their segregated Ultra Orthodox lifestyle area - this didn’t happened 200 years ago somewhere on the globe b u t in the “United Jewish Capital of Jerusalem “, capital of “democratic State of Israel “ neither the Jerusalem’s municipality nor law enforcing state agencies did intervene / enforce existing state laws! This in the 60th year of the State of Israel, 2008 – For how long can this lawlessness in a large part of Jerusalem continue, until the city breaks down into sectoral separate municipal groups also outside Israel’s National Frame. - The burning issue of the State of Israel’s problem of National State Law plus Religious Laws can no longer be held in abeyance by also taking into account the identical religious problems for in Israel existing various religions / minorities with their religious codex. Of course individuals religious privacy has to be assured but without infringement of State’s Law Supremacy.

Will someone please tell me what the difference is between these men and the Taliban? OH! It must be that they haven't said that women must wear burkas, but it wouldn't surprise me if that is in the offing...In my view these people are not Jewish. They have forgotten so many tenets of Torah. What about welcoming the stranger? After all, a respectful tourist is a stranger. Avraham Avinu would be so insulted by the haredi men) and have twisted EVERYTHING to their advantage, particularly where it concerns their footstools....I mean wives", just like the Taliban. We are k'lal Israel, whether observant, loosely observant, or just like grandma's kugel on holidays. Hashem hears ALL of our prayers, not just those of haredi men and Hashem judges men AND women together.