Rabbi: Women Shouldn’t Drive

Woman driving

And the reward for the most outrageous idea ever presented by a rabbi goes to……Amnon Yitzhak.

That is, unless the rabbi who declared that eating soy-products would make you gay deserves it.

Yitzhak, who has been known to attempt to convince secular Jews to become more religious by using scare tactics (for example, that you’ll experience an eternity of hellfire if you’re not religious), continues to alienate himself from the secular, progressive Jewish community, with his latest comment: women shouldn’t drive.

Yitzhak notes, according to Times of Israel, that in the past, only men operated horse-drawn vehicles and carriages, ergo, naturally, women of today’s modern era shouldn’t be operating the contemporary equivalent: a horseless carriage (a.k.a. a car).

Yitzhak apparently made the claim during a lecture he gave last week, citing various other rabbis who apparently agree with his far-fetched assertion. As most Orthodox rabbis will tell you, however, current Jewish law allows women to drive, unless of course it’s on the Sabbath or during any such holiday that restricts it.

(Amnon Yitzhak)

“None of the wisest rabbis allow women drivers,” said the close-minded Yitzhak. “After all, what is a car? It is a replacement for the carriage. There were never any female carriage drivers.”

And, obviously, that has nothing to do with the fact that women had no basic rights at all during that time, right?

When asked by a woman in the audience if a woman could drive only when it was absolutely necessary, or to do a mitzvah, the good rabbi responded with a no, and compared the situation to when a person steals something to give to charity.

“It is immodest for a woman to drive,” he added.

A member of Israel’s parliament Aliza Lavie, of the Yesh Atid party, and chairwoman of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women, ruled out Yitzhak’s bizarre claims, and said it was obviously not evocative of the current stance of women in Israel, or the world.

“From the comparison that Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak made between cars and the carriages of the past we can see that if it were up to him, things would still be like they were in the Middle Ages,” she said. “If that’s Rabbi Yitzhak’s preference, then he can go right ahead and turn in his luxury car for a carriage.”