Image by nycparks.gov

It’s spring in Williamsburg and that means one thing: Hasidic groups and New York City are gearing up for another fight over single-sex swimming hours at public pools.

The city originally granted the single-sex swimming hours at two area pools as an accommodation to the area’s Hasidic women, whose code of modesty precludes them from swimming with men. But it slashed the women’s-only times from four hours to two a week last fall, after the city’s Human Rights Commission expressed concerns that the policy might violate gender anti-discrimination protections.

A group of elected officials is demanding a return to the original hours in a letter to city parks commissioner Mitchell Silver.

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“We don’t want to take anything from anyone. The pool is empty on those days they took away from us,” Esther Weiss told DNAInfo this week. “It’s anti-Semitic, it’s anti-women.”

But Donna Lieberman, head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, whose organization opposes gender-specific swimming hours, struck a different chord when speaking on the issue last fall.

“People have every right to go swimming in a gender-segregated environment pursuant to their religious beliefs,” she said. “But not on the taxpayer dime.”

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

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