Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

British Belz Hasidim Bar Women From Driving

The Hasidic Belz sect of Britain has barred women members from driving.

A letter sent out last week by the sect’s rabbinic leaders said that allowing women to drive goes against “the traditional rules of modesty in our camp,” the Jewish Chronicle reported Thursday.

The letter also said that as of August students would not be allowed to enter school if their mothers drove them there.

According to the letter, the increasing numbers of mothers who drive has led to “great resentment among parents of pupils in our institutions.”

The policy of not allowing students to come to school if their mothers drive came from the Belzer rebbe in Israel, Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, according to the Jewish Chronicle.

Britain’s Belz community is centered in north London, where it runs a day school for boys and a second school for girls.

London’s Daily Mail reported Thursday that the Belz sect is being accused by critics of “trying to turn their London community into Saudi Arabia.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.