Meanwhile, in the Hasidic village of New Square, N.Y., religious leaders recently issued a document reminding residents that women should not sit in the front of a car. Released in July by the communitys top rabbinical court, the document was aimed at shoring up several communal standards especially those regarding womens conduct.
Its considered not tzniusdik [modest] for a woman to be a driver, not in keeping with the out-of-public-view [attitude], village spokesman Rabbi Mayer Schiller said. If you can imagine in Europe, would a woman have been a coach driver, a wagon driver? It wouldve been completely inappropriate.
The villages religious leaders have made an exemption for an 80-year-old woman who was one of the communitys original residents and hadnt known about the driving prohibition before she moved there.
New Square, a 7,000-person enclave located 40 miles north of New York City, was founded by the late Skverer rebbe Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Twersky, a Holocaust survivor, and his followers. The village was established in 1954 and officially incorporated seven years later. It relies heavily on private charitable donations and on government-assistance programs.
In the recent document, New Square religious leaders reiterated the prohibition against girls riding bicycles; also, women are forbidden from going outside in their long housecoats a common fashion staple in many Orthodox communities.
