The Knesset voted 52-43 to approve an modification to the Scholar Rights Regulation permitting increased training establishments to supply gender-segregated graduate diploma applications, in a vote held within the early hours of Thursday morning.
The laws, Modification No. 12, 2026, was sponsored by MK Limor Son-Har Melech (Otzma Yehudit). Below the modification, increased training establishments could function gender-segregated applications for superior levels.
At establishments that in any other case supply mixed-gender research, segregation will probably be permitted solely in lecture rooms and just for college students who select to enroll within the applications.
An uproar erupted within the plenum when opposition lawmakers held up indicators studying, “Segregation is exclusion,” to protest the laws.
MK Adi Ezuz of the Collectively Occasion mentioned: “Essentially the most misogynistic authorities in Israel’s historical past is knowingly harming girls’s rights in an unprecedented method. Blessed be the fruit.”
The proposal’s explanatory notes acknowledged: “At the moment, the Council for Larger Schooling permits establishments of upper training to function gender segregated research applications, typically for bachelor’s levels solely, topic to further situations and restrictions beneath the framework it established.
“It’s proposed to make clear in laws that the availability stipulating that the existence of separate research applications for women and men for spiritual causes won’t be thought of discrimination additionally applies to grasp’s and doctoral diploma applications. That is meant to permit those that, due to their spiritual beliefs, are unable to take part in blended educational research to pursue superior levels in a wider vary of fields.”
Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman responded to the regulation’s passage: “The federal government of the October 7 bloodbath is making an attempt to show the State of Israel right into a state of ayatollahs. This regulation is being added to what’s already occurring in Bnei Brak: segregation of ladies and men on public sidewalks. I name on the heads of universities and educational establishments to not cooperate with this insanity.”
MK Merav Michaeli mentioned: “There isn’t a such factor as separate however equal. Definitely not in a coalition that acts in each approach in opposition to equality. Towards equality between ladies and men, in opposition to equality in sharing the burden, in opposition to equality earlier than the regulation. A coalition that believes spiritual Jewish males are price greater than each girl and each man, in each area and at any value. Every thing else is lies and gaslighting.”
Son-Har Melech mentioned, “Right now, the Knesset acknowledged clearly that real freedom of selection additionally contains the precise to review individually. For years, a single worldview was imposed on the general public, stopping hundreds of ladies and men from advancing in academia with out abandoning their lifestyle.
“The regulation we authorised at present doesn’t impose something on anybody. It expands freedom, allows variety and respects the human mosaic of Israeli society. Anybody who believes in pluralism should additionally know the right way to settle for selections that don’t conform to their worldview.”
