Councilmember announces single-sex beach days for observant Jews, Muslims
Councilmember Chaim Deutsch (D-Manhattan Beach-Sheepshead Bay) is sponsoring sex-segregated beach days at a beach behind Kingsborough Community College to allow his Orthodox Jewish and Muslim constituents the opportunity to enjoy the seashore.
“A lot of people are disenfranchised for religious reasons,” Deutsch told the Daily News. “They don’t use the beach because they don’t go mixed swimming.”
Deutsch, himself an observant Jew, plans to rent the beach space from the community college. Males will be able to go on June 29, while June 27 is reserved for females. For reasons of modesty, Orthodox Jews and Muslims do not swim with members of the opposite sex. Similar single-sex hours at a public swimming pool in Williamsburg were a matter of legal contention recently, but the matter was resolved in favor of the Orthodox Jewish community.
