Following several complaints, London’s Hackney Council removed signs that read, "Women should please walk along this side of the road only."
Following several complaints, London’s Hackney Council removed signs that read, "Women should please walk along this side of the road only."
The posters were written in both Hebrew and English and were put up by Haredi Jews in conjunction with a Torah procession they had in the area.
It’s their belief that women and men who are unmarried or unrelated should not touch one another.
To ensure that physical contact didn’t happen, they blanketed the neighborhood with the alerts to route restrictions.
For many, the reason behind the postings was unknown and the message delivered out of context proved to be rather unsettling.
One person Tweeted, "If I saw one of those, I'd walk on the other side out of sheer cussedness."
A council member assured all that the signs were taken down and admonished the message they carried.
Further, a community watchdog leader reached out to the group that organized the event and explained why the signs upset many local residents.
According to a spokesman for the police, the group said that next time they will only write the gender segregation details in Hebrew and take the signs down sooner.