Gerer Rebbe prohibits Chassidim to drive cars and to ride bicycles

Just a week after Rav Yitzchok Amnon called to prohibit Jewish women from driving, the grand rabbi of Gur has banned men from driving, according to a letter publicized among Gur Hasidim in London, England.

Rabbi Abraham Benjamin Silberberg, a senior rabbi in Gur, has issued eleven new decrees for Gur followers last week, according to a report in the Haredi World.

Rule number 8 on the list prohibits men from getting a driver’s license. “It is self understood that women are also banned from driving,” the letter states.

Rule number 9 prohibits men from riding bicycles.

Rule number 10 also prohibits families from going to a hotel.

These strict new rules come just after Amnon Yitzhak ruled that women should not drive.

As we reported earlier, a popular Sephardic rabbi wants women to be prohibited from driving just like in Saudi Arabia.

“A woman who drives is not modest, and women should not get behind the wheel of a car,” Amnon Yitzhak ruled.

Yitzhak, famous for persuading thousands of secular Israelis to embrace religious observances by warning them of the terrible fate that awaits them in hell, explained that women must not operate a “horseless carriage,” because in the past only men drove horse-drawn vehicles.

Yitzhak made ​​the statement at a conference held last week. Yitzhak falsely claimed that all rabbis agree that the driver's seat was only for men.

“No real rabbi would allow a woman to drive," Yitzhak said. “Just like Saudi Arabia,” he added.

When asked by a female member of the audience, if women are allowed to drive for a good cause, Yitzhak said that driving for a good cause is prohibited, comparing the situation to a person who steals to give to charity.

"It is indecent for a woman to drive under any circumstances," he asserted.