In a meeting Wednesday afternoon between Knesset Speaker MK Yuli Edelstein and several legislators, it was agreed on setting up a combined team of MKs and the Knesset Management to examine the checking of visitors’ dress code at the entrance to the House. Meanwhile, according to Speaker Edelstein, the dress code will not be enforced until a new one is issued.
Last week the Knesset guards began stopping female staffers at the entrance to the House and sending them home to change, because their attire was deemed inappropriate. On Sunday, Shaked Hasson, an aide to MK Merav Michaeli (Zionist Camp), was stopped at the entrance to the Knesset for an hour and reportedly examined by five male Knesset guards because her dress was too short.
Knesset director general Albert Saharovich has apologized to the parliamentary aides, in the wake of a protest that saw 40 women staffers protesting, dressed miniskirts, the new dress code, including aides to Yesh Atid MK Yael German, Meretz MK Michal Rozin, Joint Arab List MK Dov Khanin, MK Manuel Trajtenburg and Yesh Atid MK Karin Elharar.
MK Trajtenberg took off his shirt at the Knesset entrance, cautioning that “tomorrow all of you will have a burqa.”
The meeting with the speaker included MKs Merav Michaeli, Yael German, Aida Touma-Suleiman, karin Elharar, Aliza Lavie, Rachel Azaria, Dov Khanin, Emanuel Trachtenberg, Ilan Gilon, Ayelet Nahmias and Knesset director general Albert Saharovich.
All the participants emphasized the need to adhere to a dress code, but objected to a code that was dictated by the more conservative, Haredi members of the House. According to Ha’aretz, Sakharovich said in private that the MKs who initially complained about the female staffers’ attire described it as “Sodom and Gomorrah.”
