JERUSALEM (JTA) — Bar-Ilan University has eliminated the requirement for modest dress on campus and that male students wear a kippah during classes on Judaism.
The university said it has not enforced the rules in many years and that there has been a decline in the number of religious students on campus, Haaretz reported.
Students had been required to sign a statement accepting the requirements and acknowledging that the university operates “in the spirit of the Torah and tradition of Israel.” The statement called immodest clothing “harassing and hurtful to the feelings of the campus population.”
The new statement to be signed by the students says that: “I know that the University’s goals and trend is to foster and advance the study and research in all branches of the Torah and science in the spirit of Israel and the Jewish tradition,” according to Haaretz.
Bar-Ilan University was established in 1955 as a religious Jewish institution. It is Israel’s second-largest university with more than 18,000 students.
