Gender-separated Selichos returned to the heart of Tel Aviv this week as participants gathered in Dizengoff Square, continuing a series of public tefillos that has already triggered confrontations with municipal authorities and renewed debate over religious prayer in the city's public spaces.

The latest gathering was organized by activist Mordechai David, who had announced plans to hold repeated Selichos gatherings with a mechitzah in central Tel Aviv through the weeks leading up to Yom Kippur.

David went ahead with the latest gathering in Dizengoff Square on Wednesday, August 26, following an earlier Selichos event at Habima Square that ended in a confrontation over the mechitzah.

At the August 19 gathering, Tel Aviv municipal inspectors arrived and removed the partition that had been erected to separate men and women. Police were also deployed to the scene, and confrontations broke out between participants and police and municipal personnel.

Following that incident, David publicly vowed that the separated Selichos would continue, announcing another gathering for Dizengoff Square on August 26.

Footage from Wednesday's gathering showed participants assembled in the square for Selichos.

The gatherings have also prompted criticism from opponents of David's initiative. Gili Leo criticized the latest event on social media, arguing that Selichos should bring Jews together rather than deepen divisions. While saying he had no objection to people wishing to pray with a partition, he criticized what he characterized as the confrontational nature of the initiative.

The controversy carries particular significance in Dizengoff Square, which became the scene of a major confrontation over gender-separated public prayer on Yom Kippur in 2023.

David has said he intends to continue holding Selichos in Tel Aviv's public squares in the run-up to Yom Kippur, keeping the dispute over gender-separated public tefillah very much alive.