The company building a light railway across Jerusalem is considering segregating some carriages along gender lines to serve the city's ultra-orthodox Jewish population.
The railway, which is due to be operational next spring, could have separate compartments for men and women, Yair Naveh, the chief executive of CityPass, said today.
"The train was built to serve everyone," he said. "It is not a problem to declare every third or fourth car a mehadrin [kosher] car."
The suggestion was swiftly condemned by Jerusalem city councillor Rachel Azariya, who said: "Naveh was appointed to run a project – that doesn't mean that he can tell people where to sit and where not to sit, nor does it mean that he knows anything about values and democracy."
Under pressure from the influential and growing ultra-orthodox community, some bus lines in Jerusalem have introduced segregation, with women confined to the rear of the vehicle.
The segregation proposal is the second point of tension between the CityPass consortium and the council within a week. The company earlier distributed a consumer survey asking Jerusalem residents if they were "bothered" that the light railway is to include stops in Arab neighbourhoods en route to connecting to Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.
Another question asked: "All passengers, Jews and Arabs, can enter the train freely, without undergoing a security check. Does this bother you?"
Ofra Ben-Artzi, a sister-in-law of Sara Netanyahu, the prime minister's wife, was among those surveyed. "I told the pollster, 'Imagine this kind of question being asked in London or New York.' It testifies to the level of racism we've reached," she told the Israeli daily Haaretz. The city council later wrote to CityPass accusing it of racism and "arousing strife and contention in the city".
Jerusalem's light railway has been mired in endless delays since work began eight years ago. Construction work has caused major disruption to traffic flow in the city centre, and CityPass has been accused of poor management of the project.