The Dead Sea has been attracting visitors to its salty waters for thousands of years, and now a new gender-separate beach in the area will enable visitors from religious communities to take a dip in its salty waters. The newly opened beach is expected to serve religiously observant members of the public, and is the first of its kind in the area. Several government officials and community members on Monday attended the beach's inauguration ceremony, after an estimated NIS 15 million ($4.3 million) was invested in the gender-separate project. Among those who attended the ceremony were Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, Vice Prime Minister and Negev and Galilee Development Minister Silvan Shalom, several other Knesset MKs, rabbis and ultra-Orthodox community leaders. The leaders of the gender-separate beach project have promised that entry to the beach will be free of charge and that it will be open to the public throughout the day. The new beach was created on land governed by the Tamar Regional Council, which overseas the southern and western edges of the Dead Sea. On Saturday, the council voiced deep opposition to an art installation by photographer Spencer Tunick, who photographed some 1,000 naked volunteers at the Dead Sea. Members of the religious community praised Regional Council head Dov Litvinoff, who actively campaigned to stop the photo shoot from taking place. However, by dawn Saturday several hundred people had assembled on the beach, and the event went off without a hitch. The photo shoot was designed in part to bolster the chances of the Dead Sea in the New7Wonders competition, a global contest to name the new seven wonders of the world, which is currently holding its final round of voting.
Drifting apart: Gender-segregated beach opens at Dead Sea
New beach allows members of religious communities to take a dip • Beach project leaders promise entry will be free of charge and beach will be open from morning to evening.
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