Editor – Joel Katz
Religion
and State in Israel is not affiliated with any
organization or movement.
*Special edition on Women of the Wall coming soon
In the discussion of
whether to bar haredi parties from running, Chana Kahat, chairwoman of the
religious women’s organization Kolech, said that ultra-orthodox women begged
her to help them.
“They are afraid and
threatened. I am speaking as someone who was raised in haredi society. I think
the time has come to put an end to this embarrassment, this discrimination and
this silencing,” Kahat stated.
Shas representative
Yehuda Avidan pointed out that only two of the 33 Central Election Committee
members are women.
“I’m not going to
describe the appreciation that the Torah and rabbis give to women. Some think
that’s just a slogan; I invite them to see how a haredi household is run. If
only all women’s husbands would respect them like we respect our wives,” Avidan
said.
The haredi parties’
disqualification was unilaterally rejected.
Shas and United Torah Judaism: "The parties function, as demanded by the halacha,
with clear segregation between men and women for reasons of modesty. Men have
one role and women have another. This segregation does not exclude women,
discriminate against them nor deem them less worthy than men."
Shas and United Torah Judaism representatives also claimed
that ultra-Orthodox females
won't vote for them if there are women on the party lists. "Most of the
women voting for the respondents will refuse to vote if there will be women on
the party list, and that is against halachic law," they added.
The petition,
brought by seven organizations — Free Israel, Kolech, Pluralist Lobby, The
Feminist Lobby, Jerusalem Movement, We Power, and Uncensored — [was heard] on
Thursday at 2PM Israel time.
Laura Wharton: We
asked these parties to be disqualified because they violate the basic law of
the Knesset that says that all citizens have the right to vote and be elected.
Gender discrimination has become an issue all over Israel, on buses, etcetera,
but the Knesset is the most important because it affects everything else. It’s
especially egregious because these are publicly funded parties that say
explicitly that women can’t be elected.
Yizhar
Hess, CEO of the religious Masorti Movement, fighting
for egalitarianism within Jewish communities in Israel, "Were I one of the
men in the leadership of the haredi parties, I would be very careful with so
patronizingly discussing the role of women versus the role of men in this
world."
Hess added that he believed that in the near
future haredi women, "tired of a humiliating coexistence of horse and
rider… will exclude the discriminating parties in the voting polls."
Laura Wharton: The right to equal pay, freedom of movement,
equal services, are all things we must continue to demand.
We must insist on
the fulfillment of our Declaration of Independence, which promises “complete
equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of
religion, race or sex.”
I think it is right to start at the heart of our
government and to prevent the representation of parties that unabashedly
exclude women.
MK David Rotem: “The Reform and
Conservative [movements] don’t care about those 320,000* people because they
won’t become Reform or Conservative. We will not recognize non-Orthodox rabbis,
conversions or marriage.”
“I don’t want them
to convert in this country because I don’t need Conservative and Reform
communities in this country.
In this country you can be Jewish, religious or not religious, and I don’t want
to change this. I don’t want a Reform rabbi to check my dishes,” he added.
Rotem said that one of his central goals was for a national-
religious rabbi to be appointed as chief rabbi when the terms of current chief
rabbis Yona Metzger
and Shlomo Amar end next year.
“I want to have a national religious chief rabbi,” said
Rotem.
“I grew up when the Chief Rabbinate was a national- religious
institution and I’m not in favor of the fact that haredi rabbis have taken it
over.”
Rabbi Gilad Kariv, director of the Reform Movement in Israel,
also condemned the remarks, calling Rotem “one of the most dangerous political
forces in the Knesset when it comes to democratic values and the value of
pluralism ... who stands against the idea that the State of Israel should be the beating heart of all Jewish people and all its streams."
A rabbinate in which the
leaders belong to ultra-Orthodox sects that do not recognize the state and who
do not eat at restaurants that they certify as kosher, he stated, undermines
public support for religion in Israel.
Citing an event in which several rabbis
from the rabbinate felt the need to “kasher” a restaurant that they had
certified with a rabbanut certificate so that they could feel comfortable
eating there, Stav said that a change had to be made.
Rabbi
David Stav discussing the Tzohar rabbinical organization, an organization
looking to make reforms within the Israel Chief Rabbinate.
Yishai
moves on to an interview he recently held in a Jerusalem café Nachum Rosenberg,
a representative from the Tzohar organization to specifically discuss the
reforms.
By Rabbi
Eric H. Yoffie
Rabbi Eric
H. Yoffie is the President Emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism
The revolution is coming—the religious
revolution, that is.
At some point in the relatively near
future, sweeping changes will be made in the laws that govern religion in the
Jewish state. I say that because the debate about such matters, both in
Israel and among American Jews, is more heated now than it has been in decades. […]
I am realistic. Change will not
come overnight. Yair Lapid, who has strong views on these matters, has
downplayed religious issues in his campaign. And Avigdor Liberman, in
theory a champion of religious freedom, has betrayed his party’s principles
again and again, producing virtually nothing in the religious realm.
But American Jews are aroused on these
issues as never before, and Israelis are as well.
Rabbi Cherlow
deserves admiration, a blessing and support for being a man when there are
almost no men.
But he cannot succeed alone. We need good people who will follow
him fearlessly. And the Israeli government, which is not owned by the Orthodox
and the Haredim despite their importance, must lend the innovators a hand and
recognize the other Jewish denominations in stages.
By Anshel Pfeffer
The next Knesset is
to be the most religious in Israel's history. It will be the first Knesset ever
without a kibbutz member but over a quarter of its members can be realistically
predicted to be of various shades of Orthodoxy or ultra-Orthodoxy.
...A natural
reflection of demographic trends and the increasing willingness of Israelis to
embrace their religious traditions as part of their daily lives, the
preponderance of observant parliamentarians does not necessarily herald major
changes in the political landscape.
By Avraham (Avrum) Burg
On the one hand,
American Jewish leaders constantly seek approval from Israeli authorities, the
more official and Zionist the better. But time after time they encounter
condemnation, disregard, humiliation and exclusion.
On the other hand, most of
the Israeli leadership understands that American Jewry, most of which is not
Orthodox at all, is the rear guard of the State of Israel. Without them, the
entire Israeli strategy could collapse. But still, not one of them is making
any real effort to bridge the gaps. The opposite is true.
"The lecturer informed the class that everyone must wear
a yarmulke, because we've agreed to that when signing the university
guidelines. When one of the students complained, the professor sent him to the
administration office.
The next time that the student tried to talk to the
professor about it, the professor didn’t cooperate and asked him to put on a
yarmulke or leave the classroom. So he got up and left."
Bar Ilan University later on released an official statement
saying that: “According to university rules, male students are obligated to
wear a kippa in all Jewish studies classes. The obligation to wear a kippa in
classes where religious texts are taught is made to honor the Jewish tradition
and values of the institution.”
By Prof. Jeffrey Woolf
There is
something terribly disingenuous (and, perhaps, hypocritical) about the attacks
on my colleague. The same people who scream 'Religious Coercion' would not
hesitate to remove their hats if so requested, when entering a lecture hall at
Gregorian University in Rome.
By Nathan Jeffay
Without addressing the
halakhic propriety of the wife’s decision to fi le a civil claim for nezikin (damages) in civil court, we will
address whether such a nezikin claim for get recalcitrance, had it been
advanced in a beit din setting, would fi nd reception amongst dayyanim?
See Facebook page “Lo nivharot, lo boharot” “If we can’t be elected,
we’re not voting” לא נבחרות, לא בוחרות
Irit Rosenblum: Exclusion of
women from the public sphere is illegal and wrong. It is criminal
discrimination and a crude infringement on women’s rights to freedom of
conscience, expression and movement. It must be called by its true name-- a hate crime. Those promoting hate crimes must be tried and punished by law.
Rabbi Ya'akov Yosefy l, son of
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has issued a ruling which prohibits taking private lessons
with gay teachers.
In the run-up to
the January 22 election, what's happening among Haredim - Sephardi and
Ashkenazi alike - is that the once-holy has lost some of its sanctity, and
authority figures have become less authoritative.
Hiddush points out that Satmar gives funding to a number of
schools in Israel and while it is the prerogative of the chassidus to boycott
the elections in Israel, offering payments to others is unacceptable and
Hiddush calls on the election committee to inform Satmar that local law applies
to the chassidus as well.
By Alon Idan
"Only a strong
Shas can take care of the weak," it is written on buses and bridges
throughout the land. That's almost accurate: Only a strong Shas can take care
that the weak stay weak.
Veteran Israeli educator and Education Prize awardee Sarah
Eliash was arrested this week on the Temple Mount on charges of praying at the
site, activists in organizations advocating open Jewish prayer at the site said.
Eliash was released shortly after her arrest, but activists
demanded that her arrest be expunged altogether. In addition, they demanded
that the government arrange for official prayer times on areas of the Mount
permissible to Jews, similar to the arrangements made at the Machpelah Cave in
Hevron.
“It is unacceptable that Jews will not be able to visit and celebrate
at the site where the Hanukkah miracle actuallytook place,” the groups said.
The challenge posed
by the intersection of religious traditions that mandate these forms of sex
segregation with civic norms of gender equality can be seen around the world
and across religious traditions.
Recent developments in Israel pose a
particularly challenging example as women are subjected to demands for
segregation on public buses, trains, supermarkets, doctor's waiting rooms and
merely walking in the street.
This conference seeks to explore the historical and
theoretical underpinnings of these developments and to identify effective and
appropriate responses.
The complex has drawn the ire of the
haredi community because some of the restaurants and cafes will be open on
Shabbat.
“We are not expecting
any pressure [about being open on Shabbat],” said Murdoch, who also lives in
the neighborhood. “This was built at the request of the people.”
Mayor Barkat said the train
station will not change the Jerusalem status quo of public areas and buildings
remaining closed on Shabbat.
Editor – Joel Katz
Religion
and State in Israel is not affiliated with any
organization or movement.
