American Task Force on Women’s Issues in Israel

WRJ is part of a growing network of North American Jewish organizations raising concerns about the declining role of women in the public arena in Israel. Under the umbrella of this new American Task Force on Women’s Issues in Israel, I recently participated in a meeting with Israel’s NY Consul General Ido Aharoni. He was very gracious in hosting us at the Israeli Consulate, and expressed his commitment to working with us to advance the role of women in Israeli society. He assured us that the numbers of women getting advanced degrees are growing and is currently at more than 50%, even as he acknowledged that this advancement is not yet reflected in the ranks of professional fields or salaries. While that was encouraging to hear, the people around the table – mostly women, except for former ARZA Director Rabbi Danny Allen and a few others – reminded him that our concerns were more in the cultural and social spheres of daily living, rather than in academia. We noted the encroachment of fanatical religious extremism into secular communities, forcing people to leave their homes due to fear of violence against those whose attire or behavior may not be deemed modest enough for their new neighbors. We mentioned segregated bus lines and grocery stores, and expressed concern about gender-specific health clinics and ambulances. We raised issue with recent actions to remove women’s faces from public signs and women’s voices from public airwaves. And we challenged him to acknowledge the government’s responsibility for securing equality and freedom for all members of society. There were specific recommendations that Ambassador Aharoni pledged to report to the Prime Minister. We urged him to communicate the importance of a clear, unequivocal statement by Prime Minister Netanyahu that gender equality would be respected and guaranteed by his government. We encouraged the use of the educational system to teach civics and democracy, including within the government-sponsored Orthodox religious schools. While the Consul General suggested dialogue and the need to find partners and ‘friends’ within the Orthodox community, we urged him to use the bully-pulpit to assert that religious intolerance and inequality of women are simply unacceptable in a free, democratic society. In his parting comments, Consul General Aharoni proclaimed, “Israeli democracy is alive and kicking!” As he now knows, we are also alive and kicking. Along with our WRJ-Israel counterparts and our partners in this new coalition, WRJ will continue to speak out for women’s rights in Israel until women are free to sit in any seat on any bus, walk on any sidewalk wearing the clothes they choose, stand in any line in any grocery story or health clinic, sing at any public event, appear in any ad and aspire to any role they want in Israeli society.