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Eli Yishai

It never ceases to amaze me how some so-called leaders will use women’s issues to advance their own agendas that have nothing to do with women. The overtly racist statements coming from the Shas government minister Eli Yishai last week in light of a Tel Aviv rape case were particularly troubling.

When the police arrested four Sudanese and Eritrean men last week on suspicion of raping a woman in Tel Aviv, some Israelis took this as an opportunity to indict the entire community of refugees that is concentrated in South Tel Aviv. I listened in horror to radio interviews with Tel Aviv residents talking about “those people” who have “taken over” the otherwise “normal” Tel Aviv — using language that is painfully reminiscent of my Orthodox Brooklyn upbringing, when we were expressly taught to cross to the other side of the street if we saw black men walking in our direction. For these sentiments to be reinforced in the year 2012 by a government official is particularly troubling.

Yishai said, in response to the rape, “Most African migrants in Israel are involved in criminal activity and should be imprisoned and deported.” As if to say, all the black folks in Tel Aviv are really just rapists, thieves, murderers, whatever. These statements give legitimacy to racism and may lead to criminal acts, like those that took place recently against asylum seekers,” said Michal Pinchuk, director of the Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel (ASSAF). Indeed.

When the announcement was made that the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize would be given to three women, including Leymah Gbowee (pronounced LAY-muh BO-wee), some Jews were particularly proud.

Gbowee, an extraordinary Liberian activist and founder of Women Peace and Security Network-Africa (WIPSEN), who has been influential in mobilizing women for peace and bringing democracy to Liberia, has credited the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) with being one of the first organizations to believe in and to provide financial support for her work.

“AJWS is a name I will remember”, she said recently at an AJWS event. “It is an organization with a heart and a soul. I mean it – and I don’t take my words lightly.”

I had a conversation with my father over breakfast this morning about fundraising in Israel. My father, Matthew Maryles, who is visiting Israel for the holidays, is currently the CEO of American Friends of Bar Ilan University, responsible for raising considerable sums for both operating costs and capital campaigns of this seminal Israeli institution. This is how he’s spending his “retirement”. In his pre-retirement, he was a Wall Street executive with fundraising just a “hobby” – he worked in fundraising as a layman for too many organizations for me to recount: UJA Federation of New York, The Yeshivah of Flatbush, Gesher, Yeshiva University, JCRC, and the list goes on. Given his vast experience and decades-long perspective, I decided to possibly ruin the casualness of the morning and pick his brain about the current state of Israeli fundraising.

“This is a very difficult time,” he said. Although the organization is still substantially meeting its goals for operating support, and has a successful planned-giving fundraising operation, he said it is very difficult to raise money for capital campaigns. “Hardly anyone has a high level of confidence about what the next five years will look like economically and financially. There is no clear sense about what the future looks like, and in that climate, it is very difficult to secure long-term commitments, and thus create a sustainable long-term strategic plan.”

Women in Israel seem to be breaking barriers on nearly every front. A female head of the Supreme Court (MK Dorit Beinisch), a female head of the opposition (MK Tzippi Livni), a female Major General (Maj Gen Orna Barbivay), two female heads of major banks (Shari Arison and Galia Maor), are a few of women's striking accomplishments. Nonetheless, when it comes to education, Israeli girls still lag behind boys. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum's international gender index, Israel ranks 52nd in the world in terms of gender equity, and 68th in terms of girls' education, despite the fact that there is complete gender equality in elementary school enrolment. In other words, Israeli girls are going to school, but they are not necessarily being educated well.

Whenever I see “Clinton” in a newspaper headline, I have to read down a bit to see if the story is about Bill or Hillary. Now that’s novel. The fact that the news is actually more likely to be about her than about him is even more unusual. In a county that has never had a woman president, vice president, or chief of staff, the fact that Hillary Clinton is the first woman running for president, whether or not she even wins, is already history in the making.>

It’s 2 o’clock on Thursday afternoon. I’m shopping for an outfit to wear to a Bat-mitzvah on Saturday night. The saleslady hands me a black linen, straight, lined miniskirt and matching blazer. Why is this called a “power suit”? I wonder. Trying it on, I feel squeezed, tight, unable to move. And I feel molded – even if this particular mold is that of the successful, wealthy, beautiful people. This is just not me, I think to myself as I wriggle out of the skirt. Power suit – sure, other people’s power over my body.