Jewfem Blog

As if women don’t have enough sources of overt discrimination, this week the Clalit health clinic launched a sales campaign with two distinct ads, one aimed at women and one aimed at men, advancing some of the most damaging gender stereotypes around. The object of each ad is unequivocal, since Hebrew lacks a gender neutral pronoun and verb form.

The advertisement for "Bat Mitzvah" program caught my eye, not only because I have an eleven-year old daughter, but also because of where I saw it: the municipality announcements in the local Modi'in newspaper. Hmmm, I thought, the municipality has a program -- maybe it's interesting. Then I noticed that right next to the "bat mitzvah" ad was a "bar mitzvah" ad. Same size, same font, same layout, could there be two programs offering the same education to boys and girls? Who am I kidding.

Not one woman spoke at last week’s Ninth Annual Puah Conference on Women’s Fertility. Not one! Certainly the conference opened up a discourse about intimacy and sex that was hitherto unspoken in the religious world. But the status of women as “objects” of this discourse rather than as full participants – even when it is all about us and our bodies – remained firmly in place, thus limiting the effectiveness of the conference in moving Israel towards being a more progressive society. In fact, the conference was arguably a major regression for women. Read about this on the Kolech English website, Jewish Women's Voice

This was printed in the Jerusalem Post on 2 Feb 09. “Obama makes me want to be smarter. He makes me want to get involved.” That’s what a teary-eyed Beyonce said after gloriously singing to the new First Couple’s dance as hundreds of millions of people around the globe looked on. Beyonce captured what is happening all around the world right now. President Barack Hussein Obama has managed to do bring out not only people’s hope but also their desire to lead intelligent and caring lives. This is, indeed, remarkable, inspired change. I had a startling conversation recently with the editor of Ma’ariv Lanoar, a weekly teen magazine produced by one of Israeli’s leading daily newspapers, Ma’ariv. The man, a spindly, spikey-haired, thirty-something with multiple facial piercings, offered me his experienced counsel about how to reach teenagers. “Celebrity,” he said. “We always have a celebrity on the front cover. It’s the only way to get teens to read our magazine. We have to appeal to the greatest common denominator.”

As the war in Gaza winds down, and the country prepares to return to “normal life” (though without Gilad Shalit home, it’s not really “normal”) I would like to note another side of the war: the role of women in the IDF. These women soldiers and officers are rarely seen, their roles are often invisible and ignored as the countrycontinues to refer to “the boys” on the front, and of course, there are still certain roles that women so far are not allowed to fill, such as infantry. Nonetheless, women have made some remarkable contributions in this war – not just as spokespeople and public negotiators but as pilots, navigators, and more.

Saving the environment is not just a noble cause; it is a religious imperative. That is the message coming from anintriguing new political initiative of Rabbi Michael Melchior and Prof Alon Tal, who have recently joined forces to form a counterintuitive and seemingly unlikely political merge between a religious and a green party. Tal’s environmentalist Green Movement and Melchior’s religious-liberal Meimad have decided to unite in order to lead the country not only towards intensive environmental and social activism but effectively towards implementing an entire vision of what it means to build a Jewish society. “What kind of Jewish state are we if are not looking after our environmental and social needs?” Tal asked. “The answer is, we are not a Jewish state. We are not embodying Jewish values.”

Women gathered at the Modi’in mall tonight, not to shop, thank heavens, but to attend the 55th Women’s Parliament in the newly unveiled lecture hall on the premises. Dr. Esther Herzog, the visionary behind this important initiative, listed the many impressive achievements of previous Parliaments, from promoting anti-pornography legislation to backing the first woman presidential candidate for Israel. This latest Parliament, the first one in Modi’in, organized in cooperation with the Women’s Council of the Modi’in municipality under the leadership of Ofira Krakower, offered a panel of stimulating speakers examining the topic of genderand economics and the ways in which privatization and recession affect women’s lives.

The public drive to create a viable alternative to the rabbinical court system received some significant support this week. Mavoi Satum, in cooperation with Kolech and Neemanei Va'Avodah, received a five-yearcommitment from the New Israel Fund to help make this vision into a reality. The implications are enormous, not only for agunot, not only for religious women, not only for the religious public, but also for women and men across all segments of Israeli society. Batya Cahana-Dror, Director of Advocacy at Mavoi Satum, recently published an extensive article on the significance of this topic in Eretz Aheret. Several volunteers from Mavoi Satum translated this important article into English. I am publishing it here for the first time. The future of Israeli society is undoubtedly at stake: [You can also read this post on the Kolech English Blog, Jewish Women's Voice]

I don't know about you, but my experiences at supermarket checkout are usually filled with aggravation, tried patience, mental budgetary calculations, and self-directed reminders to maintain, as George Castanza famously said, "Serenity Now." But apparently I've been missing out. It seems that there are some places in which the check out line is filled with sexual innuendo, licensciousness, and sensual seduction. At least according to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Fox of Jerusalem has implied. (Hey, maybe I should be shopping where he shops.)

The public drive to create a viable alternative to the rabbinical court system received some significant support this week. Mavoi Satum, in cooperation with Kolech and Neemanei Va'Avodah, received a five-year commitment from the New Israel Fund to help make this vision into a reality. The implications are enormous, not only for agunot, not only for religious women, not only for the religious public, but also for women and men across all segments of Israeli society. Batya Cahana-Dror, Director of Advocacy at Mavoi Satum, recently published an extensive article on the significance of this topic in Eretz Aheret. Several volunteers from Mavoi Satum translated this important article into English. I am publishing it here for the first time. The future of Israeli society is undoubtedly at stake: [You can also read this post on the Kolech English Blog, Jewish Women's Voice]