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Feminism in Israel is a complex issue in contemporary Israeli society due to the varied demographic makeup of the country and the country's particular balance of religion and state issues. [1] For secular Israeli women, the successive campaigns for women's rights and equality reflect a similar timeline and progression as Western democracies. For Israeli Arabs, however, the issue of feminism is strongly linked to Palestinian causes. And for Orthodox Jews, selected women's rights and women's representation in the Israeli Parliament are recently debated issues.
The manifestations of first-wave feminism in Israel began before statehood, during the Yishuv period. These early campaigns were rooted in the ideology of Israeli socialism. A feature of this era is the women who sought to be treated as equals, chiefly in the areas of agricultural labor in the kibbutzim and within the workers' parties. [2] While the first wave of Israeli feminism didn't reach its peak until the 1920s, efforts such as those made in the Revolution of 1886, in which local women worked to gain suffrage in Yishuv institutions are said to have ignited the rise of feminism in the area. [3] [4] It was not until 1927 that women gained the right to vote in Jewish communities and the ability to be elected and serve in the local government. [4]
Second-wave feminism took somewhat longer to manifest in Israel. Questions concerning the need for a new women's rights movement began in the early 1970s, and in 1972, Israel's first radical women's movement was established. Notable events during that era include the establishment of the Ratz political party ("Movement for Civil Rights and Peace") which won four seats in the 1973 Israeli legislative election. [2]
During this period, key early activists were American Jews living in Israel who organized consciousness-raising meetings in Israel's major cities. [5]
Arab Israeli feminism emerged following Israel's second-wave feminism, criticizing the dominant discourse as ignoring the double discrimination experienced by the Palestinians of Israel, and demanded their path to emancipation. Their initial actions concerned work, education, domestic violence. The general stance of Israeli Arab feminists is anti-colonial and sympathetic to Palestinian nationalism, however, no feminist “movement” has been constituted due to internal organizational fragmentation. [7] In Arab feminist literature, a common theme of discrimination concerns the childhood experiences of boys and girls in the family. [8]
Writings on this trend of feminism tend to neglect the impact on the Israeli Druze community. [9]
As feminism in Israeli society developed, a distinction began to form between Ashkenazi (Jews of European origin) and Mizrachi (Jews of Middle Eastern origin) forms of feminism. A rift formed along ethnic lines, as Mizrachi activists felt excluded and marginalized from mainstream women's movements. The First Mizrahi Feminist Annual Conference was held in 1995, representing the formal recognition of Mizrachi feminism in Israel. [10]
In 1981, Chana Safrai חנה ספראי, established the first institution for advanced study of Talmud by women, where such illustrious teachers as Dr. Nehama Leibowitz and Rabbi Dr. Binyamin Lau were among the faculty. [11] Following the opening of this school, higher Torah learning institutions for women proliferated in Israel over the next four decades. [11] In 1982 a halakhic study was published highlighting that it was appropriate for religious women to serve in the IDF. [12] In 2002 Aluma was established, which assists religious girls to attain meaningful service in the IDF. [13] In 1987, a legal case was brought before the Supreme Court of Israel arguing that Leah Shakdiel לאה שקדיאל must be allowed to serve on local religious councils. The case was brought after the Israeli Minister of Religious Affairs canceled Shakdiel's appointment to the religious affairs committee in Yeruham. After the court ruled in her favor, Leah Shakdiel became the first woman to serve on a religious council in Israel. [14]
In Haredi Jewish communities, one of the first substantive attempts by religious women to organize along political lines was the establishment of the Lo Nivcharot, Lo Bocharot ("not elected, no vote") in 2012 which campaigned for the Haredi political parties to allow women to join the party. [15] A subsequent initiative was the establishment of the political party U'Bizchutan organized by Haredi women. [16]
A major issue prompting efforts for Orthodox women's rights is the issue of agunot , women whose husbands refuse to divorce under Jewish law. [17]
Haredi feminism is still a slowly emerging trend but it is distinct from modern Orthodox approaches. Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist efforts include issues relating to religious law such as the question of women's prayer groups and access to public rituals such as dancing with the Torah scroll on Simchat Torah. By contrast, Haredi feminism has been concerned with the political sphere and does not address restrictions in religious ritual areas. [18]
The Israeli government marks International Women's Day, as marked by the United Nations and other countries around the world, to commemorates the struggle for women's equality under the law. The Knesset has established a Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality which is responsible for promoting the status of women in social, economic, and political affairs, and addressing gender-based discrimination in Israeli society. [19]
Haredi Judaism consists of groups within Orthodox Judaism that are characterized by their strict interpretation of religious sources and their accepted halakha and traditions, in opposition to more accommodating or modern values and practices. Its members are usually referred to as ultra-Orthodox in English; however, the term "ultra-Orthodox" is considered pejorative by many of its adherents, who prefer terms like strictly Orthodox or Haredi. Haredi Jews regard themselves as the most religiously authentic group of Jews, although other movements of Judaism disagree.
Modern Orthodox Judaism is a movement within Orthodox Judaism that attempts to synthesize Jewish values and the observance of Jewish law with the modern world.
Shas is a Haredi religious political party in Israel. Founded in 1984 under the leadership of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former Israeli Sephardi chief rabbi, who remained its spiritual leader until his death in October 2013, it primarily represents the interests of Sephardic and Mizrahi Haredi Jews.
The National Religious Party was a political party in Israel representing the religious Zionist movement.
Yishuv, HaYishuv HaIvri, or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el denotes the body of Jewish residents in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 25,000 Jews living in that region, and continued to be used until 1948, by which time there were some 630,000 Jews there. The term is still in use to denote the pre-1948 Jewish residents in Palestine, corresponding to the southern part of Ottoman Syria until 1918, OETA South in 1917–1920, and Mandatory Palestine in 1920–1948.
Ovadia Yosef was an Iraqi-born Talmudic scholar, a posek, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983, and a founder and long-time spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party. Yosef's responsa were highly regarded within Haredi circles, particularly among Mizrahi communities, among whom he was regarded as "the most important living halakhic authority".
Religious Zionism is an ideology that views Zionism as a fundamental component of Orthodox Judaism. Its adherents are also referred to as Dati Leumi, and in Israel, they are most commonly known by the plural form of the first part of that term: Datiim. The community is sometimes called 'Knitted kippah', the typical head covering worn by male adherents to Religious Zionism.
Agudat Yisrael is a Haredi Jewish political party in Israel. It began as a political party representing Haredi Jews in Poland, originating in the Agudath Israel movement in Upper Silesia. It later became the party of many Haredim in Israel. It was the umbrella party for many, though not all, Haredi Jews in Israel until the 1980s, as it had been during the British Mandate of Palestine.
Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to make the religious, legal, and social status of Jewish women equal to that of Jewish men in Judaism. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of the Jewish religion.
Palestinian Jews or Jewish Palestinians were the Jewish inhabitants of the Palestine region prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
The 97th Netzah Yehuda Battalion, previously known as Nahal Haredi, is a battalion in the Kfir Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces. The purpose of the unit is to allow Haredi Jewish men to serve as combat soldiers in the Israeli military by creating an atmosphere conducive to their religious convictions, within a framework that is strictly observant of Halakha. The Netzah Yehuda's primary area of operations is in the West Bank.
Women of the Wall is a multi-denominational Jewish feminist organization based in Israel whose goal is to secure the rights of women to pray at the Western Wall, also called the Kotel, in a fashion that includes singing, reading aloud from the Torah and wearing religious garments. Pew Research Center has identified Israel as one of the countries that place "high" restrictions on religion, and there have been limits placed on non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. One of those restrictions is that the Rabbi of the Western Wall has enforced gender segregation and limitations on religious garb worn by women. When the "Women of the Wall" hold monthly prayer services for women on Rosh Hodesh, they observe gender segregation so that Orthodox members may fully participate. But their use of religious garb, singing and reading from a Torah have upset many members of the Orthodox Jewish community, sparking protests and arrests. In May 2013 a judge ruled that a 2003 Israeli Supreme Court ruling prohibiting women from carrying a Torah or wearing prayer shawls had been misinterpreted and that Women of the Wall prayer gatherings at the wall should not be deemed illegal.
From the founding of political Zionism in the 1890s, Haredi Jewish leaders voiced objections to its secular orientation, and before the establishment of the State of Israel, the vast majority of Haredi Jews were opposed to Zionism, like early Reform Judaism, but with distinct reasoning. This was chiefly due to the concern that secular nationalism would redefine the Jewish nation from a religious community based in their alliance to God for whom adherence to religious laws were "the essence of the nation's task, purpose, and right to exists," to an ethnic group like any other as well as the view that it was forbidden for the Jews to re-constitute Jewish rule in the Land of Israel before the arrival of the Messiah. Those rabbis who did support Jewish resettlement in Palestine in the late 19th century had no intention to conquer Palestine and declare its independence from the rule of the Ottoman Turks, and some preferred that only observant Jews be allowed to settle there.
In Judaism, especially in Orthodox Judaism, there are a number of settings in which men and women are kept separate in order to conform with various elements of halakha and to prevent men and women from mingling. Other streams of Judaism rarely separate genders any more than secular western society.
Torato Umanuto is a special government arrangement in Israel that allows young Haredi Jewish men who are enrolled in yeshivas to complete their studies before they are conscripted into the Israeli military. Historically, it has been mandatory in Israeli law for male and female Jews, male Druze, and male Circassians to serve in the military once they become 18 years of age, with male conscripts required to serve for three years and female Jewish conscripts required to serve for two years.
Women in Israel comprise 50.26 percent of the state's population as of 2019. While Israel lacks an official constitution, the Israeli Declaration of Independence of 1948 states that “The State of Israel (…) will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.”
Lo Nivcharot, Lo Bocharot is a Haredi feminist movement in Israel. The movement is also known as LoNiLoBo or Nivcharot.
Jewish Israeli stone-throwing refers to criminal rock-throwing activity by Jewish Israelis in Mandatory Palestine, Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. It includes material about internecine stone-throwing, in which Haredi Jews throw stones at other Jews as a protest against what they view as violations of religious laws concerning Shabbat, modest clothing for women and similar issues, and material about stone-throwing by extremists in the settler movement.
Adina Bar-Shalom is an Israeli educator, columnist, and social activist. She is the founder of the first college for Haredi students in Jerusalem, and has spent years working to overcome gender discrimination in the Orthodox Jewish community. She was awarded the Israel Prize for lifetime achievement and special contribution to society in 2014.
Mizrahi feminism is a movement within Israeli feminism, which seeks to extricate Mizrahi women from the binary categories of Mizrahi-Ashkenazi and men-women. Mizrahi feminism is inspired by both Black feminism and Intersectional feminism, and seeks to bring about the liberation of women and social equality through recognition of the particular place Mizrahi women hold on the social map, and all the ways it affects Mizrahi women.