The Truth About Women In Israel
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So Hillary Clinton thinks Israel does not treat its women nicely or respectfully enough. This is the same Hillary Clinton who never had much to say about the treatment of women in the Clinton White House.
The secretary of state is largely silent when it comes to the plight of women in the Muslim world, but condemns the only country in the Middle East that has a woman chief justice, plenty of women in its parliament, more female MDs than male, countless women army officers and court judges, and that has had a woman as head of state, something the U.S. has never had (sorry, Hillary).
Since 1980, women have comprised the majority of all Israeli undergraduate students. And that computation does not include teachers colleges, where women make up an even larger majority. Female students outnumber their male counterparts not just in education and the humanities, but also in such non-traditional fields for women as biological sciences and agriculture. Women comprise a majority of Israel’s medical students, 48.3 percent of law students, and 39 percent of physics students. There are also oodles of women students in math, engineering, and computer sciences. Women are also a small majority of those pursuing MA and Ph.D. studies.
Given those numbers, what was it that got Hillary so upset? Well, Israel has been debating the behavior of some small ultra-religious Jewish groups that believe in strict gender separation, especially in public spaces. No Jew is forced to belong to such communities and women in those communities unhappy with the lifestyle may leave at any time.
There have been initiatives in some of these ultra-religious communities to introduce special bus lines in which women and men do not sit together. When a secular Israeli woman challenged the initiative and sat in the “men’s section” of one such bus, Israel’s ultra-secularist leftist media proclaimed her the Israeli Rosa Parks, and Hillary picked up the cue.
In another incident, some religious soldiers requested not to be required to attend a concert in which women were singing, on grounds that according to their religious outlook such singing is erotic and immodest.
In yet other incidents, some signs were put up in ultra-religious neighborhoods asking women not to congregate on a street next to a synagogue and calling on men and women, in the name of modesty, to walk on opposing sides of some streets.
Of course, Hillary and Israel’s secular media never object to signs in mosques and churches, in Israel and elsewhere, that ask people not to enter in immodest dress. Nor has Hillary ever condemned the Amish for their own pre-modern lifestyles and gender roles. The enlightened media regard the Amish as downright endearing, a charming tourist attraction.
And you would never guess it from reading Hillary’s statements, but she certainly knows there are religious Jewish neighborhoods and communities in the United States where gender separation is the norm. No one seems to think such communities are deserving of public outcry by politicians.
The majority of Israelis reject the lifestyle of ultra-religious Jews, much as the bulk of Americans have no interest in joining the Amish. But the Amish generally are beneficiaries of a “live and let live” attitude on the part of their fellow citizens. A similar tolerance on the part of secular Israelis for the beliefs and practices of ultra-religious Jews would go a long way toward easing religious-secular tensions in Israel.
The religious soldiers who asked to be excused from listening to women singers did not demand that the singing event be cancelled, and they were happy to do kitchen or guard duty instead. But their officers and secularist politicians attempted to coerce them into attending to make a political point.
The haredim who were denounced for requesting bus lines with separate seating have now decided to finance their own independent small bus company without public funding. No one disturbed by gender-separate seating arrangements need use those private bus lines or minibuses.
In a sense, Hillary was just following the lead of numerous leftist feminist organizations. Radical feminists have never been able to identify any mistreatment of women in Arab countries beyond the supposed suffering of Palestinian women due to Israeli “occupation.” Feminist groups have rarely spoken out against Arab anti-Israel terrorism, though many of the victims of that terrorism are themselves women. Even most feminist groups operating inside Israel are radically pro-Palestinian.
The treatment of women in Arab and Muslim countries is so atrocious that space here would not allow for even a superficial survey. In the very same week Iran announced that a woman convicted of adultery would mercifully be hanged instead of stoned to death, Hillary Clinton – and other Obama administration officials who followed her lead – could find nothing more deserving of condemnation than the treatment of women in the only country in the Middle East where women are viewed as humans deserving of equal rights.
tell a friendAbout the Author: Steven Plaut is a professor at the University of Haifa. He can be contacted at steveneplaut@yahoo.com.
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3 Responses to “The Truth About Women In Israel”
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Israel is supposed to be a democratic, western oriented country. At least that is what it claims to be.
In every country some religious fanatism can be found: the Amish in the States, the Bible bashers in some places in Europe. Every person has the right to find its own life philosophy.
But what is disturbing inh Israel is the fact that the Orthodox religious seem to get more and more power in public life and continue to blackmail the government.
Israel is losing its pluralism. Everything is focussed on Judaism in an extreme way. Life of secular Israelis is even determined by primitive jewish laws of 2000 years ago, regarding divorce and marriage, where women are considered merely as child producers and an object who has to be obedient to her husband..
The biggest mistake in the past was to call Israel: “A jewish Democratic State”; This is an oximorone as religion cannot be mixed with the State and brings less and less pluralism in religion and more and more discrimination of other forms of spirituality (if at all one can call those dogmatic religions spiritual…)
I hope Israel will come back to its senses and consider “unity in diversity” a holy good and consider some female elements like compassion, forgiveness and connection between people as an essential element in society too…
With Hillary Clinton statement about iaraeli women it is no wonder that Hillary is not in the inter circle of the obama administration. The Jews are a Godly and covenant people, the jews are set apart, their ways are ways of peace and pleasantness nations and societies attempt to copy the jewish ideals. The truth about women in israel they are really really cute and beautiful. BEST WISHES (BE SAFE) CB
Israel is most likely the only country that women are treated and reach equal status to this of men, at home and workplace. Five women pilots have just graduated the hardest course known to be achieved! as to extreme religious women,
They choose not to be treated equal to men, and therefore always will represent the part of Israeli society that women aren’t considered equal! That isn’t a state policy and does not represent the secular majority’s philosophy or practice.