Israeli women stand up to gender segregation with musical protest
Women sing and dance in central Jerusalem to resist Haredi Jews’ campaign
The performers were mostly women, as was the audience. On a cold night in the centre of Jerusalem this week, they sang, swayed and danced, united in outrage at the exclusion of women and growing gender segregation in the public arena.
“We won’t stop singing or showing women’s faces or dancing until this ugly phenomenon which is foreign to Judaism or to any democratic society has vanished,” said Micky Gidzin, of Be Free Israel, the organisers of the musical protest. “This issue is a symbol of what kind of society we want to be.”
“The values of a minority are increasingly encroaching on public life,” added Sue Grodetsky, a participant in the event.
The minority is zealous ultra-orthodox, or Haredi, Jews. Their demands for gender segregation and the exclusion and boycotting of women in the public sphere led to criticism by the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, last weekend.
At a private meeting in Washington, according to reports, she said the vilification of women was reminiscent of extremist regimes and that the practice of separating women and men on public buses reminded her of racial segregation in the American south in the 1950s.
Despite an Israeli court ruling outlawing enforced segregation on buses earlier this year, “voluntary segregation” is permitted. Women mainly sit at the back and men mainly at the front on some buses in Jerusalem.
Some supermarkets, post offices and medical centres have separate entrances, queues or waiting areas for men and women. Women have been barred from speaking at funerals or attending burials.
There is gender segregation at around two-thirds of state-run religious elementary schools. Some refuse to allow fathers to attend their daughters’ birthday celebrations.
With the blessing of rabbis, religious soldiers have walked out of ceremonies at which women soldiers sing or dance. Advertisers have bowed to Haredi pressure to remove images of women from posters and billboards. Many that have continued to show women have been ripped down or defaced.
A bookshop, Manny’s, in the heart of Jerusalem’s Haredi area, recently acceded to demands by a local extremist Haredi group following a campaign in which the store’s windows were smashed dozens of times, glue was poured into locks and bags of excrement dumped inside.
Now a sign addressed “To our lady customers” says: “Please enter my store in modest clothes. Modest clothes include closed blouse with long sleeves, long skirts, no tight-fitting clothes.”
The Haredim targeted a professional dance studio, where women could be seem through large windows rehearsing their steps.
In October, a Jerusalem city councillor went to court to force the police to stop the Haredim erecting barriers down the middle of a public street to separate men and women during the religious festival of Sukkot. “We will not tolerate an extremist group dictating the way we live,” said the petition. The councillor, Rachel Azaria, was fired from the council’s ruling coalition for bringing a legal action against her own authority.
The ultra-orthodox are a growing sector of Jerusalem’s population, currently more than 20% but rising fast due to their high birth rate. They demand modest dress, the separation of men and women in public and a prohibition on women singing or dancing in mixed groups because it may arouse impure thoughts.
But the campaign to “erase” women from the public arena is being driven by zealous Haredi sects, to the dismay of many ultra-orthodox and modern orthodox as well as secular Jews.
An Israeli musician covers her face in protest, as she performs during a rally against gender segregation, in Jerusalem, Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011. Hundreds of women and women’s rights activists gathered in central Jerusalem Wednesday night for a rally organized by the New Israel Fund, themed “women will be seen and heard”, to protest discrimination against women in Israel. (AP)
Hillary Clinton ‘concerned over Israeli democracy’
Israeli ministers have hit back at concern expressed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that democracy is being eroded in the country.
She criticised recent attempts by the centre right-wing coalition to restrict donations to non-government organisations.
And she said attempts in some parts of Jerusalem to separate men and women on buses was “reminiscent of Rosa Parks”.
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said she had “completely exaggerated”.
“Israeli democracy is alive, liberal and breathing… I don’t know many better democracies in the world,” he was quoted by Haaretz newspaper as saying.
Female singers
Mrs Clinton made her comments in a closed session of the Saban Forum in Washington, attended by both Israeli and US decision-makers.
In front of an audience that included Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor and opposition leader Tzipi Livni, she made specific mention of legislation that proposes to limit funding to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Israeli media reported.
She also expressed her shock at incidents pointing to a growing discrimination against Israeli women.
This included separate seating areas for women on some Jerusalem buses, which she compared with the 1950s era of Rosa Parks, the black American woman who refused to give up her bus seat for white passengers.
She said the case of some IDF soldiers who refused to remain for a performance by female singers was reminiscent of the situation in Iran.
Tzipi Livni welcomed Mrs Clinton’s comments.
“Friends and admirers of Israel from within and without are worried about processes that Israel is undergoing,” she said.
“This concern is coming from those who fight for us in the UN and against our detractors, and who act to preserve Israel’s military advantage in the area.”
Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan said “elected offcials should concentrate on what is happening in their own countries.” However he added that he shared her concern over the rights of women.
Black coffins decorated with red roses are seen during a mock funeral attended by dozens of Israeli women to raise awareness over the growing number of women being killed in incidents of domestic violence across Israel, on November 24, 2011 in Tel Aviv. The march was organized by women’s rights activists to raise awareness about domestic violence, which so far this year has claimed 24 women’s lives in Israel and to mark the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. (Getty Images)
