This morning the New York Times highlights their article of on the shocking increase of Israeli religious fundamentalism and the segregation of women. They report, for example, on the pediatrics professor who wins a government Health Ministry-sponsored award. She dresses herself up in "modest" garb to receive her prize. She and her husband can't sit together at the ceremony - the sexes are segregated - where she is told that in any event a man must accept the award for her since women aren't permitted on the stage.
The Times gives a number of other examples of how bad things are - from "ultra-Orthodox men spit on an 8-year-old girl whom they deemed immodestly dressed" to "the chief rabbi of the air force resigned his post because the army declined to excuse ultra-Orthodox soldiers from attending events where female singers perform" to women's faces being blacked out on Jerusalem billboards.
However, the New York Times quotes six men in the article and just one woman - the leader of the Israeli Labour Party. And her quote is taken from another article - she does not appear to have been interviewed for this one. So in terms of direct source material, a shocked NY Times piece about the exclusion of women itself excludes women.
I've got three things to say about this.
One, this reminds me of the Americans who righteously criticize Israel for its brutal Occupation of Palestine, without a word of recognition of the role of wretched American foreign policy and extravagent military aid to Israel in propping up the country and maintaining the Occupation.
Two, the NYT says: "Public discourse in Israel is suddenly dominated by a new, high-toned Hebrew phrase, “hadarat nashim,” or the exclusion of women." They do not mention that Israeli women have been organizing for their rights since the 70s and that they have been demonstrating vigorously on many levels in many ways about the increasing gender apartheid. It is women, they neglect to recognize, who have insisted that the society grapple with this. Here's a photo of naked Tel Aviv women in a November 2011 protest.
Finally, since the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, many Israeli women have made the connection between the Occupation of Palestine and the racism against Arabs in Israel with internal social divisions. Israeli women have organized many of the lasting, broad anti-Occupation groups in the country. Progressive Israeli women know, as the NYT apparently does not, that discrimination and exclusion are contagious.
And to wrap-up, may I repeat myself as I have done for decades, that all religious fundamentalisms have, at the heart of their agendas, the control of reproduction and of women's bodies and lives.
Well said.
Posted by: Greg Morris | 16 January 2012 at 14:12
Thanks, cousin Greg.
Posted by: Sue Katz | 16 January 2012 at 14:14