Letter from Israel: It's Time For Some Gender Equality

In the coming months the minister of justice will be appointing a new director of the rabbinical courts. This position will, in all probability, not be staffed by a woman. This is not because of a lack of qualified women, but because of legal restrictions, since the candidate must be an authorized dayan (rabbinic judge) or city rabbi – and only men can be rabbis and dayanim.

It’s time for some gender equality
The process of appointing a new director for the Rabbinic Court is an opportunity to enable women to compete for this position.
By BATYA KAHANE-DROR • JERUSALEM POST
 
In the coming months the minister of justice will be appointing a new director of the rabbinical courts. This position will, in all probability, not be staffed by a woman. This is not because of a lack of qualified women, but because of legal restrictions, since the candidate must be an authorized dayan (rabbinic judge) or city rabbi.

In this way, Israeli law blocks the candidacy of talented and capable women who have been dealing for years with the issues of personal status in general, and in the functioning of the courts in particular. There are women who know the system well and can release it from its failed functioning, and treat – even partially – its many ills.

The basic “progressive” laws of the State of Israel – Freedom of Occupation and Human Dignity and Liberty – that are the basis for the values of equality in almost every public sphere, do not apply to the issue of personal status that constitutes the main source of gender discrimination. The Supreme Court which recognizes gender equality as a protected value, through the interpretation of the basic law of ‘human dignity and freedom,’ is prevented from dealing with the laws of marriage and divorce.

The rabbinical courts are being defended, through this basic legislation and equal rights law for women, thereby protecting and resisting their obligations to apply an authentic element of gender equality.

BUT THE legislature isn’t satisfied with just implementing the halacha of inequality regarding marriage and divorce, and not even in preventing women from serving as dayaniot (rabbinic court judges) and holding official religious positions. It even surpasses itself by preventing women from serving in administrative positions that accompany judicial tasks in religious institutions.

A study of the lists of judicial and administrative positions in the rabbinical courts reinforces our concerns: We did not find among the positions even one woman who served in a judicial or senior administrative position. Throughout the decades of existence of these courts, there has been direct discrimination regarding the employment of women.

The notorious glass ceiling that at times arouses false hope because of its deceptive transparency, changes the rabbinical courts into an official reinforced fortified wall which reflects harsh and outrageous discrimination.

The time has come for renewed investigation of the legislative regulations in the area of personal status and in relation to the values of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. It’s time to clarify the extent to which these regulations reflect the principles, purpose and character of the state, and if the discrimination hidden in them violates a tolerable boundary.

The process of appointing a new director for the Rabbinic Court, after 20 years, is an opportunity to take action by enabling women to compete for this position. This will be another step in the direction of integrating women into the system of public service positions.

This demand gains validity in light of the inequality and prejudice built into the rabbinic courts system: in the gender homogeneousness of those who hold senior positions; in the inequality of couple’s relationships, and in the lack of a practical solution in the rabbinical courts for the acute problem of women who are agunot (anchored in marriage) and mesoravot get (denied receiving a divorce).

A bill that will enable the appointment of women for the position of director of the rabbinic courts, which has been written under the initiative of the Na’amat and Mavoi Satum organizations, will be submitted to the Knesset this week by MKs Orit Zuaretz and Marina Solodkin from Kadima.

The writer is director of the Mavoi Satum organization for women denied a divorce.

Comments

[harold]

In the coming months the minister of justice will be appointing a new director of the rabbinical courts. This position will, in all probability, not be staffed by a woman.

Oh boy! Yes, let them appoint a woman to be the director of the rabbinical courts. Give another reason to antagonize the haredim. Brother, a stroke of genius. While they are at it, I think that the Israeli govt should mandate that every Bais Din of 3 people must have one of them to be a woman.

[A E ANDERSON]

In general, the apparatus that OVERSEES the rabbinical courts needs to be a secular agency to ensure that the agency being overseen complies with broader state and human rights policy.

It about time that the state flex its muscles to rein in run-away local rabbis and rabbinical courts that are trampling roughshod over the basic rights of Israeli citizens as these rabbis turn ever more extreme and partisan.

It is the duty of any state, including Israel, to ensure that its public officials remain unbiased and non-partisan. To the extent that is not presently true, I can think of no better place for the Israeli state to begin enforcing a policy of non-bias and balance than in the personal status realm of citizenship registration, marriage, divorce, its.

Israel had better start taking seriously its obligations as a modern democratic state, or face eventual derision, if not outright expulsion, from the OECD. The message to haredim, as well as to the Arabs must be "BEHAVE OR LEAVE!"

[seymour]

this is way the usa of separation and state and church is ingenues.

In Israel they are bond together and many times their is a conflict that is almost impossible to bridge. Separate it, and those who want to be dealing with rabbinate can and those who do not don't. But if it together and Israel believes in equal rights how can they the state be in charge of a rabbinate that does not believe that basic right

[Шнеерсон]

So this Harry guy has a chabad daughter. That means her kids cannot be counted in a minyan nor called to an aliyah. This sort of self selection is how we Jews survive.

No decent family would allow their son to marry a chabad girl. Ick.

[flailed]

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