Women Excluded At Offical State Memorial Ceremony For Fallen Soldiers

"As I watched, I was stunned to see a stage that was utterly “Woman-rein” - devoid of females completely. As far as I could tell, (and I would be happy to learn there were some that the cameras did not reveal) there was no participation by women in the ceremony whatsoever."

Allison Kaplan Sommer writes about Israel's main memorial ceremony for fallen soldiers held Sunday night where it is traditionally held every year – at the Kotel (Western Wall).

But this year, something was very different:

…As I watched, I was stunned to see a stage that was utterly “Woman-rein” - devoid of females completely. As far as I could tell, (and I would be happy to learn there were some that the cameras did not reveal) there was no participation by women in the ceremony whatsoever.

Even the honor guards from the various branches of the IDF - which normally showcase a diversity of race and gender worthy of a Benetton ad, was a homogeneous sea of male faces.

The only role held by a woman was brief, momentary, and silent - the widow of a fallen soldier handed the torch to President Shimon Peres who then lit the memorial flame. She then faded into the sea of women in the audience - the bereaved mothers, the widows, the sisters, all the women who lost loved ones in Israel’s wars and terrorist acts. The delineation was made clear - men led the mourning - women mourned. In the daytime ceremony on Monday, by contrast, while the line-up of speakers and dignitaries was also heavily male, female soldiers were front and center in the ceremony.…

The ceremony [took] place in the Western Wall plaza, run by the Western Wall Heritage Foundations, headed by [haredi] Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich, the Israeli government official in charge of the Wall who has not only done battle with the activist group Women of the Wall, but who has been criticized by even traditional women for refusing to take women’s needs into consideration when it comes to allocating prayer space at the holy site.

Presumably, the configuration of the Sunday evening ceremony was the result of negotiation between Rabinovich and the IDF. One would hope that if the IDF had a free hand, it would have looked differently.…

The IDF does what it is told and evidently the government told it to exclude women.

Rabinovich is a dishonest person who has illegally turned the Kotel into a haredi synagogue.

When Israel's courts finally ruled against him (and the police, which were illegally doing his bidding), the government stepped in to side with Rabinovich and the haredim against pretty much everyone else.

Simply put, no Likud politician has much chance of being Prime Minister without the support of haredi political parties if the current government falls. Even if it doesn't fall, the next election will likely find the Likud candidate needing haredi support to take power.

You might argue that Likud and its current leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should stand up for the right thing and refuse to discriminate against women for the sake of getting haredi votes.

However Netanyahu has never really been ethical or honest, and if he has to sell out women to gain haredi support he will do so – until doing so costs him enough women's votes.

Unfortunately, because of Israel's fractured political system that lacks geographically-based proportional representation and which sees voters vote for a party's list, not for individual candidates, that is unlikely to happen any time soon.

And the Kotel will remain in practice what it never was and still is not legally – a haredi synagogue that excludes women from participation in ways that are allowed in non-haredi synagogues, even Orthodox ones,  all over the world.

But don't just blame Likud.

Also blame Women of the Wall's leader, Anat Hoffman, who sold out her group's founding purpose – and many of its actual founders – to make a provisional deal with the government that will see WoW pray at the new egalitarian section located on the far side of the Mughrabi Bridge, far from the Kotel proper and separated from the Kotel proper by a large immovable physical impediment.

When Hoffman made that deal several months ago she publicly said the Kotel rightly belongs to haredim – a claim that is historically and legally untrue.

But Hoffman wasn't talking about Israeli law or history.

She was talking about what the government and she had agreed to.

And now we can all see the fruits of her actions.

Comments

[Rocky]

SR said: "Unfortunately, because of Israel's fractured political system that lacks geographically-based proportional representation and which sees voters vote for a party's list, not for individual candidates, that is unlikely to happen any time soon."

Most people don't realize that Germany's proportional representation system under the Weimar constituion also helped to destabilize that country after WWI. In the end, although the constitution had been drafted by a Jewish lawyer in 1919 and was considered very democratic for its time, it was not good for the Jews. 13 political parties were represented in the Reichstag with at least 1 seat after the July 1932 elections. 14 parties won seats in the November 1932 elections. The Nazi party did not win a majority of the seats either time but they did win a plurality in both elections and in January 1933, the country's President asked Hitler to form a government.

I don't know why Israel copied the failed Weimar model. As the Haredim become an ever larger electoral block, they will help bring down the economy. The prey will destroy its host and all of Holocuast museums in the world will not be able to stop this economic collapse.

[Ryan P]

This is a particularly galling sell-out to the haredim, as the haredim recognize neither the State of Israel nor the IDF, and active work to undermine both. It's unfathomable why the government doesn't have the balls to tell them off on such an event.

And so there will probably be slight outrage for a couple of days, after which the seculars will go back to their previous ways, i.e. - falling for the black hat and beard as they do all the time, and refusing to pull the plug on that oppressive religious establishment.

It just makes me want to say kaddish for Judaism.

[S M L]

Judaism will do just fine without the failing experiment that is Israel as its focus. Israel's primary resource is the brainpower and drive of its non-Haredi population. That's a portable resource. Plenty of room in the US economy and in other economies for a slew of high achievers bringing their business acumen and knowledge with them and their brand of relatively liberal Judaism. Let the ultras remain in Israel until they have nobody to exclude but each other and until the Arabs manage to take over.

[Shira Pruce]

Blaming Women of the Wall for the exclusion of women at the Kotel? This is a first and quite wrong I am afraid.
Please do research on the facts surrounding WOW's negotiation goals and role in this situation.
First, Anat Hoffman never said such a thing.
Second, Women of the Wall are negotiating so that this exact thing NEVER happens again. Currently the entire Western Wall is under the jurisdiction of Rabinowitz, who dictates the unlawful exclusion of women there at ceremonies. The government agencies that organize the ceremonies go along with it- and they should not. WOW is in the PMO;s office, negotiating, pleading that the Upper Plaza should NOT be under Rabinowitz's jurisdiction just for this reason.
Likewise WOW is negotiating with the Conservative and Reform Movement to get government funds taken from Rabinowitz's budget and put towards promoting the involvement of women in ritual life and national ceremonies at the Kotel. This change will take time and work- it will not happen overnight. But it will never happen if we do not work with the government to gain at least some of the control and funds that are currently solely in the hands of the ultra-Orthodox. This is how social change works.
It would behoove you to correct the statement above. It is false to say that Women of the Wall is dedicating any less than 100% of their efforts to fighting the exclusion of women in the public sphere at the Kotel.

[Shmarya]

Shira –

Please.

Anat Hoffman quote from Ha'aretz October 13, 2013:

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.552238

“When people tell me we’re abandoning our Haredi sisters, there’s something disingenuous about that because our Haredi sisters also have rights, and we saw last Rosh Chodesh that they really don’t want – maybe not all of them, but many of them – do not want to see a woman in a tallit and tefillin, and they also have rights. I think it’s absolutely fine that the state gives the Kotel rabbi absolute authority over the Haredi space. The Haredim, after all, are a political force in Israel, but ultimately that is what will enable us to liberate the rest of wall, which is something huge.”

End Hoffman quote.

You have never been particularly open or honest, Shira, and this latest untruth from you is no exception.