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National Council of Jewish Women

Inspired by Jewish values, NCJW strives for social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms. Throughout Iowa history, Jewish women have played important roles in community and family life, maintaining cultural and religious traditions, working in businesses and on farms, and participating in civic life. Yet there are few documents in our archives and historical societies that record this history. The Iowa Women’s Archives seeks documents that illuminate the history of Jewish women in Iowa.

Israel’s political future could influence the future for women in Israel, as well as elsewhere in the greater region, where Israel’s strong ties with the United States, in particular, affect everything from sanctions on Iran to U.S. military spending. NCJW Tributes are available throughout the year and provide a way to share your sentiments with friends and family while supporting NCJW projects locally and in Israel. A police representative stated at the hearing that they suspect that this is not the first time that the young women have smuggled drugs. Following the hearing, Judge Tal Aner extended their detention by eight days. The four young women accused of attempting to smuggle 33 pounds of cocaine and ketamine from Germany into Israel arrived at the hearing at Rishon LeZion Magistrate’s Court on Sunday, crying as their families attempted to support them.

The law requires that suspected victims be informed of their right to assistance. Penalties for sexual harassment depend on the severity of the act and whether blackmail is involved; range from two to nine years’ imprisonment.

  • The law requires that suspected victims be informed of their right to assistance.
  • The first female president of Israel’s Supreme Court, Dorit Beinisch is one impressive lady.
  • In 2016, after years of activism by the feminist group Women of the Wall, Netanyahu approved a plan to expand the space at one of the holiest sites in Judaism.
  • The first female jet fighter pilot, Roni Zuckerman, received her wings in 2001.
  • The Caracal Battalion was formed which allowed men and women to serve together in light infantry.

Indeed, the rabbis succeeded in eliciting a positive response on almost all their demands with regard to the rights of religiously observant soldiers. The army has promised to allow soldiers to avoid conduct that violates their religious beliefs, even if such conduct is considered normal among the mainstream of Israeli society. Examples of such behavior include being alone in a room with a woman or seeing a woman in immodest clothing. Not surprisingly, rabbis involved in the process of updating the ordinance reported their satisfaction with the results, while women’s organizations felt as if they had lost this battle. The new ordinance aroused fierce public debate, with both women’s organizations and notable rabbis belonging to the Religious Zionist stream criticizing certain aspects of the ordinance. The women’s organizations claimed that even in the revised version, the ordinance continued check it out on https://absolute-woman.com/asian-women/israeli-women/ to legitimize discriminatory and non-egalitarian situations.

Israel’s Democratic Decline

The revised ordinance stated that before being placed in a gender-mixed unit, male soldiers must be asked whether such service conflicts with their religious way of life. If they respond in the affirmative, they must be given the option to be placed in an all-male unit. The only exceptions to the ordinance are officers and non-commissioned officers in the standing army who voluntarily choose to extend their military service beyond the duration required by law. Alongside its longstanding security challenges, the state of Israel has also been grappling in recent years with an intense controversy over the service of women in the Israel Defense Forces . The dispute recently came to a boiling point with the amendment of the “Joint Service Order,” which sets out guidelines for women’s military service alongside Orthodox men who observe, inter alia, religious restrictions on interacting with their female fellow-soldiers. The government enacted a number of programs to improve the status of women in the work place and society.

Love Everyone, Including Yourself

The Kollel is a community resource dedicated to providing Jewish education to all, regardless of affiliation or background. In the mindset and language of all societies and communities in the region in order to ensure that everyone, including women, has a voice. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page. Businesswoman and philanthropist Raya Strauss Ben-Dror is the epitome of an Israeli success story. Born in 1945, she founded the first college for ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem and has worked for years to overcome discrimination against women in her community. Born in 1985, the former Miss Israel laureate and military combat instructor has played strong, feisty women in Hollywood blockbusters such as Fast & Furious and Wonder Woman.

These individuals envisioned a place where the Jewish community of Bellaire could learn more about Judaism in a warm and welcoming environment. Although we offer religious services, the Bellaire Jewish Center is not a shul…we are your center for Jewish Living. Famous for not being afraid to stand up to the highest echelons, Beinisch fought for the law even when it proved unpopular with her government superiors and has ruled extensively on human rights. All while serving as a role model for women in the justice system and everywhere else.

The organization has 100 branches in cities, towns and settlements all over the country. It also has sister organizations in other countries whose members are part of the World Labour Zionist Movement and the World Zionist Organization.

“Of course I was afraid, and of course talking about such harsh experiences is a trigger. But for them it was a worthwhile effort, because it meant taking this life experience of theirs and participating in something of value. The film won the best documentary prize at the Haifa Film Festival as well as two prizes at the prestigious IDFA International Documentary Festival in the Netherlands – but Yarom decided that her next effort would focus on easier characters. Yarom had not planned a deep dive into this subject at all, she tells Haaretz in a recent interview. A friend of hers, an academic http://osposiek.cba.pl/2022/page/48/ who is knowledgeable about the subject of prostitution, tried time after time to convince her to devote her next work to it, but Yarom demurred. Another relates that when she entered the brothel for the first time, she felt immediately comfortable – as if she had reached her natural place.

Similarly, a Muslim man is privileged to divorce his wife without her consent and without petitioning the court. Similar problems with gender segregation have surfaced on airlines such as El Al, where ultra-Orthodox male passengers have pressured females to move, and planes have been delayed as a result. The New York Times interviewed Anat Hoffman on the phenomenon of ultra-Orthodox males asking female passengers on airlines to move, noting that IRAC had started a campaign urging Israeli women not to give up their seats. A major motivation for homicide in Israel is violence against women (including so-called “honor killings” in Muslim families). Several honor killings occur yearly in Israel within the Israeli Arab community.

There is a great deal of work to be done, experts say, particularly in the wake of the pandemic, which set back advancements in gender equality across the globe, and after 12 consecutive years of Netanyahu’s rule. Given that 20 years have passed since the emergence of the United Nations’ women, peace, and security agenda and that 10 Security Council resolutions have been adopted on related matters, this is worth examining in more detail. The Violence Against Women Act is the major federal response to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking (“the four crimes”). The largest increase in women’s political leadership has been in the sphere of local government. While the number of women MKs has remained relatively stable since the early days of the state, the number of women participating in local politics has increased systematically. In 1950, 4.2 percent of local representatives were women; by 1978, 5.5%; and in 1993, 11%. In 2011, there were many women local representatives though only one woman, Yael German, was serving as a mayor of a local authority.

Israel has a history of greater gender equality than many Western countries. Since the turn of the twentieth century, women have been working alongside men in the kibbutz movement. Female soldiers have served in the Israel Defense Forces since its founding, with the country, in 1948. In 1969, the year Gloria Steinem threw down the gauntlet of second-wave feminism in the United States—“After Black Power, Women’s Liberation”—Israelis elected a woman, Golda Meir, as their prime minister. The IDF is one of the only armies in the Western world in which women are drafted to military service by law. Women have served in the Israeli army ever since its establishment in 1948.