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צילום: חיים צח
Women at rabbis' mercy
Israeli women forced to contend with strict rabbis, domineering husbands
Hundreds of thousands of women across Israel worked tirelessly for days, polishing and cleaning, shining and scrubbing. They did all this ahead of the big night, where everyone sits by the table to mark our exodus from slavery to freedom.
By the time the holiday rolled around they were exhausted, after days and nights where they sacrificed themselves in order to clean any remnants of chametz ahead of Passover. This year, as is usually not the custom, we will dedicate one small thought to these women, who are also supposed to view themselves as though they left Egypt - from darkness to great light, and from slavery to salvation.
So why is it that these women still do not feel the promised liberty and freedom? Because raising several children with a monthly income of NIS 3,500 (roughly USD 800) is no liberty; because earning 20 percent less than men who do the same job but do not need to run home and clean the house ahead of the holiday or raise the children is not a sigh of equality; because in order to free themselves from the chains of marriage they will have to pay with their dignity, assets, and at times with their lives. No, they have not heard of freedom or liberty – at best, they can maybe dream about a short afternoon nap.
Israel 2007, which has been marking for more than 2,000 years now the holiday of freedom, the holiday of spring, and the people of Israel's liberation, chose not to grant equal rights and full freedom to hundreds of women who cannot get a divorce and are at the mercy of rabbis who are uninterested in offering help. Israel 2007 chose to enable a man to divorce his wife, however, if she did not bear children, or burned his meal, or failed to do the laundry. Israel chose to prevent hundreds of divorced women from marrying freely their loved ones, who are Cohens. On the other hand, it chose to send every Jewish woman to the mikvah (Jewish ritual bath) ahead of her wedding.
End Orthodox domination
The State of Israel chose to grant power to a religious-Orthodox minority, which determines the fate of the country's women, when it granted, by law, exclusive authority to religious representatives to rule on matters of marriage and divorce, where women almost never enjoy the upper hand. We must recall that those same rabbinical courts comprise men only; women can never be judges, even though every matter handled by the court involves women. The same rabbis, who have the power to move women from darkness to light, do not necessarily do that, and perhaps even do the opposite.
In our enlightened country, a Jewish man can marry another woman instead of his wife, as long as he provides a document that shows that his semen is adequate for making children, and then it can be said the problem lies with the woman. Then, the rabbis rule that as the woman is not fertile, the man can marry another woman.
This Passover we shall ask ourselves for how long will women have to contend with capricious legislators, strict rabbis, and domineering husbands. Aren't 40 years of walking through the desert and the 60 years of Israel's existence enough time to truly leave Egypt? It should be more than enough, and therefore we must not reconcile ourselves to the rabbinical madness that rules our lives from birth to death and from marriage to divorce.
We must not accept the appointment of ultra-Orthodox rabbis to courts that rule our lives and we must not accept the government's capitulation in the face of religious blackmail on family matters and the status of women as a result of coalition considerations.
We must put an end to the absurd religious-Orthodox domination of our personal lives and the lack of freedom of women in Israel, a needless leftover of the Ottoman empire laws that once prevailed in our region.
Should the Israeli government continue to give in to coalition pressures and maintain the status quo, which enables the rabbis to violate the status quo as they wish, the citizens must take responsibly and fight them: Boycott their activity, sign petitions against them, submit High Court petitions, block access to them, and bring about their closure, hopefully soon.
It is time to show that we are not only fed up with religious coercion, but are also sick and tired of capitulating in its face. Then, perhaps, the Passover holiday will also be applicable to women, and we would be able to wholeheartedly say that we also made the exodus from slavery to freedom.
The writer is an attorney and the director-general of the "New Family" organization dedicated to advancing family rights in Israel
