Episode 37: The Israeli Government’s War on Women

Evolve

This Israeli government is different, unprecedented, more religious, and righter wing than any before. At least, that’s what countless headlines and pundits are saying. According to two Israeli legal scholars and activists, Gila Stopler and Yofi Tirosh, this really is a moment of crisis for Israel. Stopler and Tirosh detail how the dramatic drop in women represented in government — two Orthodox coalition parties have no women representatives — is shaping an agenda that could dramatically curtail women’s rights. Rather than the cosmopolitan place in which women thrive and lead, they warn of a sobering future in which men and women are segregated in much of public life, looking more like other Conservative Middle Eastern nations than the nation Israel’s founders built and envisioned. Will it happen? Can the legal system — itself under assault — or popular protests prevent the worst fears from occurring? How much does this all have to do with the inability of Israeli and Palestinian leaders to make peace? We discuss all this and more.

Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb

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This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.

Special Guests: Dr. Yofi Tirosh and Gila Stopler.

Support Evolve

Links:

• Read the Evolve essay, "The Israeli Government’s War on Women"
• Also on Evolve, "Kaplan, Herzl and the Current State of Israeli and American Politics"
• Last month's episode, "The State of Democracy in Israel and the U.S"
• Yofi Tirosh's recent appearance on Haaertz Podcast
• From the Jerusalem Post, "50 women’s groups form new coalition in response to Netanyahu gov't"
• From the Times of Israel, "Nobel laureate on judicial plans: ‘Not the Israel I want my grandkids to grow up in’"
• From the Times of Israel, "The Jewish path back to Israeli democracy"