Israeli Women’s Leadership Today: A Panel Discussion

Leah Shakdiel, Chair

I am here today replacing a very dear woman to whom I’d like to dedicate my opening remarks.

It is not every day that a woman receives the Israel Prize for her life accomplishments. It is not every day that a religious woman is granted such esteem on a national and public level. And it is not every day that a banner is raised in honor of a religious feminist woman’s accomplishments in the fields of teaching and education, volunteerism and political activity.

Professor Alice Shalvi, this is another opportunity to thank you for being there and opening the way for us and with us. For us, you have been a symbol of courage and tireless action, an amazing personal example, both when we agree with you and even—and in my eyes this is a huge compliment—when our ways have parted. None of us grew up in a vacuum; as each of us makes herself heard in her own way, we remain keenly aware of the vital activities of women, organizations, streams of Judaism and movements that came before us and are working around us in similar areas, from many directions. Where Alice Shalvi is concerned, these include the Israel Women’s Network, which she founded; the Pelech High School for Girls, which she directed and shaped; and the Schechter Institute, in which she has filled several leadership positions. Today, she is a member of the Board of Directors of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary and of the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies, and she serves on the steering committees of the Women’s Studies Program and the journal Nashim. In the past, she served as Rector of this institution. We can only go from strength to strength by acknowledging and honoring the strength that upholds us. Thank you, Alice.

We turn now to hearing the voices of the women leaders seated here.

Dr. Hannah Kehat
Researcher and Lecturer in Judaism and Education
Founder of Kolech, the Religious Women’s Forum

I want to open with a statement by journalist Avirama Golan that I find germane in this context. A couple of months ago, the press announced that I had called upon the women of Israel, to anyone who does not feel utterly bound to the Rabbinate and to marrying under its auspices, not to set foot there. That is the only way I see, today, of breaking its monopoly, of dismantling the decrepit, insensitive institution known as the Rabbinate and beginning to extricate women from the distresses to which it subjects them. This call was made at a conference on women and Judaism, and I had no idea that someone was recording me or that it would appear in the press the next day. However, I was not sorry about that; I didn’t intend for it to happen, but I was pleased. That Friday, Avirama Golan wrote in the HaAretz newspaper: “now the gauntlet has been thrown down to us non-religious women. Let’s see if we can respond to the challenge and join in this call.”

Needless to say, no one joined in; there was no response. I am already familiar with the dynamic. But there is something that pains me in this regard and eats away at our efforts, something very essential: There’s not enough feminist sisterhood in the State of Israel to carry the revolution forward. Could we but rise above our sectorial rivalry, which is antithetical to the message and principles of feminism, I believe we would succeed far better in promoting many of the issues that concern us.

I’ve just pointed, for example, to a struggle that appears to an issue of religion —it’s connected with the rabbinical courts and the Rabbinate and being married by Jewish law. But it’s not only a religious struggle. On the contrary, if I were to say that it only concerned by own sector of religious women, then, in principle, conducting secular weddings in Israel, which seems to me to me right and necessary, could be said to harm our interests. Indeed, quite a few...