This is the week the sea miraculously splits. The Israelites make it through in safety to the other side. Moses leads the people in song first… the famous words Mi Chamocha, that we sing in every morning and evening service, were part of Moses’ song of celebration. And “then Miriam the prophet… took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went out after her in dance with timbrels. And Miriam chanted...” Ironic, isn’t it, that there are places in Israel where this couldn’t happen: Miriam would not have been permitted to sing publically in front of an audience that included men.
At the core of the controversy is the statement from the Talmud (Berakhot 24a) "Shmuel said: The voice of a woman is nakedness (kol b'isha`erva) as it says (Song of Songs 2:14) 'for your voice is sweet and your countenance comely.'" Another time we can study the halacha around this law; there are many different ways to interpret it and in fact many Orthodox authorities don’t follow this prohibition. But what is happening within some of the most extreme Charedi Ultra-Orthodox communities in Israel is affecting all of us who care about equality and pluralism in Israel. For example, recently the annual medical conference of Puah, an organization funded by the Ministry of Health that deals with the intersection of Jewish law and fertility, excluded women as conference presenters. In November, the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Force made it clear that “religious” soldiers would not be excused from official events where female soldiers sing, but they could choose not to attend non-formal events. The debate began in September when several soldiers were asked to leave officer candidate school over their refusal to be in an environment where they would be forced to listen to “kol b’isha.” And I hope you saw the front page article in the Sunday New York Times last month that reported on the horrible intimidation of a young Orthodox girl on her way to school in Beit Shemesh by some ultra-Orthodox Charedim because she was not dressed modestly enough in their opinion.
The good news is that many people in Israel are beginning to take a stand against this kind of gender discrimination. A leader in the struggle is Anat Hoffman, the Director of the Reform Movement’s Israel Religious Action Center. Anat and the Israel Religious Action Center challenged the policy that permitted publically-funded buses to operate in Orthodox neighborhoods to require that women sit in the back of the bus. Last year, after a four-year legal battle, the Supreme Court decided that gender discrimination on public transportation was illegal. But it still goes on, so Anat and the Israel Religious Action Center have organized over a thousand volunteers to be Freedom Riders on routes where there have been reports about illegal segregation.
Anat is a genuine hero... a modern Miriam. We have the opportunity to meet her this Friday night as she will be our guest speaker during Shabbat Unplugged services which begin at 7:30 PM. She will also be speaking after services from 9:15 to 10:15 PM.
Our tradition tells the story that the sea didn’t really split until one of us was brave enough to jump into the water. If Anat Hoffman had been at the shores of the sea, she would have been the first one in! Please come to meet her. She and the work she does in our names is one of the many reasons I am proud to be a Reform Jew.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/israel/article/israeli_womens_rights_moving_to_front_of_bus_20120125/
Rabbi Laura Geller
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