How Antedeluvian - Shame, Israel!
Amazing what a vocally aggressive minority of 'orthodox' believers can do to rock the foundations of a society that likes to think of itself as egalitarian, socially progressive, responsible, responsive to its peoples' needs, forward-thinking, a model of democratic action. Here is a state founded on secular principles, representing the interests and well-being of its heterogenous population.
It's a Jewish state, established for Jews to find respite from discrimination, a refuge from hatred, anti-Semitism, a living reminder of the Holocaust. Yet its population have a thin sliver of heritage to mark them as homogenous; for the most part they're anything but. The population represents Ashkenazi, Sephardic derivations leavened by exposure to life in countries as diverse as India, Yemen, America, South America, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Iran, Syria - and more.
Like haimeshe cooking, recipes are taken from around the world, slightly altered (or not), embraced, and claimed as one's own, as much a diaspora gift to Jewry as all the little cultural/societal 'differences' among the population in general. And then, of course, there is the sharing of land and citizenship with Arabs and Druze. Yet there are all-encompassing civil laws that pertain to all, incumbent upon all to observe, promising equality of opportunity and protection to all.
This is a society in which women are seen to be equal to men, thanks to the broad vision of Israel's founders and its original Labour-tinted legal infrastructure. The fervently orthodox were always there, in the background, kvetching and demanding, and learned how to use the ballot box and legal political representation to press their issues, impinging in many ways on the vision of an open, inclusive and free society.
Women are conscripted into the Israel Defence Forces, just as the young men are. And they have proved themselves in the fields of combat just as they have done in academia, science, medicine, literature, law, business, and other professions. Yet here are Israeli women living in Jerusalem who face daily insults and even assaults at the hands of the ultra-Orthodox who demand segregation. Not in synagogues, but in the public realm.
The segregation of discrimination; women are not to mingle publicly where men assemble. Women are to move themselves to the back of buses lest they offend men whose religious beliefs hold that women have no place in the outside world. Women face degrading tongue-lashings from offended men if they appear in public wearing garments deemed to be insufficiently modest.
What does this remind one of, if not Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Wahhabist views in Saudi Arabia? In Israel? Is this an ethics-conflicted country? Seems so.
It's a Jewish state, established for Jews to find respite from discrimination, a refuge from hatred, anti-Semitism, a living reminder of the Holocaust. Yet its population have a thin sliver of heritage to mark them as homogenous; for the most part they're anything but. The population represents Ashkenazi, Sephardic derivations leavened by exposure to life in countries as diverse as India, Yemen, America, South America, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Iran, Syria - and more.
Like haimeshe cooking, recipes are taken from around the world, slightly altered (or not), embraced, and claimed as one's own, as much a diaspora gift to Jewry as all the little cultural/societal 'differences' among the population in general. And then, of course, there is the sharing of land and citizenship with Arabs and Druze. Yet there are all-encompassing civil laws that pertain to all, incumbent upon all to observe, promising equality of opportunity and protection to all.
This is a society in which women are seen to be equal to men, thanks to the broad vision of Israel's founders and its original Labour-tinted legal infrastructure. The fervently orthodox were always there, in the background, kvetching and demanding, and learned how to use the ballot box and legal political representation to press their issues, impinging in many ways on the vision of an open, inclusive and free society.
Women are conscripted into the Israel Defence Forces, just as the young men are. And they have proved themselves in the fields of combat just as they have done in academia, science, medicine, literature, law, business, and other professions. Yet here are Israeli women living in Jerusalem who face daily insults and even assaults at the hands of the ultra-Orthodox who demand segregation. Not in synagogues, but in the public realm.
The segregation of discrimination; women are not to mingle publicly where men assemble. Women are to move themselves to the back of buses lest they offend men whose religious beliefs hold that women have no place in the outside world. Women face degrading tongue-lashings from offended men if they appear in public wearing garments deemed to be insufficiently modest.
What does this remind one of, if not Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Wahhabist views in Saudi Arabia? In Israel? Is this an ethics-conflicted country? Seems so.
Labels: Middle East
posted by Pieface | 5:55 PM
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