MKs Shuli Moalem-Refaeli (Bayit Yehudi), Dr. Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) and Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) are behind the impetus demanding a fair number of women on the committee that appoints dayanim who serve on the nation’s rabbinical courts.
In his plenum address MK (Yahadut Hatorah) Moshe Gafne expressed his opposition, directing comments to Moalem-Refaeli. “One who has butter on one’s head should not go out into the sun”. He feels there are things that do not require legislation. “If it is a matter of ideology, then begin at home”.
Gafne continued, explaining he looked into the bill and it is clear Moalem is concerned with advancing the cause of women. He then questioned just how many women Bayit Leumi placed in government, and of course there are no female ministers from the dati leumi party. “Where is the ideology” he questioned. “If I recall correctly you said half of the citizens are female. That means half of your voters were women. There are more elderly women than men, so why isn’t the minister for senior citizen affairs a woman?” (That slot went to party MK Uri Orbach).
“I then continued my probe, telling myself perhaps there is a female deputy minister. No such luck. And now, you come here and give us mussar?”
He concluded his remarks angrily with the shout “hypocrites”.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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6 Responses
Gafne still hasn’t provided a coherent reason as to why women should not have a voice in selecting dayanim. They are not advocating that women should be dayanim, just that they have a role in selecting the males who will will control over so many vital matters to women in the rabbinical court system.
They do not need women to pick who will control issues vital to women. They need talmidei chachomim to pick them and to make those decisions. This is just stupid politics!
“angry mk gafne”is a redundency
Whomever the dayanim are need to be “female friendly”. Those in beis din situations in Israel report there is no communication, meeting with or associating with women who are called to Beis Din and in legal tangles. WHY?
It would be more appropriate that eldery Rabonim shall pick the new ones coming in since they aree mavinim, but how do women understand what qualifications a rav must have
To No. 5….thats the point!! It works both ways. The Committte should have a balance that includes what you call “elderly” rabbonim who arguably have the insights to select a younger generation of rabbonim but also should have some women who can bring a woman’s perspective to the selection process and help weed out rabbonim who have previously been shown to be understanding of women’s needs and treated them with respect in all their priod dealings. No one is suggest that a woman be selected as a dayan or even that there be gender equality on the selection committee.