Benny Gantz’s Israeli Resilience Party has announced that a Chareidi woman, attorney Omer Yankelevich, will be slotted in a realistic place on the party’s lineup for 21st Knesset.

The 40-year-old social activist is a married mother of five, belongs to the Anglo-Saxon chareidi community in Beit Shemesh, and was named ‘Omer’ because she was born on Lag B’Omer.

It was Benny Gantz himself who made the decision to slot Yankelevich, “out of a desire to compile a list containing the mosaic of Israeli society.” Although it is doubtful whether the move will bring chareidi voters to cast a ballot for Gantz’s party, he will nonetheless use the move as proof that his list is not left but center-right, suitable for both observant and even chareidi citizens alike.

The High Court of Justice recently rejected the position paper presented by Agudas Yisrael, which prohibits women on its list, but the court to date has not forced the inclusion of women in the chareidi lists, and the identity of the representatives remained in the hands of the Gedolei Torah of the respective parties.

On the one hand, Yankelevich is likely to be under the chareidi tzibur’s magnifying glass, and on the other hand, under the watchful eyes of members of the party and the women’s organizations, who expect a liberal ideological line, in line with their positions, which probably will not happen. Some feel she may become the ‘token chareidi’, comparable with Dov Lipman, who served in the secular Yesh Atid party in the 19th Knesset.

Omer is a graduate of the Wolf Seminary in Bnei Brak and Gateshead, England. After her marriage, she studied teaching and educational activities, and later went on to study law. She holds a master’s degree in law, which she completed with excellence. She has been practicing law since 2007.

In recent years she has focused on active social activity, in the framework of which she founded the “We just started” (‘רק התחלנו’) social foundation for the social periphery in Israel, with an emphasis on the chareidi sector. The association that she founded and heads, promotes unique social projects.

In the past, the media and in personal columns, she expressed opposition to the struggle to prevent gender segregation in the chareidi sector between men and women in academia and at events. “The persecution of anti-chareidi women’s organizations regarding the separation is not liberal. It is radical anti-religious fanaticism that seeks to impose secular values on the people who believe. This is exactly the opposite of liberality and tolerance. This is religious persecution under the guise of a murky and seemingly enlightened ideology.”

She said, “This is not a war on the exclusion of women, nor the nature of public space. This is a war against the faith of the people, who wish to live their lives as they wish, at their events, frameworks study their uniqueness, without forcing anything on anyone who does not want it. The attempt to connect the separation and exclusion of women as it were, is an absolute fake. There is no trace of exclusion separation between men and women, for as long as both can receive the same service.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)