Women in Israel

-Israel’s parliament is only 14.2% women, ranking it 101 out of 188 countries, even below some Muslim countries like Tunisia and Iraq. (Haaretz)

-Dr. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a religious woman who is an expert on family law and who has spent more than a decade fighting the religious establishment over women’s rights says that not only has there been no progress in the realm of family law on behalf of women in the last few years, “there is a regression in women’s rights.â€? (Haaretz)

-Women on the Margins: Gender and Nationalism in Mandate Tel Aviv. (Haaretz)

-A look at the first political movement of Israeli Druze women. (Haaretz)

-Israel’s new Sanhedrin issued a halachic ruling “which calls to exempt women from army service and expel those who have already been recruited� into any military unit. They were particularly opposed to any units which mixed men and women. (Ynet)

-Police say “The number of sex offenses in the Bnei Brak area is higher than any other city by tens of percentage pointsâ€? even though in this Haredi city, “there is great reluctance about reporting such incidents.â€? (Haaretz)

-Israel’s top Rabbinic court has ruled that women seeking a divorce cannot appeal to a civil court to speed up the divorce’s conclusion, because Israeli civil courts were considered “a gentile entity,” even if the judges were Jewish. Says Attorney Susan Weiss, “Due to the negligence of the rabbinic courts, divorce cases drag on for years without a settlement…In the meantime, women suffer. Getting the civil courts involved often forces the husband to cave in and give a get. (The Jerusalem Post)

-IAF’s elite Airborne Combat Search and Rescue Unit 669 has its first Arab woman soldier. “She could very well make history by becoming the first Muslim airborne medic in IDF history.� She got her original security classification in error. (Ynet)