Ultra-Orthodox members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition want to expand the powers of all-male rabbinical courts, and to bar women and men from mixing in many public arenas.
A more recent proposal would let the rabbinical courts determine child support in some circumstances.
“It’s important to emphasize: The rabbinical courts have only male judges” says Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, founding director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar Ilan University. “There is no other country in the global north, among states that are considered liberal democracies, that gives formal powers to a system that is totally, completely male and excludes women. Instead of abolishing this, Israel is going in the exact opposite direction and expanding their power” she explains to New York Times reporter Roni Caryn Rabin.
Read : Growing Segregation by Sex in Israel Raises Fears for Women’s Rights in the New York Times.
