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http://www.timesofisrael.com/ultra-orthodox-women-launch-election-campaign/
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women
Launch Election Campaign
Activists demand female representation in Shas and United Torah
Judaism, threaten voting boycott
Racheli Ibenboim in Jerusalem, on Sunday, June 1, 2014. (photo
credit: Hadas Parush/Flash90)
By AFP
and Times of Israel staff - December 7, 2014
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish
women in Israel have begun an unprecedented campaign to have female candidates
on the lists of religious parties for next March’s general election.
“We want
ultra-Orthodox women — five percent of the population — to have a say in the
Knesset and demand that the heads of the ultra-Orthodox parties choose at least
one candidate of their choice,” activist Esty Reider-Indorsky, a driving force
behind the move, told Israel Radio on Sunday.
However, the broadcaster
reported that the leaders of the parties in question — Shas, with 11 of 120
seats in parliament, and the United Torah Judaism list, with seven — have no
intention of agreeing to the demand.
In a manifesto published
on social networks online and supported by personalities including secular
Israelis, the ultra-Orthodox women say they are prepared to go as far as an
election boycott.
“And we (women) represent
half of the electorate,” Reider-Indorsky told the station.
A Facebook page dedicated
to the campaign — founded in December 2012, ahead of the previous elections —
has garnered nearly 3,000 “likes.”
Michal Chernovitzky, 34,
of Elad in central Israel, one of the signatories on a letter to the
ultra-Orthodox parties, told the Yedioth Ahronoth daily on Friday it was a
common misconception in the ultra-Orthodox world that women were not interested
in holding political positions.
“Aryeh Deri, for example,
is constantly using his wife, who doesn’t want to go into politics, as an
example. So here, we are saying that’s not true. Haredi women do want to run,
and it’s time for that to happen. Moshe Gafni has even been quoted in the past
saying that if a Haredi woman asked to run, he would vacate his seat for her.
So here you go, Gafni, vacate your seat,” she said.
Another signatory is
Racheli Ibenboim, of the Gur Hasidic sect, who was nominated for Jerusalem city
council by the Jewish Home party, but dropped out after facing threats and
intimidation, according to Yedioth.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish
women, recognizable by their modest clothing and hair styled under a scarf or
wig, are already present in Israeli politics.
Although they have not
been able to be candidates for ultra-Orthodox parties, some have been elected
for other parties and others work as assistants to Knesset members.
In the last general
election in January 2013, the ultra-Orthodox parties — long-time kingmakers in
Israeli coalition politics — found themselves excluded from power for the first
time in 30 years.
The general election is be
held on March 17, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a snap
vote following the collapse of his coalition.