Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The War On Women In Israel 20150308

Before i go any further, id like to ask you to silence your cell phones. Cspan easier to from tonight and if your phone should ring, your same would be recorded for all of america to see. Its also my pleasure to say that the museums Public Programs are made possible through a generous gift. Programs, about for all sorts of reasons. Some commemorate anniversaries others mark holidays. The impetus behind tonights program is something more pedestrian, and perhaps more profound, an airplane seat. Elana maryles sztokman was on a plane from new york to tel aviv last fall when an ultraorthodox fellow passenger delay to take off because he would not sit next to her. Her experience was especially jarring as she just that the two were discussing the place of women in Israeli Society. The two were focused on questions like who gets to sit where in israel today, both literally and figuratively speaking. And who was the power to make those sorts of decisions . The stored of tattoos or deal as report on her own blog and on the online magazine tabloid became a sensation. It went viral. It cast a light on the sexism that is in many ways at the heart of israeli public life. We are delighted to have her here with us here today. She just let him from israel. We hope our trip was without incident. Elana sztokman is the author of several books on feminism in jewish life including educating in the divine image gender issues in Orthodox Jewish state schools which lester when the National Jewish Book Council Award in education. She will be joined onstage by nancy kaufman, ceo of the National Council of jewish women. Prior to joining the ncjw nancy served as executive director of the jewish trinity Relations Council of boston. Please join me in welcoming them to the stage. [applause] thank you gabriel. And thank you to the jewish heritage for hosting is very, very important conversation. And thanks to all of you have come out in this very cold and wet weather of new york to be your. This is very exciting to me because of an soa first met when she served as executive of the jewish orthodox feminist alliance, and we were partners in terms of some the issues that we both cared about National Council of jewish women which prominent is a 128 yearold organization. We are a progressive jewish Womens Organization that organizes grassroots activists to take a stand on issues of universal concern both in the United States and israel. So its a pleasure to be your with you. Great to be here. So let me begin at the beginning in terms of israel not exactly the beginning but its the beginning of the modern state of israel, and remind everybody who gathered of the very beautiful declaration in 1948 at we so happily and proudly endorsed as the United States the u. N. And a very important line in the declaration of independence. And i quote, the state of israel will ensure complete equality of social and Political Rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race, or sex. I begin with that because first of all im very proud as an american jew that israel did something that the United States has never done which is to recognize that sex the quality of sex, was as important as the quality of race and religion. Thats the good news. The bad news is is that sadly the Founding Fathers did not quite understand what was going to happen as a result of the lack of separation of religion and states and the subsequent events that have happened since then. I want to begin by asking elana, was written this wonderful book if you dont have it you can get in the bookstore here tonight after this program, and to truly a quite wonderful coming together of the issues that we have worked on for many, many years before the founding of the state and will talk more about that with the sort of overarching theme of come and intense i would say, elana and i assume it is your intent and ill ask you that, that helping to ensure that the israeli nation uphold the progressive moral and social vision for which it was established to you say that in your introduction. So talk is all of it about why this book, why now. They want to talk a little bit about the challenges and opportunities of the modern jewish state has provided and in performing. The first of all i just want to say there are a lot before answer questions, theres a lot of places in israel where the activism of ncjw has really been crucial, special on the issues to talk about in my book. I just want to acknowledge and we say thank you for all that ncjw does and continues to do. Animate america of course also. So why this book and why now . Ive been living in israel for over 20 years. We moved to israel because we believe in it because we believe in the importance of the jewish state and ultimately we want to see the jewish state fulfill its mission for being a state founded on a particular morality. It was founded in order to be a refuge for vulnerable people. And so that should really still be and thats very much a Jewish Mission also. So when you see the state of israel not living up to that mission, especially when it comes to women, you you fit into that category, theres something very painful about that. It comes from a belief believe israel can do that and should do better. Its interesting you started with the declaration of independence which does mention sex as something that we need to aspire to in terms of equality. In the 50s israel was probably ahead of the United States on a lot of issues. Womens employment was higher in the 50s. A lot of women, women were expected to work in israel and there were even some laws put in place to correct women at women, protect pregnant women, to protect mothers. Theres something called mommy hours back then those of women have to be allowed to leave by four to pick up the children of things like that it so women were expected to work and also there are a lot of images of women at the keyboard. We head up golda meir elected in 1969. And so it was ahead of certain parameters. But within all that was also what you call the contradictions that we will get to those intimate. Lets stay on some of the images for a minute. We all rule are familiar with the keyboard woman and all of those of us who grew up, you know, on the power of the image. We are still waiting to have a woman president in the United States, and you have a woman prime ministers. We had a woman vice president. You have the laws in place before we even had a Womans Movement in the United States. So you had wellintentioned democracy from the getgo. Perhaps a little flawed. Let me ask you this. What happened along the way why is it the feminist movement of the 1960s in the United States really and it didnt happen in israel until much later . And talked a little about about those contradictions, those images. Were the real . With a not real . What was wrong with that picture . Its true they say the israeli feminist movement didnt really take off in the 60s and 70s the way it did in america. For the most part that has to do with the sort of survivalist mentality is that when youre fighting for your very existence of thats one thing that matters. You cant be bothered do with social issues. It wasnt just the gender issue other social issues were also put us. Aside the issues of racism of classism, ethnicity, at this strike of all of those social issues were sort of like we cant be bothered dealing with that. We are dealing with war and terror and things like that. Meanwhile, what you have is you had societies helping very much around army army culture, and the army culture is one of the most chauvinistic issues initial. To the statement of the army has been doing a lot in the last decade to try to remedy that but at the end of the day there are a lot of very chauvinistic attitudes and practices that are taking place. That tolerates the culture for a long time. And yes, women serve in the military in israel long before they serve in the military in the United States. 93 of all jobs can technically be held by women or men. Although we know thats not the reality. The idf is not as a great social equalizer but it seems more so for men than for women. Again, whats wrong with this picture . You want to check with the army first . So, for example, in the army so yes, women, these mandatory prescriptions for women in israel which israel is the only country in the world that has mandatory conscription for women. Women are directed towards different jobs, towards administered jobs and noncombat jobs. You might say once noncombat jobs . The combat jobs are the ones that lead to better jobs and better positions in society. Its no accident that Bibi Netanyahu and able barack and the head im plenty on his name, ahead of the jewish home, all of them were part of most elite unit in the army which is yitzhak rabin. The army is a preparation ground for us aside for Political Leadership and Business Leadership, Economic Leadership and so when women are diverted away from those jobs so youre creating a basis for inequality and the rest of society. And also until the early 90s when julie couldnt even be in those jobs there was until the miller case who fought to bring women into the air force that was in 1996. So after that then the army started bringing in women antiwar position. Today the army is everywhere. During the operation lasted was a lot of promotions on to show women but they never release the actual figures. The actual figures of women in combat is Something Like less than or . They did release the figures. They just tried to show women in all kinds of interesting units because they realize that theres a problem. The army actually is starting to work on this but the very chauvinistic, macho is very progressive pervasive. We know that religion has played a very big role in recent years, particularly more so in recent years in terms of the role of women. We had an experience ncjw in 2012, 2011 when we were freedom riders. We rode the buses in jerusalem and experienced or stand what its like to get on a bus be snared at that people not been willing to sit next to you, and it was a very emotional experience. So talk a little bit about the buses and the bus segregation and your own story about the bus trip that you talk to in the book. I didnt know there was such a thing as segregated buses, 20 years ago mostly because they were not really, that wasnt nothing is sacred buses. I tell a story about how in 1994 when my daughter chair fallin officer in the army, but when she was a toddler we asked exit without ourselves on a segregated bus to i didnt know it was segregated and kelly got on the bus. Shes leaving on my shoulder and i got in the front seat, this young guy, twentysomething guy with a black hat and the beard and a white shirt and it was saturday night gets up and says sit down. There i was a young mother with a baby on my shoulder. As soon as he gets up he tells me to sit down to the guy next to them, older guy in his 60s he looks at me and he goes right, like that. So this poor kid, hes like 23 years old to he looks at me with the baby on my shoulder and he looks at the guy next to him and looks at me and he looks at the guy. Finally, he looks at me and goes, you know, like what am i going to do. He sits back down. I go all the way to the back and find a seat in the back. That was like my first experience. I did not that exist to the truth is that wasnt official. It was an official segregated bus. I think back to that story and i think it was sort of a moment of cultural transition meaning that the young man ambivalence represented a shift within his own culture to a sort of was in this place where he thought that is okay for a woman to sit down, but the rules around were changing. The experience we had was that the women come some of the women when we sat in the front came from the back of the bus and sat down and asked us in hebrew what we were doing and why. They themselves were wondering whats going on. Admin, some of them put up their hats and refused to they came on the bus and refuse to sit next to so they had to go to the back of the bus. Its not unusual for women to be gatekeepers. Its the Phyllis Schlafly is of the world. Ursula places where women take the role where were going to preserve the gender order. For lots of reasons. There are women for whom the gender inequality that we have is sort of comfortable and safe. And doing all that is scary or threatening for whatever reason. Sometimes the women are even more vehement in oh no we cant make change. One of the contradictions of course and its good to think which is the Supreme Court of israel, one of the most liberal in the world and the most, has an unusual thing that you can petition directly as a citizen the Supreme Court, actually took this case upright and ordered the buses. Org that they couldnt, public buses could not segregate but they could put up signs. When we came to town it was right after that. There were no signs up. There were no signs of saying that you couldnt do this. The bus drivers were ignoring and they were still segregated. Whats the contradictions there and whats happened since then . You know that ncjw played a big role. Ncjw played a huge role. Those freedom rides played a huge role, especially in raising Public Awareness and really also in terms of collecting data. Follow the ncjw freedom ride thats when the police start taking seriously and collecting data on what is going on and they found a third of all buses of some kind of bullying going on, which was really important because if i would say say its not real, its not a problem. Everything is fine but it wasnt fine. What youre talking about, the Supreme Court made when their best the bus signs that say you cant force anybody. In reality the facts on the ground did not match what the Supreme Court said which represents the governments own ambivalence about it. The transport ministry was sort of a privilege about all this. They wanted to appease the population and so the thing that really made a difference at the end, because as with the bus drivers were not doing anything about the bowling. What made the difference was when the bus driver started getting fined. The first time that a bus driver got fight a defined about one months salary for letting bullying happening on his bus. Thats when things started to change. Its funny because i friends in tel aviv, and ive a lot of them, thought i was crazy but what are you talking about the segregated bus in jerusalem . That you biggest. I said you want to come with me . They didnt believe me. That situation has gotten better correct . At its height of over 150 segregated lines running through israel. And since the freedom ride and since the Supreme Court action and the finding of the bus drivers, it is now less than 50. Definitely progress. But its still there and theres still tension. Also, sometimes when i travel back from the kennedy community, the buses are much more frequent in tel aviv than the other buses. So every once in a while i find myself taking a bus in tel aviv that is segregated. Not all an adequate figure out how im supposed to know before i get on whether not there is an expectation of segregation. Where do you sit when you get on the bus . I usually sit on the front of of the second bus but that was about two months ago. I have to admit i was like the little anxious because its really uncomfortable. Its really uncomfortable. Thats how we felt. You feel very stared at and water into breaking all these codes. And you shouldnt have to feel that way. You shouldnt have to feel like im a woman. I wear pants and in wear pants and anthony were not supposed to be. Thats how rosa parks felt. Its a little bit of feeling like the very essence of you are come youre not wanted in this space. Its very hard. Its very, very hard. Weve made some progress, and i do want i dont want to depress the audience to i want to let them know there are challenges and opportunities and there have been some successes. Lets talk about the racing womens public presence and whats been happening in terms of women speaking at conferences. Again we will talk about the billboards and some examples of you tell an interesting story in the book. Okay. So theres this woman who is a professor, very impressive. She spent 45 years working as a pediatric researcher, a long researcher and she opened up a clinic for pediatric lung diseases. Very, very impressive the the Health Ministry decides to give her a price for our work. Only when the ceremony happened to give her her pressure was allowed to go on stage to someone else went on stage to get it for her. Why wasnt she loved . She was a woman and they wouldnt allow women on stage. Heres a woman who at 45 years of all of his dedicated work but at the end end of the day than that matter but all of that was that shes a woman. So what were fighting about this is thats Health Minister to visit not some private little religious group to assist the government. And so you really have to wonder what this all means. Spent this isnt an isolated example. There are examples in the post offices, major mall clinics thanks library. Cemetery. I think the most painful experiences are womens exclusions from funerals where you know women cant go this doesnt happen every part but in a lot of different places and its always sort of a surprise were suddenly somebody will come and say you know women this way, our women cant go up to the front. So lets say a man and woman are mourning together, segregated in their morning. The Religious Center they collected stories, collected a book of stories of women in the their experiences of being segregated out of funerals of their loved ones. So theres a lot happening a lawsuit against the municipality from one of these women who actually devastating experience at the funeral of a loved one. We had the experience with funding we funded on the buses we funded posters that had womens images and they were vandalized. So there are a couple of facets to the removal of women. What i describe would be the physical removal of women and what you describe is the removal of women faces. We all saw that Angela Merkel thing. But this been going on for many years. Like theres the iconic picture of Hillary Rodham clinton at the assassination of Osama Bin Laden where she goes like this and that image was removed. She was erased out of the picture. So the erasure of womens pictures has taken place and a lot has been taking place around the city of jerusalem. So what happened is that supported by ncjw, this group called started a campaign to try to get womens pictures back on the buses. The bus company, they cannot advertise company that is also for all the billboards on the buses, had an official policy which says, we do not put pictures of women on the bus in jerusalem, which is they are not a religious company. Its a secular government. This is their policy no pictures of women on buses in jerusalem. All the billboards. All the government ministries work up a chilling to this you had the Education Ministry where 75 of all the workers are women would have posters advertising posters were outside of jerusalem the posters had pictures of men but inside jerusalem there were no pictures of men. The company had separate ads inside of jerusalem and outside so in jerusalem didnt have see a picture of a woman. Sometimes it would cut off ahead of him and show the picture from the neck down because some of that was better cutting off a womans head. So the campaigns work really hard to try to get and they went to the Supreme Court and they also had this campaign of taking pictures of women and girls and hanging them women and girls interest were taking pictures of themselves and hanging them from their balconies. So the good news is that this campaign work. Again, this campaign was also supported by the removal of womens images was supported by the municipality. So he municipality had a marathon, a marathon every year the jerusalem america. If you look at the brochures, there were no women no pictures of women running on the website, no pictures of women. This is a municipality. The mayor of jerusalem as a second man to agree to do this, agreed to promote jerusalem events, secular jerusalem events like a marathon to promote them without pictures of women. So through these campaigns and the Supreme Court, petitioning and eventually things will change. Last year for the first time a jewish marathon had pictures of women, and now of course no women, running for knesset but in elections last year get a go to the Supreme Court to get us up in court to agree to our pictures on the buses. You fall for pictures on the buses thought the whole campaign, and we will not speak of course this is all illegal because theres a constitution theres the basic declaration of independence that stands in place. So its illegal and every time its brought to the Supreme Court, Supreme Court always rules in favor of women. Again, thank god we have the Supreme Court in israel and theyre willing to balance it out. This modesty these people who decided that they make up these squads can you talk about that in the book and you talk about your own daughter. Share that example when she was wearing shorts. She gets called names when shes wearing shorts but it wasnt one incident. Its happened a lot when shes on aon the bus were in shorts, shoot all kinds of get stared at and made fun of. Okay, so we discussed a little bit about the idea. I want to talk a little bit about the power of the court. Because i think that its been the Secular Forces that have allowed this to continue. And it is also unfortunately undergirds some issues that weve cared a lot about for israels whole existence, the freedom to marry and the freedom to divorce. No change women. The whole experience of what happens to a woman because of the power of the courts really, and the fact there are no women on the committee. That is change a little bit with the council but talk to a little bit because this is a very big area and hopefully will get more into it and questions at the end. Umass i recommend to everybody to see this movie to really understand the dynamics of what goes on within the religious court of how detached the courts are from basic human sensibility, basic respect for women as human beings. Let a woman in a court is a court is a a court is a complete list urbina and theres no problem with the judges telling her how she should dress and how she should move her hair and how she should talk it when she could talk any assumptions how they talk to women are completely different. The fact that the rep in a chorus monopoly divorce means that women dont have free access power on marriage. It is controlled de son the volition of manned, which is of course by the allmale ultra orthodox state backed quarter. So you have all of these layers of control of womens lives and tens of thousands of women who are stuck in one battle in the system and often drag out for years. Women are sub tag to extortion to try to gain their freedom. And that affects their children. I didnt know when my grandmother used to work for it came from. These children who are totally innocent bake dems cant marry because one court actually keeps a blacklist. A secret lack list of four or five people who are not allowed to marry. Actually this woman who was favored today pleader, she is tracking this issue. She is a person late in the fight against this terrible harm being done to people on this blacklist. So i highly recommend to everyone to look her up to learn more. One step in the right direction that happened recently was requiring women committees for the appointment of the court judges. Even though they are not on the court itself, there are no women on the committees that pick the judges. At the really important first. Having a woman actually work in special capacity within the organization would also be really first that. And theres a lot of womens groups obviously the most important actions to be taken to protect womens basic Civil Liberties in terms of personal status if there has to be a separation of religion at this point. There has to be a mechanism for divorce that there is in this monopoly. That is the issue with the court is that it doesnt even affect religious london. So that separation of religion instead is really the most important race that supported womens basic civil rights. We all know that it was a blind spot. They didnt quite envision. I can say in our own country where we do have separation some people have forgotten not and are deciding it are deciding if the governments governments role to control womens bodies and so we are concerned about this from the point of view of whats happening in our own country, even though we have separation supposedly and we are concerned and have taken a very active civil narrative. Its not just about having a civil marriage option, having the ability. A lot of people dont understand not in the Jewish Community worldwide. So lets ask you this. The question that comes out in a lot of this is to what extent has the Secular Community been complicit. By not advocating for changes have nonultraorthodox people in groups capitulated to ultraorthodox and what is that all about . For instance, that is a perfect example. Somehow he had this idea that the right thing to do on the website or brochure or on the buses. Another example is they are not not the Advertising Company they think this is when our advertisers want. For example now the president of israel when he was speaker of the House Committee made the decision not to allow women to sing in this choir. So we dont want the sensibility of the religious parties. Its okay to test the ability because they are just women, but you cant assign the religious parties. So it is that kind of thinking that we dont want to offend those religious parties that really is the most damaging to women. It is interesting for a few reasons. First of all it is not really what all people want at all. It is really just the extremists who want that. It was proven with the really important story. The Radio Station is an old orchard docs Radio Station funded by the government, does not allow women on error. It does not allow women djs. It doesnt allow women newsreaders. It doesnt allow women in advertising for to call up and ask questions to the news presenter. If a woman wants to ask a question she asked if accident and it will be read by a man. A bunch of womens groups got together and petitioned against those that this is illegal. In this knesset hearing, the business had of the Radio Station came and said also he is a religious spirit is a Business Manager and he said what can you do . This is what her clients want. So originally the government still said well, you got to give women a few hours. At least four hours a week for six hours a week. They didnt do it. They wont live up to their agreement. The womens groups pushed more and pushed more and said you are claiming that this is what your clients want, but we dont think thats true. When they say client they mean men. Men only count his listeners. So what they did is the womens groups with the religious orthodox feminist organization so they got together and did a market survey, Market Research and they called up people who are regular listeners to the Radio Station and did the work really well. David say things like what program was on tuesday at 10 00 to make sure it was realistic and they said to you bought to hear women are dont you cry what they found that 60 to 70 of people wanted it away. That is an important point of research. So what happened was the women had losses for 100 million shekels, 25 million. About two months ago they won a lawsuit which is a huge precedent based on this idea that this is that what people want. Its not even what the community wants. You have a situation in which the Business Leaders of local leaders who are secular have this perception that in order to appease they have to exclude women. Or so before we open it up we want to talk about opportunities. I want to sort of segue. So talk to me a little bit about what kind of Collaboration Services between religious feminist and human rights act to this because not everyone understands there are people within the religious community who are beginning to speak out but some men sue and what is the relationship . For example, it seems to me that because there was the nta w. In collaboration with groups like religious feminist that this sends a really powerful message about what we are talking about here. Its a religious issue, feminist issue, civil rights issue. They also have convened 20 to 30 organizations. Half the groups are on the table as feminist and religious organizations and has the groups around the table are secular civil rights organizations and not collaboration you know, the Radio Station victory was the collaboration between the religious feminist group and the Action Center and said those collaborations i think are crucial because they cant just be coming from the religious feminist groups even though i think they also play a key role in making the change from within because they are basically saying this is not religion. This is not the way religion is supposed to be. Only what the collaboration with secular Civil Rights Act to base that it becomes powerful, that you get to change and that is why we had a series of victories over the buses and radios. It points to the power of advocates and activists to create change and that is what weve been doing for 120 years since it was founded in 1893. We have been trying to organize to make change in the world doing a cure to the interNational Council and doing it internationally. As you said theres examples. The Supreme Court more than once has intervened into these situations. It is a start. Weve been involved in the u. S. Revolution which is a certain percentage of women should be on all peacemaking committees need to be represented. The nations resolution has finally got i think its a connection between u. N. Resolutions urging 25. There has been a steady increase of women in the knesset over the past decade. Still only about 26 women out of 120 which is still pretty low. And the last two i would say the number of women with feminist consciousness has increased and so that has brought a lot of issues to the knesset. And much more powerful ways and create a whole slew of real activism and so you have activism and Judicial Branch and the legislative branch so i comes from the ground and the grassroots and all these Different Directions is also important. Having some really strong feminist legislators has been really invaluable, which is why its so important because we know when there are more women around the table, you have more solution. A different approach different decisionmaking. Before i conclude an open it up, lets talk about the nearly philips story. So this is the most recent victory. Its really quite important. It is not just that there are fines on the street that say women cant work here. They say women are hearing women have to dress a way and it is enforced by violence. You have the different violence groups, that throw rocks and all kinds of other things that women were women are perceived as not being dressed the right way. So she is an american woman. She was riding her bike down the street near her house and she was hit in the head with a rock. She got together with a few other women who were also hurt and together they brought a lawsuit against the municipality to hold the municipality responsible to say if you have signs in your city that say women arent allowed here or that women have to dress a certain way you are responsible. So the lawsuit has been going on for about two years i think and there is an difficult hearings because the mayor was really said some obnoxious things and saying they dont count his constituents. Its okay to offend women. So the mayor pretty much said the same thing. Like i cant defend my constituents. Click women are constituents to. But you know after this twoyear lawsuit last week, two weeks ago already, the courts came down in favor of the women and they ruled in favor of the women and they have ruled in municipality has to pay the women. So were in the middle of 30 days now and were waiting to see the signs. If it is for us to take down the signs that is to say it is not okay to have a sign in israel that says women are not allowed here or women cant walk into this clinic if they are not dressed in a particular way. You cant do that. This is an Important Court decision. This is all happening now. So before we open it up, i want to include conclude with elana own words. I think this is very important because elana asserts they not antireligion. This has been against a womans right to have an equal status in israel. So at the conclusion of the book she says i want to be clear. I am not suggesting to anyone who is religious not to be religious. On the contrary, religion can be a beautiful thing. It can provide connections meaning structure heritage care, responsibility and so much more. She goes on to describe why she is a believer and above all it should guide us to the batter, kinder people and deeply care about the status humanity is after all that is what religion is supposed to do. The problem and conclusion is so much of what is different to us under the guise of religiousness is just not actually religious at all. Whether it is the muslim cleric comparing violence against women to training donkeys, a conservative american candidate tried to control rights and antiabortion platform or a man spitting on a young woman on the bus. There are people in the world who claim to represent her do things in the name of religion but who simply are not. This is fundamentally not what it means to be religious. So thank you elana. Its very beautiful. I want to thank elana for coming here from israel. Thank you so much. We would like to open it up and see if youd like to raise any questions about anything weve talked about or anything else. Right there in the middle. Holdout. I just have to get a microphone. I have a question about the funeral situation. Is this individual rabbis or is this all in jerusalem . They are controlled by it is the religious ministry which controls things like mogadishu and midsize. We didnt talk about that either. Right. So they are the state salaries and in each city they manage and run funerals, but they have their own municipal staff practices. It is not just as the differences in this sort is a little bit random. Like you dont really know. It is hard to know exactly which city is going to be taking place. Also the funeral is such a vulnerable situation you are in. It is not something you necessarily have planned or investigated he did for her wedding. Is that the actual cemetery. Rabbis dont do funerals. It is that you go to the cemetery and they are around imposing. Okay, okay. Other questions . Yes, right over there. Theres another question. I can only say you have answered part of this, but i know not all of it. He discussed the ravenna court. Are women allowed to be lawyers before the court and so women can go represent another woman and men can you elaborate to whatever extent you can the status of women on the Supreme Court . The secular Supreme Court . The secular Supreme Court holds a pretty good record on women. Women chief justice. Exactly. That is separate, two totally separate tracks. There is something called a race to the courthouse because even though you can only finalize the divorce and the court system, you can actually do Everything Else in the Family Court System and sort of show up to the court. You can go to the court for you negotiate custody and all the arrangements of divorce and then just go and say okay, we are ready for the process. A lot of women getting divorced like to do that. They like to go to the Secular Court system with a notebook and a fair treatment because they get them treatment in the family courts because you can only open up your Divorce Proceedings in one place. You can only file divorce in one place. This array to the courthouse. The men are running to the court as they know they will get a better treatment hair. Women are batting to the Secular Court because they dont look at a better treatment there. A lot of the hot line, Domestic Abuse hotline in israel will always say if you think about getting divorced, youve got to get to the courthouse first down until your husband they are not divorce. You are still divorce. There is no single country in civil marriage and divorce. I am back dont have anything to say about it. It really is completely two separate systems. They have nothing to say about the Supreme Court. They dont out of the Supreme Court to resolve their issues. It on answer to anyone. Thats one of the biggest problem is they dont answer to anyone. The answer to their roles. There is no real accountability. There is legislation right thats been introduced to change it. It hasnt yet gotten there. We hope eventually it will and a lot of advocacy going on. One of the issues we didnt touch on relates to conversion. It also impacts conversion does it not . I would also like to add that this last knesset session was the first time that there is a coalition without any religious parties and that had a lot to do with winning 19 minutes in the last election because he ran on this forum for trying to separate religion and state and he was really the first one in a very long time in the coalition to say we dont on any ultraorthodox party. So that is kind of why the government collapsed actually, a big piece of it. In this upcoming election on march 7 team it will be really interesting to see how much power deserted antireligious platform guides. You know how much power this idea that we need a government without any religious parties, how much power that will have. Having a coalition without religious parties is really, really crucial to pass the legislation. You know, what we have found is until and unless the israeli Secular Society sees this in their selfinterest as an issue that they care about a lot of people have to say this is an American Issue an israeli sheet. More and more it is seen as an israel issue. Why . We have so many people trying to get married in israel. We have all of the russian question whether they are jewish or not jewish. So i think there is a growing and the conservative movement are not present in his bill than they ever were before. So the growing sense within Israeli Society that theres too much control and religionists claim too big of a road we should remember the synagogue that they dont go to his new orthodox synagogue. Now they have alternative and i think that is changed. Other points, questions . One minute. She will preview the microphone. Question, as the airline subsidized by the state of israel or is it entirely a private company . It is a government corporation. It is not what it used to be. Used to be like a piece of the government. That and yahoo spent a lot of time separating out pieces of the government privatizing. It is sort of half fast, quiet side. Elana, i havent read your book yet, but i am planning to read it. What happened with the defeat on the airline . Did the Airline Staff support you . How did they react . Last question. This staff didnt get involved. The previous times the staff did get involved. The staff tries to accommodate men who have trouble sitting next to men. This happened in september. It was in the first it happened to me. It was the first time i blogged about it. It happens to me as well. Unless you want to put me in first class. Everything i blogged about it was because what i decided to do then with cendant never done before which is to speak out. The reason why i decided to speak out was because i didnt want to be a hypocrite. I didnt want to say im going to come to places like this and talk about integration. But what is happening to people doing it to me making me feel like a lesser person, i will stay quiet. So the guy was running up and down the aisle for a good 20 or 30 minutes. I was watching this happen and he was talking to his friends and it was like a big clan of about 15 or 20 men all around me. It was a big jewish, i dont know what it was actually. So you know, i am watching this happen and the whole time unlike i have all of these thoughts bubbled up in my head about things i would really like to say. Finally right before you found somebody else next to me i said can i Say Something . I decided to speak out. So i try to say this. Soon started talking all these men turn their backs on the like one after another. Slowly im seeing this wall of lock backs. That i have to admit was the hardest part. Because suddenly you just feel good you feel like youre not a person. You just feel like you are not a person. And so i stopped talking and said, i sat back and i was like looking out the window. I started to cry. I dont know why. Like, it was something so, i just come back from this two and a half week, all these different talks and is traveling about and talking about all this and youre confronted with this reality and he was really so difficult. It was a difficult, you know . So i wrote this little blog. I kept saying how do know it was not going to bother role go viral but now its out there. That was my reality at the time. You know what didnt happen from all that is i still did not get the call. Im waiting for the call to say what you like a free cup of coffee or something . Would you like a free extra 100 points in your frequent flyer club . Nothing. I was a really good flyer. I was coming to new york six or seven times a year at least. I thought they would notice. I thought they would say heres a really good customer did you write them a letter speak was i wrote them so many letters, so many times. Thats when i realized, the reason why the flight attendants listen to the men is because the men act as a bloc. You know, if one rabbi gets up and says oh you cant fly at all anymore, then the entire group does it. But we as women havent found that power in ourselves yet. We dont act as a bloc. Thats what organize is all about. Exactly. Of the questions or comments from the audience . Up there in the back. This is the last question. There is one better and one there. I dont know if we can take them both. Its hard to see. There was one back there. I just wanted to comment that the synagogue that ago to in long island is currently evaluating whether or not they should become a gala carrying. Because right now they have kind of like a compromise solution where some people want to sit separately, some people want to sit together. But it occurs to me that if im really unhappy with whatever decision they reached, i can buy myself in an egalitarian synagogue and go to a it were ever happens to be. I just visited israel in november and i guess being a man i wasnt aware of some of these things happening around me. But i cant imagine that must be living in a society where women are still battling for these kinds of rights after all these years. It just confounds me that this stuff is still going on. I did want to comment. We live in a society where we have our Supreme Court telling women, telling corporations that there individuals and they can deny women rights to contraceptives. Itsits not just unfortunately im sorry to say its just not initial. Its right here in america. Corporation our people is what the hobby lobby decision was about. Thats a very scary thing. There will be several cases coming up. And i hesitate i dont want to conclude without saying that we are concerned it is this the entire Israeli Society . No, of course not. But there are signs of something happening that we didnt see 20 30, 40 years ago in israel society. Part of it is because of the growing influence and numbers. Its a pure demographic issue. The growing numbers both by the way we didnt mention in the Muslim Community because its in both. Fundamentalist religious and dont forget its not just jews who cant marry in a civil ceremony. Christians and muslims cant marry in a civil ceremony because again, i have to marry according to their own records and own religious courts. Its a much bigger issue and it is a flaw without a cause addition, even though it was the intent was clear stating any declaration of independence which is why i begin with the declaration of independence. It is a flaw in the democracy and we can be proud of this democracy. It is still the only democracy in the middle east, remember. Is a lot better than is in other countries thats around israel where women can drive or walk down the street without being fully covered. Want to be careful that we put it in perspective that is something we care deeply about and we will continue to fight around, but its not all negative and its not its not pervasive. In tel aviv you wouldnt even know theres an issue but there are signs that are very constrained to those of us who celebrate democracy and want to sell but israel is a Jewish Democratic state. I want to thank you. Want to thank elana for coming. I really appreciate it and think museum of jewish heritage for having us in sponsoring us. [applause] thank you both for this wide ranging and a limiting conversation. On a commercial note there are books available in the lobby and im sure elana will be happy to sign been. Thanks for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] is there a Nonfiction Author or book you would like to see featured on booktv . Send us any mail to booktv cspan. Org, tweet us booktv or post on our wall facebook. Com booktv. In germany you get two votes one for someone who represents your district, your community and one for some who represents your ideas. In that way you get a congress thats much more diverse that can create different kinds of