As a Jew, a liberal, and a lover of the State of Israel, it is with great sadness that I reflect on what has transpired over the last few days in Beit Shemesh, Israel.
On Monday, Haaretz reported an escalation of gender-based violence in the city of Beit Shemesh. Beit Shemesh is home to a large community of Haredim, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, some of whom have taken to spitting on, insulting, and throwing rocks at women who appear in public “immodestly.” Particularly divisive has been the story of Naama Margolese, an eight-year-old girl who has been harassed, spit on, and called a “prostitute” by Haredim on her way to school. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rightfully condemned the misogynistic attacks in Beit Shemesh, and on Tuesday, thousands of Israelis protested gender segregation in the city, asserting that the Haredim were “turning Israel into Iran.”
I am saddened and offended by the violence and humiliation that non-Haredi women have experienced in Beit Shemesh. Yet I am equally saddened by the culture war that has surfaced in its wake. The Israeli news segment that sparked much of the recent unrest began as a feature on Naama Margolese but quickly devolved into an appraisal of gender divisions in the Haredi community. Reporters were so dismissive of the Haredi perspective that it comes as no surprise to me that the Haredi are dismissive of that of mainstream Israel. What stood out to me in particular is that Haredim, both male and female, insisted again and again that “by the Haredi, the woman is respected.” One Haredi man said that “by the irreligious, the woman is practically a sex symbol,” and a Haredi woman echoed his view: “women are treated very poorly in western society,” she said, insisting that the objectification of women on billboards “made her feel sick.”
Reporters also cited the Haredi community’s separation of men and women on buses and signs that instructed women not to loiter in the streets as evidence of its misogyny, yet one Haredi man said that women are prohibited from loitering for the same reason that Binyamin Netanyahu is protected by guards when he walks down the street: as a display of honor, not of contempt.
The Haredi understanding of gender was unjustly and intentionally ignored amid the fervor of Tuesday’s protest. Admittedly, I have a bone to pick with the rigid gender roles (not to mention the infantilization of women) that I perceive in the Haredi tradition, but I also have a bone to pick with the very real and very destructive objectification of women that the Haredim perceive in the West. In any case, though the question of misogyny in the Haredi community is a very legitimate one, it is not one that can be appropriately addressed by a polemical anti-Haredi protest.
Ultimately, the struggle in Beit Shemesh is about much more than gender. The destiny of Israel, a Jewish liberal democracy, remains unclear and extremely contentious. To what degree should the Haredim, a Jewish community in the Jewish state of Israel, be extended self-determination? Clearly, Haredim do not have the right to harass or attack non-Haredim. But should they have the right to segregate public spaces by gender? What if they insist that it is religious duty to do so? Should the Israeli government force Haredi schools, which almost exclusively teach the Torah, to introduce standard subjects?
Beit Shemesh has left us with many more questions than answers.
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