עצומה נגד הדרת נשים

Petition against the exclusion of women

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Over recent months, we have witnessed a growing trend of gender segregation, which practically, means the exclusion of women from public space in Israel. Gender segregation is occurring in city streets, the IDF, the education system and has even occurred in a national ceremony. We are most disturbed by the deterioration that is happening before our very eyes. Phenomena that were unimaginable in the past are actually coming to pass, and who can predict where this will lead?

Exclusion of women finds expression in a variety of public spaces; on buses, in the streets of "Mea Shearim," in separate Rav-Card distribution stations in Jerusalem, in separate branches of HMOs and in the establishment of a new Magen David Adom station exclusively for male volunteers. As expected, the separation does not stop in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods; throughout Jerusalem, pictures of women have been removed from advertisement signs and billboards.

The increase in the phenomenon is manifest in the IDF, which has recently witnessed several incidents of exclusion. These include the transfer of women officers to another unit due to the entry of religious soldiers into the same unit; soldiers offending women by walking out of an event featuring women singers and sending women soldiers to a separate area during a "Hakafot-Shniot" event.

The voices calling for separation are reaching the religious education system. In practice, this means the exclusion of women from the public space, such as preventing young girls from reading aloud or playing musical instruments in school ceremonies. 

An extreme expression of the exclusion of women took place recently at a Ministry of Health outstanding researcher awards ceremony. Although two of the winners were women, a male representative accepted the prize on their behalf, at the request of the organization. Not even their names were specified, ensuring that their female identity would remain a secret.

It is becoming repeatedly clear that separating the genders actually means the exclusion of girls and women from public spaces.

Separation requirements designed to exclude women frequently emerge in the name of Jewish Law (Halacha). These are based on a unilateral interpretation, which ignores human dignity, as well as the Torah directive that "Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace."

We call upon government institutions – the Knesset, the government and the judicial system – to stand firm, to stop the exclusion of women, and to serve as role models against these phenomena. We call upon the citizens of Israel to be aware of these phenomena and to protest against them, so that decision makers understand that there is a price to pay for submitting to the norms that extremist groups are seeking to force on the general public.

Out of deep concern about the nature of the public space and the place of women within it, we, the undersigned, wish to alert against this trend that rejects "And God created Man in His own image" when it comes to women, and sees them merely as sex objects.