Religious Freedom, Women’s Rights and Israeli National Security

Posted on | January 23, 2012 | 8 Comments

by Kasey Barr

In nearly every world-wide index on religious freedom, Israel performs dismally. At best, it scores at the bottom rung of democracies, such as in Paul Marshall’s Freedom Scale. At worst,  it represents the only Western democracy sharing ranks with China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and a host of other authoritarian regimes as is the case in the 2010 CIRI Religious Freedom Index.

These ratings and their impact  should not be underestimated. Interestingly, it was pointed out in a widely read London-based Arab newspaper, Al-Hayat, that religious fanaticism, “Poses a strategic threat to Israel, as it destabilizes its relationship with the West.”  While this may strike a discordant note of hypocrisy, the analysis is in tune with recent statements from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Speaking at the Saban Forum in Washington, DC, Clinton referenced an article in the Washington Post, drawing attention to the exclusion and boycotting of women by certain ultra-religious minority groups in Israel. The article highlights recent controversies such as  incidents where IDF religious soldiers have boycotted events where women sang, as well as the segregation of women on certain bus lines. Speaking about the recent story of Tanya Rosenblit’s refusal to acquiesce to the demands of the Haredi passengers to sit in the back of a public bus,  Clinton likened it to the historical act of  Rosa Parks – a black woman who refused to give her seat to a white man in 1955. Clinton went so far as to draw an unfortunate comparison between Iran and Israel, saying that the boycotting of an event where women sing seems more suited to Iran than Israel.

Is Israel deserving of such criticism? I would say Yes and No.

Yes, because the criticisms leveled at Israel are well-founded and based on facts that challenge Israel’s democratic ideals. And no, because Israeli society taken as a whole is far cry from the oppressive and brutal regimes of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other egregious violators of religious freedom and women’s rights.

A recent poll by the Smith Institute for Hiddush reveals that 89 percent of the Jewish public in Israel views recent attempts at gender segregation as a distortion of Judaism (42 percent) or exaggerated and unnecessary (47 percent).

Israel, in one context, is a unique and remarkable example of religious freedom in the Middle East. Only under the control of Israel has the sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in the hotly contested Holy Land, been opened to all people regardless of religious identification.  Israel accomplished what no other society managed to do for thousands of years. This openness has undergone extreme testing with the horrific terrorist attacks of the intifada , yet has still remained.

However, Israel is far from perfect and its codified religious enforcement in matters of family law has made it an easy target for condemnation even among Israel’s allies.  Israel’s low scores for religious freedom have less to do with the freedom of minority religions and more to do with religious regulation in the area of family law, which controls matters of  marriage, divorce, death and conversion. Different religious communities have their own family court systems, but the fact that there is no civil court to perform marriages, divorces and other matters of family law, leaves citizens – and particularly women -  beholding to religious laws which are often controlled by more extremist minorities.

Each year the U.S. State Department issues the International Religious Freedom Report detailing the status of religious freedom in nearly 200 countries. With regard to Israel, it reports that, due to religious restrictions, hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens are denied the right of legal marriage. Also the issue of conversion is based on the religious views of one religious minority and impacts the ability  of thousands of Jews to immigrate to Israel.

President of the Freedom of Religion for Israel project of  Hiddush, Rabbi Uri Regev, remarked, “What leads to [these]  shameful scores is a depressing but consistent political phenomenon in Israel; political parties trading power in exchange for submission to religious coercion, ignoring the will of the overwhelming majority of Israelis.”

However, with some political will-power Israel can overcome the religious obstacles by allowing for a civil court option.   If Israel succeeds in doing this, it will demonstrate the true freedom-loving, democratic nature of Israel as expressed in its declaration of independence which states that Israel “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights of all its inhabitants irrespective of religion…It will guarantee freedom of religion and conscience” (May 1948).

The US State department has declared that “national security strategy must include promoting respect for religious pluralism in society.” The recent statements by the Secretary of State, while arguably far too harsh, should not be ignored but taken as an admonition for Israel to rise to its own standards. Israel has managed to make staggering advancements toward religious freedom in a region where there are some of the highest levels of religious persecution. Israel must not yield an inch to the critics in this area. It must establish a religiously free society in all spheres of private as well as public life.

 

Kasey Barr is the Vice President of Social Media for WIIS Israel as well as a Master’s student at the Interdiciplinary Center Herzliya where she is writing her thesis on the subject of religious regulation in Western democracies.
Kasey.Barr@wiisisrael.com

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