Jewfem Blog

Yaffa Benizri, wife of convicted former MK Shlomo Benizri of Shas, gave a bizarre interview to Yediot Aharonot last week. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at her insistence that her husband is innocent. After all, so what if the courts of the State of Israel upheld his conviction on bribery and other charges? It's just the State. God and Wife know the Truth. Obviously. Nevertheless, there were some other strange aspects to Mrs. Benizri's comments. It wasn't only how upset she is about her current financial situation -- "The paint is peeling on my walls," she cried, as if that will gain sympathy among Israelis from whom Benizri stole money. What was really off was her description of her whole relationship with her husband.

As I watched the violence in Jerusalem over the past weeks and listened to the accompanying rhetoric, I thought about Stanley Milgram. A social psychologist who studied patterns of human conformity (that is, why people tend to follow group behavior), Dr. Milgram conducted the famous experiments about “obedience to authority”, in which he pretty easily got people to administer presumably life-threatening electric shocks to other people just by telling them that they had to. “The experiment requires that you continue,” he told his subjects, who listened to the screams of those receiving the shocks (well, actors, unbeknownst to the shocker). “It is absolutely essential that you continue,” he would say, or, “You have no other choice, you must go on.” In a surprise even to himself, 65 percent of experiment participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock – a statistic that was replicated in later studies around the world. Only one participant absolutely refused to administer shocks before the 300-volt level. Moreover, according to Philip Zimbardo, none of the participants who refused to administer the final shocks insisted that the experiment itself be stopped, nor left the room to check on the victim. I’ve been thinking about this as I wonder what motivates throngs of yeshiva students to abandon all human morality and violently destroy a city – their OWN city – and threaten the lives of other human beings, be them police, social service workers, or secular Israelis. I think that part of the answer can be found in Milgram’s analysis of obedience to authority.

My friend Elise Rynhold who works for Orr Shalom sent in this important post. It's a very special organization and I look forward to seeing the exhibition: Orr Shalom, Israel's largest non-profit organization providing out-of-home care and therapeutic services to 1,300 children who have been removed from their homes by the social welfare services due to severe abuse and/or neglect, is showcasing an open-air photography exhibition entitled "Child, Home, Light" at the Tel Aviv Port this summer. The unique exhibition offers a rare glimpse into the world of the children for whom Orr Shalom cares.

Here's a video about the Kolech conference from Jpost, "What to call a woman rabbi?" The answer to me isobvious: call her rabbi! JPost Video: What to call a woman rabbi? Thanks Joel Katz for another great hattip

The rabbinic ordination of women – smicha – is one of the simplest items on the religious agendatoday, according to Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun of Herzog College. Speaking at the Sixth Annual conference of the Kolech Orthodox Feminist institution in Jerusalem this week, Bin Nun argued that there is no problem whatsoever with women getting smicha, and that in fact, quite a few women have served as rabbis in Jewish history. Bin Nun brought examples from Talmudic times through Hassidic life of women who were rabbis in terms of both scholarship and communal leaders, and maintained that there has never been a problem with women's ordination in halakha or in practice.

At tomorrow's Kolech conference, I will have the privilege of speaking on a panel with Rabbi Benny Lau and Sara Evron, moderated by Zeev Kitsis. This particular panel takes a whole new direction in Orthodox feminism by looking not at women and girls but at men. We will be looking, for perhaps the first time at an Ortho-feminist conference, at the adverse impact that entrenched patriarchy has on men. It's not about how male expectations hurt women, but how male expectations hurt men. We will be asking difficult questions about how Orthodox men are educated, and about how men and boys can become trapped in expectations of masculinity. My talk is based on research I did for three years with Orthodox men. I interviewed 54 men who participate in "partnership minyanim" -- that is, the Ortho-egal synagogues in which women are given roles of aliyot, torah reading, and leading non-minyan elements of the service. I chose these men because they are men on the borders between worlds, living in Orthodoxy but looking at feminism. I wanted to know how they navigate gender, identity and religion, and find out from them what life is like on the "other" side of the partition. It was as if, after all these years talking about women's experiences, I was taking the camera lens and switching angles. It's been a fascinating journey. I am now working on revisions to the book I've written about all this,"Stand up and be Counted: Being a Man in an Orthodox World". I don't know when it will be complete, but we're working on it. Meanwhile, in advance of tomorrow's conference, I thought to share here some of the writing, a section of chapter 1, where I explain the rationale behind the research. It's only a small segment and it's not fully tweaked -- and of course, as an advocate of non-spoilers, I don't give away the "ending." Nonetheless, as far as teasers go, it's alright :-) I look forward to feedback, and hopefully to an engaging discussion at tomorrow's session. B'vracha, Elana

Although Kolech is busy gearing up for next week's conference, there is quite a lot of work to be done in theongoing struggle to protect the dignity and basic human rights of women in Israel. Several rabbis this week have issued damning statements undermining women's dignity, including the IDF chief rabbi who said that women should not serve in the army and that his job includes "protecting men" from the influences of women's presence, as well as Rabbi Modechai Eliyahu who encourages his followers not to "try and appease women" (his followers, read, men), and to go to jail rather than listen to women sing. Kolech has formally responded to this week's attack by Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira claiming that Kolech is leading the "neo-Reform" movement with an invitation for courageous and open dialogue. Kolech invites all interested to an evening of learning in the park outside the yeshiva in Ramat Gan (next to Bar Ilan University) on Wednesday, 15 July at 7:30 PM. Details at Elad Kalpan, 0542003113. Kolech would also like to call attention to a few more important issues of the day:

Next week's Kolech Conference is offering a cutting edge array of sessions on issues of gender and Jewish life, including fighting the rabbinic courts through the civil courts, educating religious boys, single motherhood,religious dress, women in the economy, racism within religious feminism, and more. Speakers include noted author Dr. Aviva Zornberg, Mizrahi feminist poet Esther Shekalim, Dr. Gilli Zivan of the Yaakov Herzog Center, and more. English speakers will have the pleasure of listening to some leading figures discuss their important work -- in English. (I'll be speaking at 2:30 -- in Hebrew -- about my research on Orthodox men and masculinities.)