Israel Women Fear Setback

This is interesting.

At Los Angeles Times, "As ultra-Orthodox flex muscle, Israel feminists see a backsliding":

Women who thought Israel's battle for gender equality was mostly won warn of a new assault from the fast-growing ultra-Orthodox, seeking to expand religious-based segregation into the public realm.

When public buses rumble to a stop in some of Jerusalem's religious neighborhoods, women often dutifully enter by the rear door and sit in the back, leaving the front for men.

There's no law requiring the women to do so, but those who don't risk verbal taunts and intimidation.

It's a curious sight given Israel's history as an international trailblazer for women's rights.

The country produced one of the democratic world's first female heads of government with Golda Meir's election in 1969. Women lead Israel's Supreme Court and two of the nation's main political parties. Israel drafts women into military service and has some of the world's toughest laws against sexual harassment and rape.

Yet Israeli women say that recently some of their most basic rights have come under attack, including singing and dancing in public, vying for student government positions at a religious college, appearing on billboards in Jerusalem, speaking on a religious radio station and even using the sidewalk during religious celebrations.

Feminists who once thought Israel's battle for gender equality had been mostly won are warning of a new assault from Israel's fast-growing ultra-Orthodox community, which is seeking to expand religious-based segregation into the public realm.

"We are going backward and losing all our achievements," said Rachel Liel, executive director of the New Israel Fund, which advocates for civil rights and equality. "A 21st century democracy is not a place where women sit in the back of the bus."

And further down at the piece:

Ultra-Orthodox leaders agree that the problem is one of encroachment, but they insist that it is the secular and the liberal religious communities that are seeking to impose modern values and prevent the ultra-Orthodox, also known as haredim, from practicing a stricter form of Judaism. Those traditional values typically include restrictions on television and the Internet, modest dress codes and segregation of the sexes, which haredi leaders say is needed to protect women from sexual exploitation and men from temptation.

"Women walk down the street as though they are at the beach," said Rabbi Shmuel Pappenheim, a spokesman and leader for an umbrella group of ultra-Orthodox factions. "If in the past this was typical only of Tel Aviv, today it has reached Jerusalem as well. They encroach on our way of life, prompting our people to impose new restrictions, deepen separation and erect higher barriers to keep it away"...

Many activists criticize mainstream politicians for failing to speak out more aggressively against the segregation, particularly female leaders such as Kadima party Chairwoman Tzipi Livni, Labor Party head Shelly Yachimovich and Supreme Court Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch. All three declined to comment for this article.

That last section, in bold, is telling.

Anyway, the piece mentions Hila Benyovits-Hoffman, an Israeli progressive who writes at the hard-left website +972: "No, a woman’s voice is not “pubic” – the song must go on."