הילה חסן לבקוביץ התראיינה בכאן רדיו ותיארה את פרויקט הצילום החדש שלנו
המחיקה של נשים היא כל כך נפוצה בעולם הדתי, שאלה שכן רוצים לפרסם עם תמונות של נשים מתקשים למצוא תמונות המתאימות למגזר
פרויקט זה נועד ליצור מאגר תמונות של נשים ומשפחות לשימוש בקהילה גם בקהילה הדתית
:האזינו כאן לקבלת מידע נוסף על יוזמה זו
What does one wear to the world’s first women’s Siyum HaShas event?
The question I posed on social media was a joke, a play on the idea of worrying about surface appearances at any event celebrating women’s achievements. But it also wasn’t a joke. What does one wear to the first major celebration of women’s achievements in Talmud learning, a “before and after” moment that will affect our community for ages to come?
A Siyum HaShas celebrates the conclusion of a cycle of Daf Yomi — literally a daily page — of Talmud, which was instituted in 1923 by Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin and brings lomdim (those who study) through the entire Talmud in 7 years and 5 months.
It is true that completing a page of Talmud a day does not a Torah scholar make. And it is true that we are blessed with female Torah scholars whose knowledge of the Talmud, halacha and other areas of Jewish learning is deep and well beyond a daf a day. Yet, Daf Yomi and the Siyum HaShas has always been nearly an exclusively male experience. An event in Jerusalem marking women’s completion en masse is simply unprecedented.
In response to my question of what to wear, one person responded: Not a wig!
But in fact, as we stood in line with hundreds of other women (and some men) in the frigid Jerusalem air on Sunday, we saw wigs, falls, hats, scarves, berets and some with no head coverings at all. The event didn’t belong to any one segment or denomination of women — it belonged to us all.
Through chattering teeth, women discussed things they had cancelled, ignored or asked their husbands to deal with so that they could attend the event. The atmosphere among the attendees was one of excitement and anticipation; we were taking part in a seminal event for women and the entire Jewish community.
As an activist for women in Orthodoxy, I’m often witness to where women are excluded, sidelined and shut out. I know women harmed by the system, treated horribly by those meant to aid them, and I regularly see women erased. Being here, where women carved a space for themselves, created a platform and taught and learned Talmud, was perhaps more gratifying to me than most. Here, I was seeing the future, the way things could be, the way things should be.
Women well into their eighties joined babies, teenagers and over 1,100 midrasha (gap year yeshivot for young women) students who were there to witness their teachers and friends celebrate their achievements. About 150 men joined as well, knowing that learning Torah is always something to celebrate.
When Rabbanit Michelle Farber, who has taught a daily Daf Yomi class for women for the past 7-plus years, took the stage, a roaring standing ovation filled the hall. Farber had done something no other woman in history had done, and with her, she brought thousands upon thousands of women and men across the Jewish world along for the ride.
Every female scholar that took the stage or was shown in a video clip was met with cheering generally reserved for rock stars, mainly led by the hundreds of teenagers in the balcony.
Tears fell from my eyes as I realized that far from screaming for Justin Bieber, these young women were cheering in awe off their female role models — the women who taught them that the Torah is theirs and that they can achieve, embrace and own Torah scholarship.
Rabbanit Esti Rosenberg began her remarks by thanking her father, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, of blessed memory, and her grandfather Rabbi Joseph B. Solovetchik, of blessed memory, for opening the doors for women’s learning.
“When my father and grandfather opened up Torah to women, I don’t think it was so much because of what they thought about women, but about what they thought about Torah. They couldn’t imagine life without it.”
The lone man to take the stage was Rav Benny Lau, and Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks sent in a video of congratulations. The rest of the evening featured a veritable who’s who of female Torah scholars, and each was greeted with thunderous cheers and applause.
While celebrating, there was no talk of equality, status, leadership or titles. The featured speakers didn’t talk about leadership — they modeled it. Every speaker was impressive, each one a role model.
When I congratulated Rabbanit Farber, I asked her if she understood that she has changed the world for women and girls in Torah learning. She told me that it hadn’t sunk in yet.
Perhaps from her view on stage, she couldn’t see the reactions of the audience, the tears in the eyes of the women who for so long had felt so left out. Perhaps she couldn’t distinguish the younger girls cheering for each scholar among the roars of the audience. And clearly, she couldn’t see our hearts bursting with pride. I hope that she reads the posts, the articles and the messages that have flooded social media.
From them, it’s clear to see that the event showed the world that women’s scholarship is real and adds immensely to the Jewish world.
As we left the hall, the young women streamed down from the balcony into the stairwell and broke out into spontaneous singing and dancing on the landing. They danced for Torah, they danced for the women who achieved and they danced for themselves — for the bright and open future they now face.
As more and more women master Torah and halacha, the problems we face will be addressed differently. For while learning Torah should always be about learning Torah, it must also be about improving our community.
What should one wear to the women’s Siyum HaShas? The crown of Torah, of course.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/breast-cancer-behind-the-mechitza/
If a picture speaks a thousand words, these images scream volumes. Taken a few weeks ago in the ancient cemetery of Tsfat, they show two sides of the same grave. Rav Yosef Caro zt”l was a mystic, and the author of the Shulchan Aruch, among other works. Thousands come to pray at his graveside. Some have total access to the monument. They can touch it, kiss it, cry on it. Others can talk to the wall behind it.
I cannot think of a better pair of images to illustrate the state of Orthodoxy today, where there is one open accessed reality for men, and one increasingly restrictive reality for women.
You see, today, in Orthodoxy, a man can:
And a woman can:
And she cannot:
Should she seek to change these policies, and ask:
…she can expect to be called a “feminist with an agenda.”
Why are God fearing, religious women being increasingly shut out? Why are our motivations constantly and consistently questioned?
Why are the things that mean so much to us, walled off from us? And who gave the wall- builders that right?
Why is male access guaranteed, while female access shrinks?
The contrast between the way that the Orthodox community in general treats men with the way it treats women has never been stronger. Time and again, we see that men are “innocent until proven guilty.” It might be more accurate to say “innocent even when proven guilty.”
Yet for women, it is almost the opposite: women are “presumed guilty until proven innocent.” Even the wish to dance with a Torah scroll on Simchat Torah is considered subversive unless it can be “proven” to come from a pure, spiritual place.
Once we stood at Sinai together, men and women, “like one person with one heart.” Today, the heart of Orthodoxy is broken, splintered into a dangerous and gaping divide.
In November 2018, I sat with Elly Sapper, Dassi Erlich and Nicole Meyer, the three sisters from Australia who have been working for years to bring their alleged sexual abuser, Malka Leifer, to justice. They were in Israel to try and pressure a justice system that they knew was being manipulated, even if they didn’t know by whom.
We sat there discussing possible culprits. Health Minister Yaakov Litzman was at the head of the list, along with a number of other rabbinic leaders in the Haredi world. As it turns out, we were right. It became clear this past month that numerous rabbis have been working to prevent Leifer’s extradition.
Who Is Malka Leifer?
Leifer is a former girls schools principal who stands officially accused on more than 74 counts of molestation of girls from Australia in Australia, and unofficially of many more girls in Israel and Australia.
She headed the ultra-Orthodox Adass Israel girls’ school in Melbournefrom 2003 to 2008, with some saying she moved to Australia to begin with because of accusations of abuse in Israel.
When allegations began to emerge in Australia that she had sexually abused between eight and 15 of her students, a plan hatched by the school’s administration had Leifer on a plane back to Israel.
Australia officially filed an extradition request in 2012, yet Leifer was first taken into custody in Israel in 2014, and later released to house arrest. She evaded justice here in Israel with delays and claims of ill health. Most recently, in June 2016, testimony from a state-appointed psychiatrist claimed that Leifer was unfit to stand trial. This led to a Jerusalem District Court halting extradition efforts, citing a law that permits stopping proceedings when a defendant is deemed unfit to stand trial.
Many doubted the mental health declaration and indeed, a private investigation run by Jewish Community Watch, a US-based group, tracked Leifer and showed conclusively that she was indeed mentally fit. As a result, she was re-arrested last February.
Who Is Helping Malka Leifer?
The following figures of the Haredi world are supporting the alleged abuser, some behind the scenes, some in the open.
Health Minister Rabbi Yaakov Litzman of United Torah Judaism: After a months-long undercover operation, the police questioned Litzman on suspicion of pressuring a court psychiatrist to falsify his psychiatric report that prevented Leifer’s extradition on medical grounds. Police supposedly have recordings of Litzman and officials speaking to Health Ministry employees and pressing them to act on Leifer’s behalf.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shafran of Bnei Brak: Shafran came to court to support Leifer and gave his blessing to have Leifer put under house arrest at the home of girls’ school principals.
Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman of Migdal Ohr: testified on her behalf and offered to house Leifer until he came under tremendous fire from supporters of his network of programs for orphans.
Rabbi Yosef Direnfeld of the Belz community in Ashdod: Direnfeld put out a heartfelt plea call for donations to “save” Leifer. “An important woman, the daughter of the great and the righteous… has been imprisoned for a long time under harsh and cruel conditions… for the purpose of extraditing her to a gentile state.”
Why Are Rabbis Helping Malka Leifer?
Support for Leifer is being deemed “Pidyon Shvuim” — a serious commandment of redeeming captives that effectively created a moral imperative to save young Jews enslaved by the Romans, held by the Spanish Inquisition, in the Russian Gulag or even modern day Iran, but would be hard to apply to this case of an accused pedophile being extradited to a democratic country to face her accusers in a fair trial.
And those of us with knowledge of Jewish history might be tempted to sympathize — IF these Hasidic leaders showed any attempt at safeguarding children from Leifer by ensuring that she be prevented from access to them.
Note: It is important that Leifer’s protectors are Hasidic. Because Hasidic communities are predominantly insular, they often have their own rules. Each sect is run according to the word of its Rebbe. What he says, goes. If the Rebbe says to exclude children from school, they are excluded. If he says shun this woman for asking for a divorce, she is shunned, and if he says raise money for a woman who is righteous and being persecuted unfairly, the Hasidim raise money. This can also work to the benefit of the community, rallying around those in need, but only if the rebbe chooses.
Had the Rebbes decided to shun Leifer and protect their community- they could have done so. It is within their power. But, instead, they chose to protect Leifer, and in so doing dismissed the sisters and their claims of child sexual abuse.
The Response to the Sisters
In January, when the sisters were in Israel, they were at the Knesset to drum up support for extradition with lawmakers. MK Yehuda Glick was their guide through the hallways, and when their paths crossed with that of MK Litzman, Glick introduced them. It seemed providential, since Litzman had repeatedly refused the sisters’ requests to meet with them. Until he exclaimed: “I want nothing to do with this! I’ve heard the other side of the story. I will not support the extradition!” The women maintain that he did tell them he would “not interfere with the extradition either.” which, according to police and their recordings, was a boldfaced lie.
And last week, here again for another hearing on Leifer’s health and possible extradition, they met with Rabbi Shafran. In a heartbreaking Facebook post, Dassi Erlich described their meeting. They asked the rabbi why he supported Leifer. Shafran replied:
“It’s my duty as a rabbi to support a fellow Jew”.
When asked why Leifer’s Jewishness deserved his sympathy over their own, he refused to answer them. Instead, he explained the importance of supporting the underdog — in this case, he estimated, the alleged abuser. The girls were left deeply pained by this meeting.
I am not a Hasid, and do not live in the Hasidic world. Yet, I and others in the broader community are left asking how rabbis, supposed caretakers of our physical and spiritual well being, trade the freedom of one alleged abuser for the well being and safety of her victims, and the many more children to whom she has access.
The safety of the community’s own children has been disregarded in the rabbis’ push for Leifer’s protection. Indeed, according to parents in Immanuel, the town that offered her shelter and its trust largely based on the support of these rabbis, she has done it again.
Public Benefit or Public Harm?
Litzman, in his only public statement since the accusations against him, claimed to be working for the public’s benefit and according to the law. What public and whose law??
This battle to protect an alleged abuser proclaims to all abusers that they can find a safe haven among the Hasidim in Israel. It is an painful declaration to all victims, letting them know they will not be believed nor protected.
What Can the Concerned Public do?
It is clear to me that the right thing to do is extradite Leifer to Australia so that her alleged victims can seek justice in a fair trial, and to caution every abuser and anyone thinking of abusing children that the Jewish community will not allow our children to be harmed — not even if it means facing a non-Jewish court.
Our children must mean this much.
On Wednesday, March 13th, a general protesting public congregated outside the district court house on Salah Ah Din Street in Jerusalem. The demand was that Leifer be extradited, and our protest is that the abuse of children and the protection of their abusers will not be tolerated.
Follow the sisters’ journey and offer them your support.
Originally published in the Times of Israel, by Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll
In preparation for this day of Shavuot, when the Jewish people received the Torah at Sinai, we’re raising some discussion points about the meaning and practices of the day. Add your voice to the conversation — we’d love to hear what you have to say.
Chag sameach!
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