Women Patriarchy and Religion |
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 One in three Israeli women will be sexually assaulted during her lifetime. -
Israeli women cannot get divorced without their husbands consent.
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Israel men currently earn 58 percent more than women.
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Although illegal, polygamy is still widely practiced in Bedouin communities.
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Of the thousands of women who turn to NIF grantee Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, only 20% are prepared to report crimes of rape and sexual harassment to the police.
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Ethiopians comprise 1% of the population, yet 25% of women killed by their husbands or partners in the past 10 years have been Ethiopian immigrants. In a society influenced by the patriarchal values embedded in the most rigid interpretation of Jewish and Muslim religious traditions, Israeli women face serious hurdles in the quest for gender equality. As in other western democracies, women in Israel struggle to break the glass ceilings in many professions and face income inequality. But unlike other developed nations, Israel has no civil marriage or divorce, binding women to the religious courts which notoriously favor their estranged husbands. Women in Arab and Bedouin communities face additional challenges, including polygamy, restrictions on work and property ownership, and increased rates of domestic violence.
NIF Successes and Resources
Personal Story: Micro-Enterprise against All Odds
 Lakiya Yardeni is a born leader. The 48 year-old mother of six reached Israel from Ethiopia via Sudan in 1989 and settled in the northern Negev city of Kiryat Gat. After working for many years in agriculture, she soon started organizing the women of her community in leadership courses. She currently runs the Embroidery Center operated by Sister for Women in Israel, an NIF grantee which promotes the status of Mizrachi women and their full integration into Israeli society.
She recalls, “When I first started organizing leadership courses, the men refused to let their women come. I coaxed them. Please come just once a week, I said, and learn about Israeli society and things like how to be punctual. In the end 70 women came.”
However, Yardeni felt that the leadership courses were not enough. She wanted to develop activity program that would help alleviate the economic distress faced by the women in her community. She decided to commercially market the traditional crafts of Ethiopian women – weaving, embroidery, sculpture and more – and thus the idea of the Embroidery Center was born.
Twenty-six women currently come to the center, and Sister for Women in Israel markets their products mainly through the Comme Il Faut fashion chain. Among the women is Chahainesh, a recent immigrant from Ethiopia. She says with tears in her eyes, “I get between $20 and $30 for each item I make. This is the first money I have ever earned.” Yardeni observes that the money the women earn buys them more than basic necessities. She says, “It also buys them the respect of their husbands and pride in their own traditions and capabilities.”
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