The Christian Science Monitor

In Israel, Orthodox women are fighting to be heard ... and seen

In July, three men from an ultra-Orthodox, or religiously devout, radio station carried bucket after bucket brimming with coins into the small office of an Orthodox Jewish feminist organization in Jerusalem.

It was not a donation dutifully collected in a school charity drive. It was the 30,000 shekels an Israeli court had ordered the station, Kol Be’Ramah, to pay the religious women in court fees after ruling it had illegally discriminated against women by keeping them off the air, either as interviewees or broadcasters.

Delivering the equivalent of $8,470 in nickels and pennies was intended to be provocative. But the feminist group, Kolech, responded that money was money, and they were delighted that “every penny” would be going to a fund to help women.

Kolech, Hebrew for Your Voice, is part of a larger struggle for gender equality

Back of the busGalvanized to actionRepresentation in parliament

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