Link Roundup: A Spotlight on Gender Segregation

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Over the past six months, the news has been filled with stories about gender segregation and gender discrimination in Israel and the Jewish community. From the Hillary Clinton Photoshop fiasco to the recent Brooklyn bus scandal, here’s a look at the biggest headlines.

In May, the Brooklyn-based Orthodox weekly Di Tzaytung digitally removed Hillary Clinton and Audrey Tomason from the famous Situation Room photograph following the death of Bin Laden. Since then, new stories have been reported about the absence of women from Jerusalem billboards and ads as well as the exclusion of girls from Clalit HMO stickers, which are given to children as prizes at doctors’ offices. Images of women were also removed from the National Transplant Center (ADI)’s bus ads for its organ donation campaign in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak. Last week, the pluralistic organization Yerushalmim began fighting back by inviting women to be photographed for its “Uncensored” poster campaign. The organization plans to hang the posters around the city in order to return Jerusalem to its “natural state.” [Haaretz]

In June, we reported that the Ultra-Orthodox community in posted flyers around Old City Jerusalem insisting women either stay home or take an alternate, longer, route to the Kotel on Shavuot. Despite the controversy caused by the signs and a court ordered ban on segregation, the Haredi community of Mea She’arim imposed its own segregation policy during Sukkot. Efforts to fight the segregation were unsuccessful as Jerusalem City Council Member Rachel Azaria was fired for petitioning the High Court to uphold the ban. Listen to her interview with Rusty Mike Radio. [The Sisterhood]