ISRAEL
For the first time in Israeli Public Service history, a woman has been appointed as a Judicial Assistant in a Rabbinical Court.
Shira Ben-Eli’s appointment was announced in a joint statement by the Rabbinical Courts Administration and the Civil Service Commission.
She will serve on the Jerusalem District Labour Court, which means she will occupy one of the most senior positions in the Rabbinical Court system.
The position involves close contact with the court’s decision-making processes.
Ms Ben-Eli’s appointment comes nearly two years after a lawsuit was filed by ITIM, an organisation that seeks to help Israelis navigate the country’s religious bureaucracy, and the Rackman Centre at Bar Ilan University, calling for equality in Israel’s Rabbinical Courts, particularly for non-Rabbinical positions.
The lawsuit included a restraining order preventing the Civil Service Commission and the Rabbinical Courts Administration from hiring Judicial Assistants as long as they prevented women from obtaining the positions.
The requirement that a Judicial Assistant have Rabbinical ordination or qualifications as a Rabbinical judge was ultimately lifted.
Director of ITIM, Seth Farber described it as “a great day for women Jewish legal scholars who now have doors opened to them that were unimaginable even five years ago”.
“It is also a great day for Israel, which has demonstrated that extremism can be countered by the forces of democracy and equality,” Rabbi Farber said.
The Rabbinical Courts have control over marriages, divorce, conversions to Judaism and appointments to rabbinical positions around the country.
Jerusalem, 7 August 2018
