ISRAEL
The program aimed at getting more members of Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, community into the Public Service will remain partially separated by gender, the Government has announced.
There will be 20 women and 25 men studying in the second session of the program divided into two separate, parallel courses.
The Government said this was a significant improvement compared to the first session, in light of a promise that 20 per cent of the activities in the course would be conducted jointly.
Sources said the division between the genders during the various activities would be determined on the nature of the activity: Frontal lectures would take place together, but workshops that required processing and internal discussion, and involve work in small groups or personal exposure, would take place separately.
Executive Director of the Israel Women’s Network, Michal Gera-Margaliot said the current ruling gave no clear and transparent indexes for the question of what could be mixed and what required separation.
“The Government’s starting point is that a course for Haredi involves gender separation – it’s dangerous to accept such an assumption ahead of time,” Ms Gera-Margaliot said.
The first session in the program opened early in 2018 for men only.
At the end of that year a course for women opened.
A petition filed by the women’s network against the blow to equality then went through various courts – including the Jerusalem District Labor Court, The National Labor Court and eventually the High Court of Justice — accompanied by a bitter public debate.
Eventually Judge Rachel Barag Hirshberg ruled that the Government’s promise to operate future sessions of the program for men and women at the same time, and to hire them for positions that were open equally to both sexes, was sufficient for the program to continue.
Jerusalem, 30 January 2020
