Radio Station Reduces Women’s Air Time
The chairman of Israel’s Second Television and Radio Authority Tuesday rejected criticism of a vote by the authority’s council to reduce the number of hours that women are on the air on ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Barama.
According to the decision made two weeks ago, every week the station will have women on the air for four hours, rather than the six hours of a previous agreement.
The council’s vote, which followed a stormy meeting, was tied and the authority’s chairman, Ilan Avishar, used his casting vote to break the deadlock. Council members criticized the decision and Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat demanded earlier this week that the issue be reconsidered.
“This is not about knuckling under,” Avishar told Haaretz on Tuesday. “On the one hand there are considerations of multiculturalism, and on the other hand there is a culture war and people trying to goad the ultra-Orthodox, whether from the direction of Reform Jews, feminist groups, other groups,” he said.
“Some of the criticism is not pertinent,” he said, adding that critics “wanted to see the station destroyed and not improved.”
Read more at Haaretz.com
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