Allison Kaplan Sommer is a journalist at Haaretz, host of Haaretz Weekend podcast and co-host of The Promised Podcast.
Allison Kaplan Sommer
By Allison Kaplan Sommer
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Life Egyptian Women: Brave in Brutal Times
Before, during and after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, women have been the focus of the protracted conflict in Egypt between grassroots protesters and the military regime. First it was the attack on CBS reporter Lara Logan, then the so-called ‘virginity checks’ on women protesters detained by the Egyptian army. And this past week…
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Life Confessions of a Bake Sale ‘Fraud’
I have committed an act that is apparently unforgivable. Worse, I am a repeat offender. I had no idea at the time that my behavior was deeply offensive to some, and that I may have been repeatedly condemned and sneered at behind my back. I was oblivious. But ignorance, I’ve heard, is a poor defense….
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Life Haredi Paper: Nazis Liked Gender Segregation, Too
One would like to think that there are red lines of offensive bad taste that one doesn’t cross, even in a heated ideological argument, and especially when such an argument is taking place between Jews. But the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Yated Neeman has chosen to cross such a line, by publishing a stomach-turning argument in a…
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Life Putting a Price Tag on Gender Segregation
When the Israel’s High Court ruled back in January that forcibly segregating men and women on so-called ‘mehadrin’ public buses was illegal, but that segregation could take place on a ‘voluntary’ basis, I was worried by what seemed to be to be a wishy-washy decision. At the time, I wrote: One can’t help but worry…
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Life Talking Infertility With Strangers
In her post “Why Infertility Breeds Silence,” my fellow Sisterhood blogger Elissa Strauss writes about the silence surrounding conception and infertility in her group of friends in the child-bearing stage of life. She observes that it: feels as though we lack a vocabulary for how to discuss these things and as a result conversations are…
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Life No Sympathy for Katsav
For any woman who has been sexually abused by a powerful male figure, today is historic. As the day began, a bitter, sullen and utterly unapologetic Moshe Katsav — a former president of Israel, who was convicted last year on two counts of rape — left his home and made his way to prison. En…
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Life Israel’s Gender Segregation Fight Gains Key Allies
The State of Israel was established on the basis of equality between the sexes. I oppose discrimination of any kind against women. We are a single island in a much larger area, a single island in which the status of women is ensured by law. But this is insufficient. We still have much to do…
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Life Back-Room Rabbinical Court Deal Bars Women
For the first time in 12 years there is no woman on the committee responsible for appointing judges to Israel’s rabbinical courts, after the Israel Bar Association failed to elect a woman as its members’ representative. This is being viewed as a tremendous blow to promoting the rights of women who must face these courts…
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