Sensitive to Haredi Sensibilities (But Not to Those of Women and Britons)
Ha’aretz reports:
A senior Knesset official on Monday said fear of offending ultra-Orthodox MKs led the institution to exclude women singers from the parliamentary choir at a special session in honor of visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier in the day.
Two-thirds of the Knesset choir, headed by MK Zevulun Orlev (National Union-National Religious Party Chairman), were missing when the national anthem Hatikva was performed at the afternoon session.
Director-general of the Knesset, Avi Balashnikov, told Haaretz that the decision to leave out the female members of the choir was made in order to accommodate all MKs.
“I am the director-general of all MKs, and I don’t have any wish to cause situations that would make MKs get up and leave,” Balashnikov said. “Even though there are only a few Haredi MKs, we think of everybody….”
Perhaps female Knesset members should get up and leave when women singers are excluded. Then the director-general would have to choose between having the Haredi MKs walk out or the female parliamentarians splitting.
Also, does he really think that a ceremony in which women are excluded is the best way of creating a favorable impression for Prime Minister Brown and his fellow Britons?
UPDATE: Here’s a much better way of handling this issue. Ultra-Orthodox Knesset members can exempt themselves from ceremonies with female singers (which, like many ceremonial sessions, most parliamentarians don’t attend anyway).
UPDATE II: Ha’aretz’s editorialist agrees with me.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
