Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Americans Angry Over Female Broadcast Limits

Members of Israel’s Second Authority for Television and Radio have received hundreds of e-mails in the last 24 hours demanding an end to practice of “silencing women.”

The e-mails, which number over 2,000, call for authority members to reevaluate the decision to allow the ultra-Orthodox radio station “Kol Barama” to reduce the number of hours female broadcasters can be heard each day from six to four.

“There is no rationale for limiting the number of hours women are allowed to broadcast,” read one of the e-mails, sent mostly from Jewish Americans. “Supporters of Israel worldwide are worrying about the welfare of Israeli society, we want to see Israel as a place of justice, equality, and democracy. Stop giving room to extremists promoting an anti-woman agenda,” continued the email.

The “New Israel Fund” seems to be behind the letter campaign, as a page was created on the fund’s website to allow for emails to be sent to the The Second Authority for Television and Radio. On the page, it is explained that the radio station, which was founded by public concession to provide a public forum for the orthodox community, has been violating Israeli law for some time, by prohibiting women from broadcasting.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.