Anti-Feminist Remarks From Israeli Activist
She is one of the most successful religious women in the media, but Shulamit Melamed wants everyone to know that she’s no feminist.
The director of the pro-settler news network Arutz Sheva, Melamed runs the organization’s news site and oversees the newspaper Basheva, which is distributed weekly in an enormous number of synagogues and community venues across Israel and the West Bank — while raising seven children.
At a discussion convened by the Israel Democracy Institute, she outlined some standard arguments put forward by anti-feminist women, such as the claim that biological differences make it “obvious that the role of a woman is completely different from that of a man.” But Melamed — wife of Zalman Melamed who heads the Beit El Yeshiva in the eponymous settlement — went further.
According to her, (as reported on her Arutz Sheva site), laws intended to help women in the Israeli workplace “cause women to have a lower work ethic.” Referring to laws that prohibit companies from refusing to employ a woman because she is pregnant, guaranteeing maternity leave and the like, she said: “Sometimes it seems all women have to do is sit at home and draw their salaries.”
She also commented that “perhaps if it were not so easy to divorce, people would not divorce as much.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
