Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

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.”

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.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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.