Grantees in the News

The Supreme Court has told an ultra-Orthodox political party that it needs to allow women to run on its slate as candidates for national and local elections. The court on Tuesday gave Agudath Israel until September 2 to resolve its position with its rabbinic leadership and allow women to run for office. “If you do not agree we will be forced to issue a legal ruling,” the judges said.

The petition was brought by Tamar ben-Porat, a secular woman, but was supported by Nivcharot, an ultra-Orthodox women’s movement which likens itself to the suffragettes of the early 19th century. The court case related to a specific clause in the party’s regulations that states that only men may be on the slate for elected public office.

Even though the court did not give a ruling, and the point was relatively minor, the case may have far-reaching consequences.

“This is a historic decision,” the group’s founder Esty Shushan told Channel 10 news. “We feel something big happened today.”

Esty Shushan, founder of the ultra-Orthodox women’s group Nivcharot, interviewed on July 31, 2018. (Screen capture: Channel 10 news)

Agudath Israel, founded in 1912, predominantly represents the Hasidic branch of the ultra-Orthodox community, and joined with the non-Hasidic Degel Hatorah party to form United Torah Judaism, which has a total of six seats in the current Knesset. Neither group, nor the Shas party, which mainly represents the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi Jewish community from Spain and north Africa, has any women candidates for Knesset or for municipal elections.

Nivcharot posted on Facebook that the lawyer representing Agudath Israel admitted that there was no clear basis in Jewish law (halacha) to ban women from public office, but that according to the customs of the community it was not permitted.

“While there is no halachic problem with having women representatives, it is inappropriate,” he reportedly told the court.

Estee Rieder-Indursky of the ultra-Orthodox women’s group Nivcharot, interviewed on July 31, 2018. (Screen capture: i24 News)

Even if the parties allow women to join their electoral list, either voluntarily or by court order, it may only be a symbolic victory. The parties would be able to ensure that women were not placed high enough on the list to have a realistic chance of election.

But Nivcharot representative Estee Rieder-Indursky told i24 news that symbolic victories were also important. “For us it is not 2018. It is 1918,” she said. “We are in the middle of the suffragist fight.”

About 11 percent of Israel’s 8.5 million citizens are Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox. Recognizable by the men’s black hats and long black clothes, they often lead insular lives, separated from the more secular Jewish majority and closely adhering to Jewish laws. Ultra-Orthodox women traditionally dress in long skirts and long-sleeved shirts, covering their hair if they are married. Men and women sit separately at synagogues and weddings and women and men who are not relatives refrain from physical contact.

Not only are women excluded from politics, but most of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox media — which include four daily newspapers, two main weeklies and two main websites — refuse to show images of women, claiming it would be a violation of modesty.

When I moved to Israel 20 years ago, I assumed that the idea of women fighting for the right to hold political office was a debate safely in the history books. Surely this is not relevant today. Yet it was only recently did I realize how wrong I had been.

Over the past year, while researching women’s issues in Israel, I learned about the story of two brave Haredi activists, Esti Shushan and Estee Rieder Indursky. As one of the many examples in which art is being used as tool for social change, I heard that they were using the film “Suffragette” as a tool to raise awareness in Israel. The film tells the story of the struggle for women’s voting rights in Great Britain in the early 20^th century

And why is this relevant today? Because ultra-Orthodox women are not able to be elected to office within their political parties. Yes, they are permitted to vote. But they can only vote for men.  As written into the bylaws of the ultra-Orthodox parties, they are prohibited from holding an officially elected public role.

And so, as Esti and Estee explain: “The starting point is absolutely zero for Haredi women. Nothing, not even one woman on a city council or a school committee from Metulla to Eilat.” Their own personal journeys gradually led them to understand the price of this silence, and the link between a lack of political representation and the rise in ultra-Orthodox efforts to exclude women from all public life. In speaking out publicly against this, Esti and Estee — these “Haredi suffragettes” — are making history in their battle now, just as women who fought for the vote a century ago did too. It was the understanding of what has been sacrificed by excluding women from public decision-making processes that has led them to take on this herculean effort.

Ultra-Orthodox extremism in recent years has rightfully grabbed headlines. We hear of battles by activists to challenge the efforts to erase women from public life within the Haredi community — from the removal of women’s images in children’s books to the “men only” sidewalks, from segregated university classrooms to women relegated to the back seats of public buses.

Yet what has managed to remain under the radar for 70 years is the fact that there are no elected female representatives within the Haredi political apparatus. It has actually been the status quo since the establishment of Israel. What is groundbreaking now is that a group of Haredi women activists are willing to challenge this reality.

So is this battle worth the risks involved? As Esti and Estee explained to me, they have been told time and time again by both women and men that their struggle is not worth the heavy price. This price includes the threats and ostracism that they themselves and others face for their activism, where social sanctions can even affect marriage prospects and educational opportunities for their children. They have also been told, most irritatingly and predictably, that men can and do represent women’s interests best. We have all heard this argument before of course — back 100 years ago when suffragettes fought for the right of women to vote.

And this should matter to all of us, regardless of whether we are Haredi. Consider, if you will, what Israel could be like if there were greater efforts to engage women in politics, especially within the ultra-Orthodox parties.  History has shown us that more attention would be paid to social issues that deeply affect the health of families and the strength of communities. Topics such as drug use, divorce, child abuse and domestic violence that are taboo subjects now, particularly in the Haredi community, might be brought more to the fore. So it is in all of our interests to support this struggle within the ultra-Orthodox community even if we do not believe that this is our struggle or that the struggle has already been won for us.

Esti and Estee, who established “Nivcharot” in 2014, are working to create support networks both from inside and outside their community to advance women’s representation in politics. The “Nivcharot” organization, with its campaign: “Lo Nivcharot Lo Boharot” or “No Voice, No Vote,” is daring to challenge the restrictions against women in the ultra-Orthodox political parties that have been in place for so many years. Their fight has now gone all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court and even the United Nations, as the barring of women from holding public office is a violation of international law.

The momentum is slowly moving in their direction, and we can only hope that this will be a time when we can see history in the making.  All of us, regardless of religious affiliation, gender or political leanings, should recognize that denying political representation to over half a million women in Israel is unacceptable in 2018.

There is almost nothing overtly Jewish about the book called “Masala Mamas.”

The book called “Masala Mamas” is a deeply, overwhelmingly Jewish book.

Both these things are true at the same time.

How can that be?

“Masala Mamas,” written by Brooklynite-turned-Israeli Elana Sztokman, is a cookbook featuring kosher vegetarian Indian recipes. It’s an art book, full of lusciously, extravagantly colorful photographs of food and the women who create it. And it’s a storybook, telling the tales of those women’s lives.

The Masala Mamas are Indian women who moved from villages to a massive slum called Kalwa, itself a tiny part of the massive city of Mumbai. They’re all poor and uneducated, at least if you count only formal education; they’re all rich in life experience and knowledge.

These women take care of their families, and then they come to a central kitchen in Kalwa to prepare meals for schoolchildren.

That’s all local.

They’re funded by a group called Gabriel Project Mumbai, founded by Dr. Sztokman’s husband, Jacob Sztokman. Jacob was a high-tech marketer in 2012, when he went to India and was affected by what he saw there to the point where he could not let it go. “So he started the organization to help the kids he saw; to help fight child labor and promote education.

NEW YORK – The opening of a new restaurant here is hardly a headline-making event, but the launch of Emma’s Torch earlier this month had an unusual flavor. That’s because the kitchen staff at this Brooklyn eatery are refugees, asylum seekers and human-trafficking survivors who are training to work in the American food industry.

Creating a community around food is at the heart of Emma’s Torch. The restaurant, which was initially a pop-up kitchen, teaches professional cooking skills to those who have fled persecution, and then helps them find a job. No prior experience is necessary and the students are all authorized to work.

Founder Kerry Brodie, 27, was working as a communications director in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and later at the Human Rights Campaign, when she realized she wanted to do something to benefit society. “I felt that by working in public policy – though it was really rewarding – I wasn’t really working with people,” she tells Haaretz.

After volunteering in a homeless-shelter kitchen, she realized that fond memories of cooking with her family weren’t that different from those around her. So she thought, why can’t we use that kind of universal movement experience to create long and lasting change?

Brodie quit her job, entered culinary school and opened a tiny pop-up kitchen in Brooklyn, with two refugee students at a time, learning the basics of the American brunch. But as the demand from both customers and applicants grew, Brodie and her team realized they needed to expand to a permanent space and expose the students to additional types of meals.

Now, eight participants are trained at any given moment and the program aims to graduate 50 to 70 trainees by the end of 2019. During the two-month paid internship, the students learn the secrets of working in a professional kitchen – from how to medium dice a potato to what the main mother sauces are.

Among the organizations that partner with and underwrite Emma’s Torch are the veteran HIAS refugee organization, the International Rescue Committee, Sanctuary for Families and various church-based groups.

But the Emma’s Torch program doesn’t stop there. It also joins forces with local chefs and kitchen managers to integrate the graduates into the New York restaurant scene and helps them find work.

Passionate about diversity

Naseema Bakhshi is a recent graduate who now works at Chelsea Market’s Dizengoff restaurant – one of a number of eateries opened by Israeli-born chef Michael Solomonov – preparing hummus and Israeli salads. A refugee from Afghanistan, she arrived in the United States in 2017 with her six children, and says her co-trainees and new colleagues have become her new extended family.

Her face framed in a colorful hijab, the 42-year-old Afghani is a true hugger, warmly embracing everyone she meets. She says she is grateful for the second chance she got in life.

“I lived in Afghanistan and then Pakistan, where I wasn’t happy. It wasn’t safe, my children couldn’t go to school,” she says while warming chickpeas in a large pot in the Dizengoff kitchen. “I come to New York, I have a job, a home, every person is my friend. I have insurance and Medicaid. I came with nothing, but now I have everything.”

Bakhshi’s new “family members” are truly international. Indeed, applicants come from countries ranging from Syria to Guinea to Venezuela. It is only natural, then, that those leading the Emma’s Torch program find themselves at times on the pupils’ bench.

“We learnt our shakshuka from our students,” Brodie chuckles, referring to the Israeli egg-and-tomato dish. “Naseema taught me about dissolving saffron using ice and how to make chutney kebab.”

Dima Pasiakin, 31, is midway through his training. He fled Russia last year with his husband Michael, after they were prosecuted under the country’s anti-gay legislation, and applied for asylum in the United States. Inspiringly cheerful, he did not let his circumstances halt his aspirations to someday become a chef with his own restaurant. After studying to improve his English, he joined Emma’s Torch.

“The most important part is that we are working there, actually making the food for people,” he says. “In our very first day there we discussed our country’s cuisines, our favorites, and from time to time we cook something that we like, something to share with the others.”

Diversity at Emma’s Torch isn’t just about the places where people come from, but also what they’re passionate about. “For me, it was humbling to realize that actually every student has different tastes and experiences,” Brodie recounts. She adds that she learned her Saudi student actually prefers to prepare Italian dishes and the Syrian refugee’s favorite cuisine is Korean.

Together with Alex Harris, the chef/culinary director, the team has developed a menu that takes into account the basic skills students must acquire to succeed, what’s seasonal and delicious, and what flavor profiles will spark a sense of familiarity that will make them feel at home in a professional setting – and also be appealing to the customer’s palate.

‘Nice Jewish lady with chutzpah’

The “New-American” menu on offer at the restaurant embodies a blend of cultures and includes items as simple as avocado toast and as unique as black-eyed pea hummus. Another popular dish is the pistachio bread pudding, a baklava-inspired dessert (see recipe below).

The idea of kitchen training as a social vehicle for change has been around for a while. Liliyot restaurant in Tel Aviv, where members of staff include at-risk youth, and the socially engaged Sunflower Bakery in Gaithersburg, Maryland, were among Brodie’s inspirations – both of them initiatives that help people help themselves and strengthen the community through food.

“I don’t think of this as a charity, it actually benefits me,” Brodie smiles. “I get to eat delicious food and live in a city that has amazing diverse cuisine – and that’s because we welcome the stranger.”

Brodie considers herself a proud American Jew and Zionist who was raised to fight for a just society. “I think what has strengthened us as a country historically has always been fighting and advocating for refugees,” she says.

It’s no surprise that Brodie named her initiative after Emma Lazarus, the poet whose 1883 sonnet “The New Colossus” is engraved on the Statue of Liberty – or, as Brodie calls her, “a nice Jewish lady with chutzpah.”

The Emma’s Torch team sees its work as a way of securing Lazarus’ legacy. “What makes us a great and a strong nation is welcoming people,” says Brodie, herself a child of South African immigrants and great-granddaughter of Lithuanian refugees.

“This is an important reminder that people share a common humanity,” she concludes. “My memories of cooking with my mother aren’t that different from the memories of the student from Saudi Arabia cooking with her mother. And if people can remember that, then I hope they can remember we should be building bridges and not walls.”