Elana Sztokman

Unpious.com, A blog site for Chassidic refugees -- that is, people who grew up chassidic and left -- explores some of the darker sides of Jewish life. This week, a woman writes about her husband's rape and bondage sex fettish, and recalls the way her kallah teacher encouraged her to take it. Sure, he can stick a cucumber in her until it hurts, but make sure you don't mispronounce the bracha on the chanuka candles... Shocking, shocking post. Even for me, and I thought I had heard it all.... Read the rest of this entry →

The Internet can be a nasty place. Whether due to the replacement of visceral human relationships with a cold, lifeless screen, or because people have learned to type faster than they think, something about Internet conversation seems to bring out the worst in human discourse. As my Forward colleague Jay Michaelson pointed out in his column last week, “the immediacy and anonymity of the Comment feature on the Internet encourages one to respond in the heat of the moment, and with as much fire as possible.” That said, there seems to be a particular fire in talkbacks relating to religious Judaism. Michaelson noticed this as well, what he called, “rage…dressed up in religious rhetoric.” In my writings on topics of gender and religious life at the Forward, in The Jerusalem Post, and elsewhere, I’ve been called a “man wannabe,” an “anti-Semite” and other names. It’s intriguing to me that essays about cultural trends often merit one or two comments while comments about gender and religion can get 20–30 comments. There is an ire around religious issues (especially gender) that begs explication. Michaelson calls for collective anger management, but I think there is something else at work here. This trend took a rather vile turn recently when my daughter Avigayil wrote a column here about her experience being attacked by haredim at the Kotel. Read the rest of this entry →

Goel Ratzon, a 60-year-old man with long white hair and penetrating eyes, has at least 17 wives and 28 children, though the precise figure remains elusive. Ratzon, who apparently believes himself to be something of a messiah, or the modern embodiment of King Solomon, was arrested last week in Tel Aviv, as were some of the wives, following an eight-month undercover operation that included some daring work of a female detective who presented herself as a willing conquest. The details emerging over the past few days about life in his cult/commune/harem form a disturbing and mysterious portrait, in part because of how zealously many of the women have come to his defense. Read the rest of this entry →

We need to recognize that the ultra-Orthodox obsession with removing women from public spaces is in fact an act of systemic violence that is often accompanied by pointed violence (cursing, spitting, pushing, beating up, throwing acid and stealing babies, to name a few incidences from the past 2–3 years). This communal compulsion is a threat to women’s physical and emotional well-being, and goes against the basic tenets of democracy, humanity, and even Torah. Yes, the Torah tells us that all human beings (men AND women) were created in His Divine image and deserve dignity and respect.

MORE AT THE FORWARD SISTERHOOD Read the rest of this entry →

Former Jerusalem City Councilwoman and current Executive Director of IRAC Anat Hoffman was detained last week for her suspected involvement in the crime of Wearing a Tallit.

According to Ynet:

The police reported that Hoffman was investigated at the Merhav David Station after the events at the Western Wall on the grounds that she disrupted the status quo at the site. Hoffman was questioned about her role in organizing the prayer service and the clashes that ensued. She was reportedly asked to give her finger prints. At the end of the investigation, she was released to go home. Hoffman, who was surprised by the police involvement in the issue, told Ynet, "An officer sat there who asked me if I initiated the minyan, how many women came, whether they wore tallitot (prayer shawls customarily worn by men during Jewish prayers) and donned kippot, and whether we held the Torah scrolls and held a procession to Robinson's Arch. This is, after all, what have been doing every first of the (Hebrew) month for 21 years already."

Joel Katz at Religion and State in Israel brings an array of items relating to this story, including video coverage of the incident, blogs, and a horrifying list of questions that she was asked in her interrogation, such as:

* Were women wearing tallitot? * What is a tallit? * Did the women wear kippot? * Did you hold a Torah scroll? * Did you hold a Torah scroll with intent to read it?

Anyone interested in joining a letter-writing campaign to protest this event, write in here.

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A man goes to a prostitute, and then blames her for making him sin. No, this is not the beginning of a joke. Rather, it’s the argument currently being made by Knesset members from the (all male) Shas party in a current round of deliberations about the legality of prostitution.

At issue is a bill recently introduced by Kadima Knesset member Orit Zuaretz, seen at right, outlawing the solicitation of a prostitute. Actually, the Zuaretz bill makes solicitation punishable with six months in prison only after the second arrest. First time offenders will be sent to a form of rehab that includes mandatory attendance at seminars on public health and human dignity, as well as lectures given from former prostitutes about the harrowing conditions of their lives. The bill is based on the Sweden model, where a 1999 law punished those soliciting and not those being solicited — and resulted in the number of women working as prostitutes shrinking by two-thirds....

Unfortunately, not everyone is in favor. According to Shas legislators, the main opponents of this groundbreaking bill, men are the victims and women are the criminals. “The women are the guilty ones in the prostitution industry, and men are just the victims, because women tempt them,” according to Knesset member Nissim Zeev, speaking at the hearing of the Committee on the Trafficking of Women last week.

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In Japan, it seems, there are some women-only buses. They were established, according to journalist Chani Luz, to protect women from “groping men.” Luz, who writes for the Orthodox publications Makor Rishon and Hatzofe, supports women-only buses in Israel because, as she recalled in a recent Ynet column, she was once molested on a bus when she was in 12th grade. “An older man sat next to me on the bus from Rehovot to Ramle and did not stop putting his hand on me and making indecent proposals,” she wrote. “I wanted to get up but I froze in my seat until the end of the ride.” Luz thus concludes that feminists should be in favor of separate buses. Gender-segregated buses, with men in the front and women in the back, are currently a burning issue in Israel, as Transport Minister Israel Katz has until December 27 to rule on whether or not gender-segregated buses in Israel are, in his opinion, legal. READ THE REST AT THE FORWARD SISTERHOOD BLOG -- AND DON'T FORGET TO CLICK ON THE LINK TO SIGN THE PETITION Read the rest of this entry →

The fact that a woman was arrested for wearing a tallit at the kotel should give us all pause. We should be ashamed that a woman can be so humiliated for her ritual practice, horrified that this takes place in the State of Israel in the very spot where the shechina is supposed to rest,and absolutely aghast that it is the Jewish police in the Jewish state making tallit-wearing a crime. Nofrat Frenkel, the fifth year medical student whose prayer practice is at the root of these events, told her story in the Hebrew press and then in the Forward. Her sincerity and candor in her spiritual quest are admirable. I would like to say she was courageous, but my sense is that she had no idea that her actions would require courage. She was simply trying to reach God.

The atmosphere at the Kotel, the feeling that all those women praying around me were also turning to God and pouring out their hearts to Him, inspires me with the joy of Jewish fraternity. Here is one place in which, shoulder to shoulder, all the hearts are calling to God. Prayer at the Kotel is so different from private prayer at home, or from communal prayer at the synagogue. It is a mixed creation: I am in a communal place, with many worshippers, but not even one voice can be heard. Just soft murmurings, choked crying, mute requests.

Poignant, earnest, and spiritual. That's how I see Nofrat Frenkel's quest. But the responses of some the talkbackers at the Forward see it differently. Verna M. Black wrote, "What a pity that this woman does not truly comprehend the mitzvot that women have in Judaism, and the mitzvot that men have. There are laws, better known as Halacha which overides the ego of women acting like men." Paulette takes a similar attack and says, "I would love to understand what Miss Frenkel's great insecurities are that she feels the need to wear a tallis so 'she can be like a man'. Grow up!" Read the rest of this entry →

In today's YNETToday I usually feel pretty lucky. On Nov 25 each year, International Day against Violence against Women, supportive media will show us statistics about rape, wife-murder, and domestic violence. Usually, I can come back home and take a deep breath. Thank God, I think, I've never been beaten by my spouse under my own roof or raped, so I have always counted my blessings. But this year, something has changed. Read the rest of this entry →

This week there's been lots of news, and lots of flu. There's also a lot of talk about the segregated bus lines in Jerusalem, which deserves its own post. Same for the horrifying trend of men murdering their wives. I will hopefully cover both those topics independently in coming posts. In the meantime, just to catch up, here's a quick round-up of other gender news: Read the rest of this entry →