Orthodox Women Overcome Barriers at Kolech Conference

[King_David]

By Elana Sztokman

This year’s conference of Kolech, Israel’s Orthodox feminist forum, grappled with cutting-edge issues around homosexuality, the place of transgender women in Orthodoxy and the shared lifestyles of Muslim and Jewish religious women.

At the conference, which took place in Jerusalem earlier this month, the panel on homosexuality included an Israeli lesbian who was raised Orthodox, a woman who was born male into an Orthodox family and an Orthodox woman whose son is gay. Rabbi Dr. Haviva Ner David, who has written extensively about her family’s journey with her gay brother, said “I was pleasantly surprised to see that this session was included in the conference and was afraid because of its relatively radical nature that it would not be well attended. I was even more pleasantly surprised to see that the room was packed when I got there and that the audience was supportive, sympathetic, and respectful to the panelists.”

It seems that the community is working to put an end to issues that have been silenced in the past.

“They talked about everything,” Irit Glanz reported, nearly blushing, as she walked out of the session on sexuality, “and I mean everything.” I missed that session because during that time I was chairing a session on transformations in mikveh practice, which actually had the same basic message: we are here to unpack everything. Panelists talked about the problems that women have with going to mikveh, relating to body image and regimented sexual practice, and initiatives attempting to create a better experience



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