Ruth Colian has already been working as, what is perhaps unusual, a Haredi female activist. Colian has sued Tnuva for cruelty to animals and kashrut fraud as a result. Colian campaigned against Shas in the national elections by first working for them approaching stranger sin the streets to persuade them to vote Shas and then exposing Shas leaders for saying that women should not be in the Knesset (though walking the streets for Shas doing the dirty work is seemingly fine), leading many protests against yair Lapid and his budget cuts, and probably more reasons as well.
So, Ruth Colian definitely deserves the descriptor of Haredi female activist.
Now, Colian is taking it up a step. Colian is now joining the trend of Haredi women to buck the system and decide that they also are worthy of holding public office, and should not be disqualified from doing so just because they are women.
Recently I pointed to Tzfat, where a Haredi Sfardi woman is running for a seat on the City Council, despite Shas opposing her bid saying women should be at home. Colian has now announced that she is running for a seat on the City Council of Petach Tikva, and will do so on an independent party ticket (i.e. rather than on the Shas ticket).
(source: Kikar)
While no response from Shas has yet been publicized, it is pretty clear they are going to oppose her decision to run, they same way Shas opposes Shira Georgi running in Tzfat. Personally, I think they should embrace this new trend and get ahead of it, rather than the way they have chosen to oppose it.
Colian said that she knows there are problems with what she is doing, but unfortunately there is no choice as the current method has left Petach Tikva residents with nobody to turn to. Colian points to female figures from Tanach to show that there is nothing wrong with women serving the public in office and leadership. She also claims to have the support of Rav Shimon Baadani saying it is allowed for women to hold public office...
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There was a time when many rabbis, including Rav Kook, opposed the idea of women voting. There was at least one election, pre-state, in which the Yishuv leadership agreed to gave the Orthodox public two votes per person to make up for the fact that women did not vote. Now, of course, the women are encouraged to vote, and receive phone calls on election day reminding them to vote. Things change.
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