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Nov 27, 2019

Men are not discriminated against in Israel

Recently, after the issue with the event to benefit Rav Firer's organization was canceled because of a public outcry against the "hadarat nashim" of not allowing female performers to perform for what would be an overwhelmingly secular audience, many pointed to an event that would be for women only by female performers, also for the secular public, and claimed hypocrisy that from the mens side it is considered discrimination while from the womens side it is allowed to happen. One person even petitioned the Ministry of Justice to weigh in on the event in question and offer an opinion if this is a problem of discrimination or not.

The Ministry of Justice has now responded that the specific event in question was not researched by them as the petition came in too close to the event to allow such treatment. That being said, the MoJ says that there is no discrimination against men in Israel, so an event that excludes men is not "hadara" - men do not suffer from being excluded. While men are not excluded or banned, from the public sphere, women do suffer greatly from this, so events excluding women are a strong offense. That is why female-only events can happen but male-only events (from public funding) are a problem.

Personally I think of this like affirmative action. African Americans in the USA, or Hispanics or other minorities, get priority in hiring or acceptance into schools, because they have been discriminated against for so long and have suffered from the discrimination. Whites do not suffer from such discrimination, so occasionally they get the short end of the stick but have to live with it. In Israel, the Haredi askanim fight for affirmative action for hiring Haredim in government jobs, Arabs get affirmative action in acceptance to universities and specifically medical school. The average Jew (male I guess) in Israel is not discriminated against, so even though affirmative action means occasionally the average jew might get the short end of the stick, that is not discrimination, or hadara.





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2 comments:

  1. Ah, affirmative action!

    That wonderful institution which proclaims to all our children, "Why, yes, two wrongs actually do make a right!"

    Just think: as stated by Rafi, affirmative action is essentially discrimination against the majority group, meant to balance out discrimination against the minority. But by definition, affirmative action is therefore discriminating against more people than the original discrimination was, since the majority is more people. So by using affirmative action you end up with a society which has more day-to-day discrimination than otherwise.

    And then we're supposed to educate children with concepts ("two wrongs don't make a right", "violence/crime doesn't pay", etc.) directly counter-indicated by how the world actually works, and expect that our children won't recognize the hypocrisy of it all. And then we're surprised when they rebel.

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    Replies
    1. but the Ministry of Justice is essentially saying that the majority group cannot, by definition, be discriminated against, and they have a social responsibility to make up for the injustice they have caused over previous decades and generations by giving some sort of deferential treatment to others.
      Granted, the case of cutting women out is not the same as affirmative action, as they are not being given priority in anything at the expense of anyone else. Society is just allowing them to promote their events in public in a way that if the "majority" group (not a majority, just a non-discriminated group) did it it would be discrimination

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