In which exclusion of women doesn’t stop for for war.
Visiting the rabbinate can be a joyful time, like when you are registering for a wedding. But it can also be traumatic in case of a funeral, divorce or custody battle. These days, just leaving the house involves calculating how close you will be to a shelter or protected room especially if you live in a place like Ashdod, which has been been subjected to daily rocket attacks from Hamas. But if you are a woman visiting the Ashdod rabbinate when the siren sounds, you are out of luck.
Yeduda Shohat of Yediot Aharonot reported that earlier this week, a couple visiting the rabbinate checked out the protected spaces there. They found one — designated for men only. They kept looking until they located an ordinary courtroom, designated as the safe space for women. Rabbinate employees told them that the room was protected against attacks. However, it lacked the required thick walls and protected windows.
According to the paper, Ashdod rabbinate management claimed that this was a “local initiative,” and those responsible would be punished.
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I’m confused: the rabbinate says it was a rogue person and of course not their policy but the couple was shown a court room to be used by women . . . so the court staff was in on in this . . . If it’s true that they were shown the room for the women it doesn’t seem like one rogue person.
It’s hard to believe that someone put up signs and no one noticed until this couple came by.
My guess, knowing how bureaucracies work, is that some people did see it, but some people didn’t take it seriously, others to a “not my job” position to dealing with it, and others thought “it must be official” since the sign looked official.
While I have never seen anything this ridiculous (and inappropriate), I’ve seen enough crazy stuff to believe that it really was someone rogue counting on just being able to get away with it.