NAZARETH, Israel - At a meeting with American journalists inside the Ashams radio station in Nazareth, Yara Karram, the incoming station director, sat on her father’s right side describing in near-perfect English the challenges encountered by Israel’s highest-rated Arabic local news source.
“Just look at our Facebook page. It’s covered in threats and complaints” Yara chuckles.
Her father is Suhil Karram, Al Shames’s current owner and director, who requested Yara join the meeting as evidence his station values gender equality and promotes female staff. He beamed with pride at the young executive who went to college in Europe and, like many Nazarenes, dresses in western clothing. “Her English is so good, it makes me shy. When she’s around, I suddenly forget how to speak English,” Suhil laughs.
But the meeting took an unusual turn when mid-conversation Yara began passing out a tray of coffee cups poured by an older male colleague to Suhil’s left. In the Middle East, it’s customary for women to lead hospitality chores, but in Western boardrooms the roles of executive and waitress rarely overlap.
Gender roles in Israel are a contradiction, because they pose both an obstacle and an opportunity for working women. In addition to Yara’s leadership role at Ashams, other examples include ultra-Orthodox Jewish entrepreneurs subsidizing their husband’s scholarship, women soldiers training to be commanders, and Bedouin businesswomen defying their husband’s disapproval.
“I think he grew tired of my stubbornness”
Current female politicians are alert to threats from religious extremists, both internally and externally, who discriminate against women. Knesset member Sharren Haskel, who at age 33 is the Likud coalition’s youngest representative, credits her military service for exposing her to sexism and training her to confront it.
Haskel says exhausting boot camp drills and counter terrorism operations helped her develop self-confidence and respect from male colleagues.
“It didn’t just affect me as a woman in that position, but also males that were serving with me. Suddenly they see how we operate, and how we are in scenes after terror attacks, or going for missions after wanted people,” Haskel explained.
Israel is unique in that it requires most citizens to serve in the military after high school. Many Israelis credit this rite of passage for contributing to cultural integration and building life-long relationships such as business partnerships and marriage. However, it also creates situations where female soldiers face sexism from people they’re protecting.
Sharren Haskel, a member of the Israeli Knesset, fought for equal treatment in the army (Photo by Tyler Paley)
During the Second Intifada, Haskel’s unit was posted in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood that resented the presence of women wearing pants and holding weapons. There were so many instances of female soldiers being assaulted with insults, rocks and spitting that Haskel’s commander considered reassigning them to another location. Haskel and her colleagues vehemently objected.
“All the women in my unit said ‘Well, if you’re not placing us then we’re not going into any other shift outside.’ He had no other choice than to place us and to find a way,” Haskel explained. Eventually Israel raised the penalty for assaulting a public worker.
Although she is a proponent of small-government and deregulation, Haskel supports public initiatives that train women to develop professional skills, integrate into the economy and avoid welfare. She says the two largest demographics who are at the poverty line and below are Arab and ultra-Orthodox women.
“By applying them specific benefits in going into higher education you can see also a slow, a very slow but it’s coming from their society, of a change towards women opening up a little bit,” said Haskel.
Meanwhile in the ultra-Orthodox communities, also known as Haredim Mibifnim or simply “Haredi,” women increasingly want to learn high-tech skills and become successful breadwinners.
A powerful incentive for their ambition is to financially support husbands who forgo typical jobs in order to pursue full-time religious studies. The average Haredi woman also has six children, double Israel’s national birth rate of three per mother.
Tzippy Yarom is a proud Haredi mom who works as a software programmer, writer and guide in Jerusalem. She appreciates Israel’s reputation as an innovative country and confirms that Haredi women are pursuing modern professions like architect, accountant, therapist, and engineer. Her own daughter is studying electronic engineering and her sister-in-law is a speech therapist.
“Recently there was an entrepreneurship conference and there were hundreds of Haredi men and women there. Twice in the last two years, there were competitions when women won,” said Yarom.
Their focus on earning higher incomes while balancing large families has also made Haredi women unexpected allies in the political fights for equal pay, maternity leave, affordable childcare and flexible working hours.
But for the most orthodox Haredi women getting a higher education can be cumbersome in the context of religious gender roles. Most ultra-Orthodox communities are segregated by gender during the religious activities that dominate their schedules. That cultural tradition carries over into college classrooms.
Yarom described a friend who waited five years to get her master’s degree due to her opposition to studying alongside men.
“She just pushed it and pushed it until they opened a new program in one of the new Haredi colleges and she could go there,” Yarom explained. Even now Yarom admits she herself would prefer segregated learning despite her past experience with mixed gender graduate school classes.
Access to education is a well-known issue in religious communities with traditional gender roles. That remains especially true in the Bedouin villages of south Israel’s Negev desert.
Despite the country’s efforts to replace the Bedouins’ nomadic lifestyles with permanent dwellings and public schools, many Bedouin parents hesitate to enroll daughters as full-time students. Many adult women are still pressured to forgo careers and remain homemakers.
Suheila Abu Rkeek runs a business, but her husband doesn't know (Photo by Grace Clark)
Suheila Abu-Rkeek is a Bedouin mom and entrepreneur who struggles daily against traditional gender roles reinforced by her father and husband. Her first rebellion was to work secretly for several months as the assistant to her sister Miriam at their natural cosmetics company and hospitality restaurant Desert’s Daughter.
Abu-Rkeek faced a painful ultimatum from her husband after Miriam failed to repay their family for a business loan. Abu-Rheek's husband demanded she either stop working or take the children and move in with her parents. Abu-Rheek chose the later and lived in her parents’ crowded home until her husband relented.
“I think he grew tired of my stubbornness” Abu-Rheek chuckled. But even to this day, Abu-Rheek disguises her leadership role at Desert Daughter by pretending to only be an assistant instead of a full-time tour host.
Operating a small business can be difficult for female Bedouin executives whose cultural values, according to Abu-Rheek, discourage them from giving out their phone numbers. Hosting men and women in the same room is also discouraged.
Abu-Rheek is adamant that her daughters’ receive the maximum education provided by their local schools, despite her husband’s passionate disapproval. Each year she argues with him over whether their daughters must stay home or continue classes. For now, she is secretly saving money for her eldest daughter to attend medical school in the nearby city of Beersheba.
Despite the previous hardships Abu-Rheek faced at home, she recognized the opportunity working with Miriam’s small business provided her. “It’s an opportunity for me to grow and to work and eventually I came back home while working. It wasn’t easy. He gave me a very hard time for this. He felt like I was rising against him, like I’m rebelling against him.”
Like the country itself, the role of women in Israel’s economy is changing quickly and seemingly for the better. As more women enter the work force the cultural values and political landscape will inevitably change as well.