JERUSALEM – December 17, 2007 – The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) yesterday bestowed its Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award for 2007 to Kolech – A Religious Women’‘s Forum at a festive evening entitled “Groundbreaking Women.”
Kolech was founded 10 years ago by a group of religious women in Israel, who were frustrated at being “second-class citizens in their Judaism,” said Dr. Aliza Lavi, the event’‘s host. The organization is dedicated to advancing the status and influence of religious women in the public and private spheres, all while remaining committed to Halacha. The award ceremony took place at the Chan theater in Jerusalem.
“Kolech’‘s work is so new, so fresh, and so daring that the decision to present them with this award was obvious,” said Rachel Benziman, ACRI’‘s executive director, at the ceremony. “Kolech is important not only because of the amazing things it does, but because the organization proves that human rights belong to all of us. It doesn’‘t matter who you are. They’‘re the same rights.”
Following the award ceremony, five remarkable individuals took the stage to tell their personal stories of beating the odds to realize their rights as religious women. The improvisational theater group Catharsis performed each of the stories in a creative, theatrical format.
The women were: Prof. Chana Safrai, a scholar of Talmud and women’‘s Torah study; Debbie Gross, founder and director of Israel’‘s first hotline for religious victims of sexual assault; Lila Abd Rabo, a religious advocate in the Shariah Courts and a researcher at the Truman Institute; Nurit Fried, the founder and director of the Rabbinical Advocate Training Institute for Women; and Leah Shakdiel, former member of the Yeruham Religious Council and the first woman to serve on an Israeli religious council.
Religion and human rights are not necessarily contradictory, Benziman said. Dr. Hannah Kehat, Kolech’‘s founder, also spoke of this connection in her acceptance speech.
Rachel Keren, Kolech’‘s chairperson, said that Jewish tradition teaches us several basic human rights, such as freedom of speech through the prophets, as well as the inherent equality of all people and respect for the “other.”
Each year, ACRI rewards an individual or organization that has made a unique and outstanding contribution to the advancement of human rights in Israel with the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award. Peace activist Emil Grunzweig was killed at a protest march against the First Lebanon War in 1983 by a counter-demonstrator.
