19. Ultra-Orthodox Women in Israel Launch Their Own Political Party

It is common knowledge that Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish women tend to be mistreated. (They have to sit in the back of public buses and they cannot host or even call into radio shows. Their newspaper HaMevaser even cropped out Angela Merkel from a photo of group leaders.) The two ultra-Orthodox political parties are exclusively male and in 2012, a protest group formed nicknamed LoNiLoBo. This group made a petition demanding that they make it illegal for a political party to prevent women from running but it lost. The following year, a few Haredi women ran for municipal posts. They received many threats, but in the end Shira Gergi won and became the first Haredi woman have a municipal post. This last week, a new political party formed called the U'Bezchutan: Haredi Women Making Change, the first political party dedicated to ultra-Orthodox women. The author of this article pointed out that these two groups may never join since they share different methods and views and the U'Bezchutan may not even succeed in gaining a seat during the March elections. The greatest result of all of this is that the U'Bezchutan met with the male leader of one of the ultra-Orthodox political party and he has decided to reconsider women being allowed to run on his ticket.
Miriam Krule uses a formal language to write this article. This choice was appropriate, since this article dealt with both religion and politics. She starts the article by describing the unfair and sexist life that the ultra-Orthodox women have to live. Krule uses a hint of sarcasm to make her point, when talking about the ultra-Orthodox political parties, she claims that they are "unsurprisingly, exclusively male." Krules entire article is filled with facts about previous elections, translations and various examples to prove her point. She also quotes Elana Sztokman, writer of the magazine Forward. This all shows that Miriam is an expert in her area and that her word is to be trusted. Overall, this article was very interesting and successful.