"The conference showed reverence for doctors, rabbis and ‘important people' - and there was not a single woman deemed worthy in any of those categories," seethed Mavoi Satum Director of Advocacy Batya Kahana-Dror - rightfully so - in an article this week on the Kolech Hebrew website. "Once again, the conference made an unequivocally patriarchal statement."

Moreover, Rabbi Lau stood at the podium and said, "I want you all to know that I believe that women are full equals." Thank you, Rabbi. I feel much better now. "I was so happy to learn that women are equal to men," Kahana-Dror said sardonically. "Now I feel calm, equality. Maybe that's why Rabbi Lau did not notice that next to him on the podium there was not a single woman."

The decision to exclude women was undoubtedly a bow to rabbinic power brokers, whose highest priority is always maintaining gender hierarchy. "The choice to silence women was made in order to appeal to a certain public," argued historian and Kolech board member Tali Brenner. "Just a few days ago, we heard about how the new ‘National Unity' party refuses to allow women onto its Knesset list." But this was not a political rally, making it even more twisted. "The fact that it was a conference by Puah, an organization that is not a partisan organization but first and foremost a women's health organization, is patently absurd. It directly and concretely removes from women's voices all competence, authority or knowledge about women's bodies."

It gets worse. According to Rachel Koren, director of Kolech, women were excluded from asking questions as well. "Women were expected to remain behind their partition for questions,'" Koren fumed.

Rabbi Benyamin David, the conference organizer, rationalized these decisions by saying, "First of all, we are dealing with very professional halakhic issues. The men speaking are professionals. Second, there is an issue of modesty. We are a very open institution (!), but we have our limits. We don't think that it is right for women to get up on stage and speak before a thousand people."

Koren replied to these comments by saying, "Are not women serious, professional, and understanding of a thing or two about halakha and medicine? Where half the gynecologists are women, all the midwives are women, and certainly all the people giving birth are women - were the conference organizers unable to find one woman who knows a thing or two about women's health? And among all the learned women today, there are women who specialize in this subject and have what to say. If the conference organizers would go into the Kolech website, they would find a whole series of articles on these subjects written by women, from the world of Torah."

Koren takes issue with presumptions of "modesty" as well, arguing that it is not "modesty" that dictated the policy but rather "habits formed from many years - among rabbis, doctors and even advertisers, who all see women as merely a body rather than as a person." 

The final nail in the coffin is perhaps the talk given by Rabbi Ariel, rabbi of Ramat Gan, whose ideas could be construed as reckless indifference towards the lives of women and girls. He recommended against allowing teenage girls to be immunized against ovarian cancer. Why? Because this form of cancer forms primarily through sexual activity. According to Koren, the rabbi is thus "punishing girls who are sexually active" by putting them at higher risk of cancer.

The dominance of distorted rabbinic thinking across Israeli society is appalling. This week, as the world watched America put aside some of its most damaging socially wrongheaded thinking by putting its first black man into its highest office, we are reminded of how very far Israel has yet to go in order to create a just society that cares about the most basic values of equality and compassion. The time has come for Israel to think about letting go of its own backwards, ancient, and empty practices, which endanger the spirits and physical lives of fifty percent of the population: women.