It was encouraging to see him and other men in the crowd but startling to note the absence of Rina Greenberg, his present deputy and the woman who plans to replace him after the forthcoming municipal election.
It’s a shame Greenberg did not imitate Knesset Opposition leader Tzipi Livni who reportedly joined one of the protests that also took place in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa that were sparked largely by a murder in the seaside town of Netanya where a husband killed his wife in the presence of their three children.
I am especially pleased that my husband and several male acquaintances were at Karmiel’s event as Ms Livni chided those of her male colleagues who did not attend the protest in Jerusalem.
“’Male members of the government should have attended this event”, Livni said. ‘Men have to understand that women are not their objects. The government is distributing weapons instead of dealing with the problem. It's unbearable. Maybe women are now at the front, but this protest is not just relevant to women’”.
Domestic violence in Israel is a growing problem and in November last year it was also reported that more than a third of women killed by their partners had previously complained to the police about being abused.
It is facile to believe that most of the trouble lies with the Arab and Mizrachi Jewish communities. Not so! During the past decade it has also come from immigrant Jewish communities in which domestic partners have killed “42 immigrant women, including 24 women born in the Soviet Union or former Soviet Union and 18 of Ethiopian origin”.
© Natalie Wood (18 October 2018)
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