Jewish Women Protest Ban on Female Lawyers

A protest against the recent ordinance forbidding women advocates to appear in the religious courts and in certain specific criminal cases has been submitted to the Palestine government by the Palestine Jewish Women’s Equal Rights Association. The Association stresses the fact that all matters of personal status in Palestine are under the jurisdiction of the religious courts and that in such cases women always need advice.

Jewish women in such cases are usually accompanied to the rabbinical courts by members of the Association and the latter asks why the ordinance now forbids that. The Association also shows that in these specific cases troubles may be confided to a woman physician but not to a woman advocate. The Association says that such distinctions are “an attack on the dignity of the legal profession.”