Special Interview Women in Israel

Israel’s growing economic woes, reflected in a three-digit inflation rate, and the government’s new austerity program are threatening to bring about a severe reduction, or outright elimination, of vital social services for women and children in Israel, Novo Arad, chairwoman of Na’amat, the Histadrut women’s organization, warned here.

In a special interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Arad expressed concern that unless new financial resources are found, a score of social, educational, cultural and welfare projects, operated and sponsored by Na’amat, which has a membership of 720,000 and is the largest women’s organization in Israel, might be effected.

“The Israeli woman is required today to struggle in order to earn a livelihood and to maintain a basic standard of living,” she said. “We are concerned that the worsening economic situation and the growing unemployment will bit women first, forcing them to go on welfare. “She observed that with the growing economic difficulties the services provided by Na’amat assume on even greater importance.

Arad said she is in the United States for a two-week fund-raising tour sponsored by Pioneer Women, the American sister organization of Na’amat. “This is on emergency fund-raising tour,” she said, noting that the IL 750 million annual budget of her organization is largely composed of contributions in Israel and abroad in addition to allocations from the Israeli government and Histadrut.

LARGE VARIETY OF ACTIVITIES

The activities of Na’amat embrace a large variety of services and projects all over Israel, Arad said, including the operation of day nurseries and child care centers, community centers, counselling programs for adolescents and their families, clubs for Arab and Druze women for job training and cultural activities, agricultural and vocational training schools, and programs and activities for the promotion of women’s rights and the equality of Israeli women under the law.

Asked to assess the status of Israeli women in recent years, Arad, who is an active member of the Labor Party, said she sees “a tremendous backlash in women’s rights in Israel as for as the law is concerned since the Likud government assumed power. We are concerned over this regression in the status of women.”

She underlined a number of regressive developments: the recent amendment to the abortion law, the change in law allowing women to stay out of the army on religious grounds, the Liked government’s decision to postpone the enactment of a social security law granting rehabilitation rights and workmen’s compensation for women disabled while working at home, the intention of the government to curtail aid to dependent children, and the lack of new legislation concerning women’s rights.

CITES A SPECIAL CONCERN

“A special concern for us now, “Arad said, “is the growing signs of impending unemployment. We are afraid that women will be the first to get fired. This will be hard to take after all the efforts we had made to make women part of the labor force in Israel. More than 39 percent of Israeli women are presently working outside of their homes and this percentage is likely to decrease if unemployment continues to increase in the next few months,” she warned.

According to Arad, Na’amat tackles the problems of women as part of the problems of Israeli society as a whole. “Our approach is to define the problems, bring them to the surface and then to conduct a mutual struggle with other parts of society to solve them,” she said. At the same time, she said, her organization concerns itself with “general social problems and issues such as the rights of Israeli senior citizens or the state of agriculture in the country.”