A win for women
Female singers will no longer be excluded from performing at NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBOD) events after pressure led to a policy reversal.
FEMALE singers will no longer be excluded from performing at NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBOD) events after pressure from deputies led to a policy reversal announcement at the July 19 plenum.
The issue came under the spotlight at the June plenum when Paul Winter recalled when he’d asked why no women sang at the Shoah commemoration at the City Recital Hall – not even as part of a choir – he was told “this was because Orthodox rabbis would be offended”.
“If we have to choose between women singers and rabbis, we should choose the singers,” he said.
Fellow deputy and professional singer Debbie Scholem told The AJN she found the policy “rather offensive”.
“Women’s singing is not seen as a sexual siren, so for a Jewish organisation to go along with a view like that, to me, is bullying – by the rabbis.”
JBOD CEO Vic Alhadeff acknowledged that the controversial policy had been adopted after “a Kristallnacht commemoration some years ago when there were three rabbis and they walked out when we had a brilliant female singer”.
“This is the position we have come to but it can be brought up for debate if anybody wishes to do so,” Alhadeff said, adding “I’m not defending it”.
In the end there was no need for deputies to raise a motion, because Alhadeff announced the executive board had decided “the policy is people will be chosen [to sing at JBOD events] on their merits.”
The reasoning for the policy backflip was confirmed in the JBOD president’s report, referred to at the July plenum by Alhadeff, in Jeremy Spinak’s absence.
“While I completely respect the views of the Orthodox Rabbinate on such issues, I find it completely unacceptable that at a JBOD event we would ever curtail the participation of women, even at the behest of a rabbi,” Spinak’s report stated.
“We are still a lay leadership at the executive and we have our own set of organisational principles and standards.
“After discussion at the Executive, our policy going forward is that at no stage will there be any gender discrimination at a JBOD organised event.”
Winter told The AJN the board’s decision was “commonsense”.
“I think they came to their senses,” he said on Monday.
SHANE DESIATNIK
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