NIF Celebrates Precedent-Setting Ruling for Women's Rights

A precedent-setting ruling on behalf of a 41-year-old single mother constitutes a major victory for women’s rights.

The case began when the woman, a teacher, was fired from her position at a religious educational institution for becoming pregnant without being married. Her dismissal was handed down without a hearing and without requesting permission from the commissioner of the Employment of Women Law, which is required when firing a pregnant woman. In a friend of the court briefing, NIF grantee Kolech presented a halakhic (Jewish legal) ruling of Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, which states that there is no prohibition on unmarried women becoming pregnant.

The Tel Aviv regional labor court ruled that the firing was a violation of the Law of Equal Opportunities, the Law of Human Dignity and Liberty, and the Law of Freedom of Occupation.

According to the ruling: "The court rejected the position of the educational institution that, in the name of religious values, it has the right to fire a teacher because of the fact that she became pregnant without being married...the institution behaved in a disproportionate and unreasonable way. The decision of a single mother to bring a child into the world does not enable a religious educational institution to fire her and to violate her basic right to parenthood and freedom of employment."

Riki Shapira-Rozenberg, a legal advisor to Kolech, said that the case was one of a number of incidents when single mothers were fired from religious educational institutions and either didn't have the strength to fight back or resigned because they knew what was coming: "The ruling is revolutionary because it states clearly that these women can't be fired for being single mothers. The real source of the problem isn't religion, but patriarchy and a fear of independent women."