Street-corner crusade

The United Nations has honored Women in Black with a peace prize, but locally the protest group has had to survive despite a hostile environment of macho nay-sayers.

By Lily Galili - Ha'Aretz Newspaper

Last Friday, Aaron, a young kippa-wearing Jerusalemite approached Moran Cohen and warmly inquired how she was. ”Are you all right? Where were you last week?” he asked. He then placed a sticker saying ”Kahane was right” on his lapel and joined the demonstration on the eastern side of France Square in central Jerusalem near the Prime Minister's Residence. Moran Cohen made her way to the western side of the square and held up a hand-made sign with the words ”End the Occupation,” which has become the symbol of Women in Black.”We have been demonstrating here for a month-and-a-half,” Aaron says to explain the friendly nature of the encounter, adding somewhat resentfully, ”Women in Black have just received an international prize of some kind. In Israel, they wouldn't have a chance of winning a prize.”

He is right. In Israel, they really do not have a chance, and even the prestigious prize - the Millennium Peace Prize for Women, awarded by the United Nations to the organization on International Women's Day - did not attract much attention here. Women's politics, just like women's sports, do not cause much of a stir in these parts. They are still viewed as something marginal, even if it is the women's version of the Nobel Peace Prize that is involved. A Women in Black activist from Yugoslavia received the prize on behalf of the organization. The Yugoslavian group is one of the offshoots of the Israel organization.

Women in Black, which over the years became the most persistent protest group in the country, is not an organization in the conventional sense. It does not have offices, officers, leaders or even a spokeswoman. It has only its indefatigable persistence, which some consider characteristic of women's activities. The women have been out in the streets since January 1988, one month after the outbreak of the first Intifada.

At first, its activities were held as part of the End the Occupation movement, which consists of both men and women. The women felt that something more needed to be done, and in a different style. Influenced by the Women in White from Argentina and motivated by a feeling that the female voice was not being sufficiently heard, they decided to launch independent activities. They started out in the Jerusalem pedestrian mall in central Jerusalem, from where they moved to Zion Square, until they were almost lynched by a furious, right-wing Jerusalem mob. That is how they ended up in France Square, where they have been for the past 13 years. With undeviating persistency, they arrive on Fridays between one and two o'clock in the afternoon dressed in black (to symbolize the tragedy of the two peoples) at the square that has become identified with them, flourishing pickets unchanged over the years saying ”End the Occupation.” They remain for about an hour.

Jerusalem taxi drivers asked to bring passengers to the ”Women in Black” Square know exactly where to go. To be more precise, it is Jerusalem taxi drivers who are likely to be especially familiar with the identification between Women in Black and the square. For 13 years, the women standing there have been the target of heckling by passersby, spearheaded by taxi drivers, who do not pass up a single opportunity to hurl epithets in their direction. There is something theatrical about their appearance standing there, something that consistently brings out the worst in the Jerusalemite machismo, fertile ground for a researcher of women's political activity.

At first, the abuse shouted at them was exclusively sexist in nature. ”What are you nice ladies doing here on Friday midday?” men would shout. ”Go home and prepare food for your kids.” Then the shouts took on a different tone. ”Arafat's whores,” became one of the more popular insults. In complaints, Anat Hoffman, a member of the Jerusalem city council for Meretz and a Woman in Black, sent to the Jerusalem police and the chairman of the Jerusalem Taxi Drivers Association in the 1980s, harassing remarks that were documented by date, time and taxi license number. ”You need to be screwed one by one,” shouted one driver. ”May you wear black for your husbands and children,” offered another. The police queried in its response whether every woman wearing black on a Friday in the Jerusalem Rehavia neighborhood could be considered a ”Woman in Black.” The chair of the Jerusalem Taxi Drivers Association, concerned over the image of the city's taxi drivers, joined them for a protest vigil.

Only at a more advanced stage of their activities did they earn the epithet ”Traitors.” ”That was the sign that we were being taken seriously,” says Ruth El-Raz, a Jerusalem psychotherapist and one of the organization's founding members. She began her political activity back in England, when, as a child, she demonstrated against the British rule of India, and found herself in Israel once again ”in a colonialist reality.” ”We changed from 'whores' to women expressing an unpopular political opinion,” she reconstructs the process. By that time, the activities of Women in Black had gone beyond the Jerusalem city limits, spreading out to junctions all over the country. In the north, they were joined by Arab women from local settlements, an alliance that was not disrupted even by the events of this last October, which put a stop to almost all other joint Jewish-Arab activities.

The widespread deployment did not necessarily reflect an impressive growth in numbers. Jerusalem activities average about 50 women. During a record week, 140 demonstrators showed up. In the other parts of the country, the vigils are much smaller, though no less consistent. The women's message went abroad, too. In many European countries, vigils of Women in Black were formed. At first they did so to support the women in Israel, later to protest war or the local violation of human rights in countries involved in conflicts. ”There has always been a very deep sense of togetherness, an island of hope,” El-Raz says in describing the nature of the activities. ”We stood there in the rain, snow and heat with a feeling of great sisterhood and mutual support, without the demo turning into a social gathering.” Changing moods Whoever comes is welcome, as long as she is wearing black (those dressed otherwise are moved a bit away from the others) and holding the single picket, ”End the Occupation.” Ideas and requests to enrich the variety with additional slogans have been rejected over the years. The activities of Women in Black could serve as a handy index for political moods. The first crisis occurred in the Gulf War, when the Palestinians' sympathies for Saddam Hussein cut down the number of participants. A greater crisis occurred after the signing of the Oslo Accords. The feeling that the conflict had come to an end, that their work was being done by members of the government, was a temporary death blow to the organization's activities.

”There was a feeling that the government had embraced our views,” says Erella Shadmi, a veteran protester. Shadmi has a Ph.D. in criminology and was serving in the police with the rank of chief superintendent when she joined her first demonstration with Women in Black. She arrived for the first meeting up north in a police car after replacing the police license plates with ordinary yellow ones. ”Ruth El-Raz grilled me to make me prove that I was okay, despite the fact that I was a police officer,” recalls Shadmi with a smile. She celebrated her resignation from the police force by joining the activities of Women in Black. Today El-Raz and Shadmi are deeply sorry that they were taken in by the illusion of Oslo, and also recall the fear that overtook the streets after the Rabin assassination. They all remember when, at the request of the Palestinians in late 1995, their activities moved from France Square to IDF Square on the seam between the two parts of Jerusalem demarking the border. The Palestinians did not come, but the extreme right did. Their request for police protection met with a bizarre response. A Border Guard contingent was deployed on the traffic island nearby, but the bayonets were aimed in the direction of the women.

”After Oslo, there remained a group of seven to eight women who continued to show up at the square every Friday,” recalls El-Raz. ”I would pass by and feel guilty.” Shadmi resumed activities about a year ago when she felt the situation had deteriorated. El-Raz returned a little before the beginning of the Al-Aqsa intifada.

In 1993, Dr. Tamar Rappaport and Sarit Helman conducted a study for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem that examined the secret of the survival of the Women in Black. An abstract of the report that appeared at the time in the Women in Black publication enumerates a number of explanations for the organization's survival, such as adherence to a single message (”End the Occupation”) without getting into ideology, the lack of which paradoxically preserves the organization. Another explanation notes the type of women who make up the vigils as one of the secrets of its survival - 94 percent were Israeli citizens in the middle of their lives (the average age is 47); 87 percent were secular; 55 percent were unattached and 25 percent did not have children; 48 percent had an academic education and almost all came from a Western-type background and had a history of activism in various political-social frameworks.

Since the study was conducted, the group has been enriched by a group of Arab women and new, younger ones. Moran Cohen is 24 years old, a student of literature at the Hebrew University. She is a representative of the younger generation, but is also one of the more veteran activists. When she joined Women in Black in 1989, she was only 12 years old, the youngest member of the organization. In 1998, she made personal history again when she refused to serve in the Israel Defense Forces for reasons of conscience. She fought the army for two years without knowing how or what to do, and now has compiled a guide for conscientious objectors, which she provides to anyone interested. ”I have been active in all kinds of left-wing organizations from a very early age,” says Cohen. ”I loved the concept of Women in Black - the women, the power, the quiet, which is expressed by the lack of response to those who insult us. I am comfortable with the designation 'women,' and I had a problem with Four Mothers, who seemed to be saying that a woman is not fulfilling her duty until she has given birth.”

The problem is that the elements that contribute to the secret of Women in Black's strength are also the reasons for its weakness. The uniform human profile that preserves the group makes many of its members uncomfortable. Like many other peace organizations, women of Sephardi background are conspicuously absent. The group has been an Ashkenazi monopoly for 13 years. ”The more radical middle class is historically Ashkenazi,” explains El-Raz. Shadmi is far more critical. ”Women in Black is a highly educated Ashkenazi upper middle-class movement - former kibbutz members, past Nahal Brigade members, Anglos - all women with very similar backgrounds, and this has distanced other women. I don't know if the reason is a type of blindness, lack of awareness or even a type of racism. It is a fact. Sephardi women feel foreign among Women in Black. It's not their language, their jargon. It distanced them, making us even more uniform. It is a problem of the radical left in general.” And indeed, over the years, Women in Black has become increasingly radical. In 1998, six women were arrested wearing stickers combining a Star of David with a Palestinian flag, an act not all members agreed with. In response, they printed a white sticker upon which the words ”Colors are forbidden” appeared along with the outline of a Palestinian flag with the names of the colors red, black, white and green. The police's legal advisor was asked to rule on the philosophical question of whether names of colors indeed are equivalent to colors. The complaint against them was never taken any further.

Today the concept of two countries with a common capital - Jerusalem - is taken for granted by the members of Women in Black. In recent months, the women have returned to the square. So have the curses and epithets, directly proportionate to the proximity of the vigils to terror attacks. ”God help you if you fall into my hands,” a taxi driver hissed at the women last Friday. He then sent a thumbs up in the direction of the pro-Kahane demonstrators. Busloads of ”leftist tourism” frequently visit the vigils to observe and express support. Last week, an American church came to identify with them - a typical Jerusalem Friday midday scene, one that has become an inseparable part of the landscape.