The Blogs: We Have Lost the Egalitarian Israel of My Youth

As a Jewish woman who once dreamed of aliyah as a return to a beacon of equality and innovation, I mourn the Israel of my youth—the vibrant, secular haven forged by visionaries like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir.

That Israel was rooted in socialist ideals and a commitment to Jewish self-determination feels like a distant memory. Today, the nation drifts toward a right-wing paradigm, buoyed by alliances with Christian evangelicals and overshadowed by Haredi influence that strains the economy and erodes foundational values. What was once an egalitarian utopia has become a place where women’s rights regress and moderation yields to division.

As chronicled in Michael Bar-Zohar’s Prophet of Fire, Ben-Gurion embodied the intellectual rigor and poetic socialism that defined early Zionism. A committed Marxist turned pragmatic socialist, he envisioned a state built on labor, innovation, and collective defense—not religious dogma.

Golda Meir, in her early years detailed by Ralph Martin in Golda: The Romantic Years, championed women’s integration into the workforce and society, pushing for an egalitarian ethos amid the kibbutz movement’s communal spirit.

These leaders prioritized a safe haven for all Jews, secular and socialist at its core, where free healthcare and shared burdens symbolized resilience. Yet that dream has fractured. Israel’s shift rightward has empowered Haredi communities, which now comprise over 13% of the population and yet contribute disproportionately little to the economy—paying just 4% of national taxes while relying heavily on state support.

Resources that could equip soldiers—who often fundraise publicly for basics—flow instead to sustain a lifestyle that rejects military service and workforce participation. The kibbutz ideal, once a pillar of egalitarian socialism, lies in ruins, supplanted by a welfare system propping up isolationism.

And since I am an Israeli and you demand I pay Israeli taxes every time I visit the State, could you at least use my money to protect IDF soldiers and not prop up archaic Jewish sects that hate all that I am, a Female Zionist Jew?

For women, the regression is stark. Israel now ranks 91st in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, a slide reflecting Haredi sway over marriages, conversions, and public life.

Political representation lags globally, with women holding only about 25% of Knesset seats and even fewer cabinet roles, placing Israel near the bottom internationally.

State-sanctioned discrimination and division thrive: at the Western Wall, women’s prayer space shrinks; on buses, segregation enforces second-class status; public singing by women draws rebuke (never busk on Ben Yehudah, you have been warned).

I remember first moving to Israel at the age of 21. I was naive and curious to learn about Judaism, and I made the mistake of enrolling in a women’s Jewish seminary.

I spent a lot of time on Ben Yehudah Street and the old city hanging out with friends, but constant harassment was a daily issue. Literally, a day did not go by when some creep was not following me down a street and harassing me.

The memories of abuse are too numerous to recall, having lived in Jerusalem between 1985 and 1990, and dealt with daily lewd comments and even stalking.

Still, the deeper horror was Israel’s acquiescence—as long as the abuser was Jewish, the system looked away. It’s a casual tribalism that echoes Jim Crow, yet Israelis grow numb to treating Jewish women as lesser.

An ex-boyfriend, who now works as a prominent English-speaking Israeli reporter, dismissed my unease: “You never fit into Israeli society.” As if to suggest that I was the problem, or that I should somehow adapt to this. Easy for him, shielded from the daily encroachments and second-class status that is life as a Jewish woman in Israel.

The situation for women has grown increasingly bad as Israel ranks 88th for women’s rights globally for its treatment of women. All of this is fueled by a growing misogyny that has grown out of Right-Wing extremism and Haredis’ increasing support in Israeli politics.

And the gaslighting is stunning. Any Jewish woman who points out the obvious is deemed anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, or someone who does not fit in, like my idiot ex-boyfriend’s comments all those years ago. I guess he felt I was not tolerating the abuse, or being pushed to the back of the bus, as well as he would if the skirt were on the other leg.

Right-wing religious Johnny Come Latelys who were never part of the story before. These are not people who showed up at Histadrut meetings with Ben Gurion and Meir fighting for workers’ rights. Give me a break.

This New wave of religious nuts, jobs, and extremism fuels tensions between Israelis and Arabs as well, posing security risks by rejecting integration and opening up conversions for Palestinians—even with evident Jewish roots—fostering a closed, superior ethos that challenges the Jewish identities of anyone that does not fit their narrow mandate and questioning the Jewishness of any dissenting Jews. This is not the function, nor was it ever the function of Israel.

Right-wing extremism has fueled animosity everywhere, between Jews, between men and women, while alienating the secular American Jewish majority who once saw Israel as a shared refuge.

Moderation could have healed divides: reopening kibbutzim to integration, easing conversions, and prioritizing reconciliation over rigidity. Instead, religious hardliners and evangelical backers impose their vision, turning a secular socialist experiment into a perilous space for women, arabs, or anyone else who gets between them and their messianic delusions.

Jewish women face abuse from within, and the data shows it is becoming increasingly worse by the day. To be clear, what I am saying is that Jewish women do not have a homeland because Israel is not a safe place for us.

And I don’t appreciate that condescending dismissal in the Knesset, with shockingly few female members, when women point out the horrifying statistics, stop trivializing my abuse.

The founders of Israel sought a haven for all Jews; today, half of us face exile. We must reclaim that dream before the wasteland of extremist ideas consumes it entirely.