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Ultra-Orthodox woman fights for representation in Knesset

Ruth Colian managed to gather the needed resources to establish an ultra-Orthodox women's party that ran for a seat in the Knesset on March 17, but the ultra-Orthodox establishment keeps setting up obstacles.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women watch as another woman casts her ballot for the parliamentary election at a polling station in Jerusalem January 22, 2013. Israelis voted on Tuesday in an election that is expected to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu win a third term in office, pushing the Jewish state further to the right, away from peace with the Palestinians and towards a showdown with Iran. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS ELECTIONS) - RTR3CSE6

The name of the most courageous woman in Israel is Ruth Colian. This petite mother of four, age 34, is conducting a courageous but doomed battle from within the ultra-Orthodox community in which she lives against the Orthodox rabbinical establishment. I have been following her with wonder and admiration for several years. Colian has sworn to bring to light the plight of hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Jewish women, and to free them from lives of enslavement, abuse and anonymity.

She has created a political party of ultra-Orthodox women — the first in the history of the State of Israel — that ran for a seat in the Knesset on March 17. For many years, she has exhausted the legal system and other institutions with petitions, demonstrations and locally organized rebellions: for instance, in the municipal elections in the town of Petah Tikva, in the elections for the student council of a college and in struggles against various religious institutions. She does it all virtually alone, with her own two hands, fighting tooth and nail. She encounters defeat after defeat, gets up, dusts herself off and moves on. She knows that her victory will be measured by the clock of history. At some point, maybe in a year, or 10 or 50, an ultra-kosher Orthodox woman will get her very own seat in Israel’s Knesset, the legislative body of the State of Israel. When that happens, that woman will know that her path to the Knesset was prepared by Colian.

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