Ministerial committee to advance status of women decided recently that Religious Services Ministry should amend burial society licenses so that women may accompany dead to graves, eulogize them at funerals.

By Ophir Bar-Zohar

The Religious Services Ministry is waiting for a halakhic ruling before deciding whether to allow women to give eulogies in cemeteries, even though a ministerial committee authorized them to do so, a ministry official said Wednesday.

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It is unthinkable that a halakhic ruling” – a rabbinic ruling on a point of Jewish law – “should dictate a government ministry’s decision,” said Culture Minister Limor Livnat, head of the interministerial task force set up to deal with a recent spate of ultra-Orthodox violence and discrimination against women. “I will not allow it.” Read more