Offering a distinctive and subtle analysis of tensions between government policies on religious matters and feminism, Halperin-Kaddari shows how women in Israel indeed have a state of their own--in the sense not of liberating refuge but of unfair marginalization. When Israel declared its independence in 1948, it vowed to ensure equality for all citizens, regardless of religion, race, or gender. History shows, however, that this promise has been broken in the case of women, who generally live under circumstances significantly worse than those of men. Women in Israel is the first comprehensive overview of discrimination in a state dominated by a patriarchal religious order, and brings fresh insights to the efficacy of the law in improving the status of women. Providing a sociolegal perspective on women in Israel viewed, Ruth Halperin-Kaddari examines all aspects of Israeli women's lives, looking at legal issues such as affirmative action, motherhood and the workplace, and mechanisms for the advancement of women, as well as conditions of education, employment, health, family, and prostitution. While tracing legislative evolution in Israel, Halperin-Kaddari discusses the extent to which law can create social change. Because of its unique position as an economically developed democracy and yet a state where government tries to maintain a special cultural tradition and religious identity in a heterogeneous society, Israel has failed to adopt a single national standard for women that would bring Israeli law into compliance with international human rights. Halperin-Kaddari concludes that the improvement in women's status has not been due to egalitarian consciousness, but rather is incidental to Israel's overall socioeconomic advancement. "A very important work on the legal context of gender and women's issues in Israel. Encyclopedic in scope and concisely written and well supported, the facts and details about women's statuses and roles depict a typically patriarchal society. . . . Extremely valuable for nonprofessionals seeking a broad overview on women in Israel, professionals and scholars will find much of value here."--"Choice" Ruth Halperin-Kaddari teaches law at Bar-Ilan University. She is chair of the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women, and wrote the official Reports of the State of Israel to the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

This volume is the fully revised and updated version of the first comprehensive commentary on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol. It reflects the developments during the decade following the publication of the first edition in 2012, which has also seen a notable rise in individual complaints (more than 85), ten new General Recommendations, and six new inquiry procedures as well as numerous statements, partly in conjunction with other UN human rights bodies. The Convention is a key international human rights instrument and the only one exclusively addressed to women. It has been described as the United Nations' 'landmark treaty in the struggle for women's rights'. At a time when the backlash against women's human rights and the concept of gender-based discrimination is increasingly challenged by governments and powerful societal actors, the Commentary is an important instrument to hold all state powers to account on their international obligations under the Convention. The Commentary analyses the interpretation of the Convention through the work of its monitoring body, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. It comprises detailed analyses of the Preamble and each article of the Convention and of the Optional Protocol, including a separate chapter on the cross-cutting substantive issue of violence against women. The sources relied on are the treaty language and the general recommendations, concluding observations, and case law under the Optional Protocol (individual complaints and inquiries), through which the Committee has interpreted and applied the Convention. Each chapter is self-contained, but the Commentary is conceived of as an integral whole. The book also includes an introduction which provides an overview of the Convention and its embedding in the international law of human rights as well as the most recent challenges to women's human rights worldwide.