Israeli celebrity women were paid fortunes to convince women to go to the mikveh -- and people are angry

An expensive, public social media campaign using non-religious celebs like Yael Bar Zohar to convince women to keep the religious laws of niddah may have backfired. I certainly hope so.

The latest “only in Israel” story — and not the good kind — has revealed a brand new tactic of religious coercion aimed at women’s bodies.

An organization called “She’asani Isha” — Who Made me a Woman — launched a campaign of video clips by secular Israel celebrities talking about the importance of women keeping the laws of Nidah. In these clips, Israeli celebrities including television host and actress Yael Bar Zohar, reality star Shai Mika, and foodie influencer Michal Ansky are interviewed about how they keep these practices. The purpose is to convince viewers —more specifically, married Jewish women who do not keep nidah — to take on the practices. Yael Bar Zohar calls it “the secret to a long-lasting, happy relationship.” Right.

Israeli celebrity Yael Bar Zohar talking about keeping the halakhot of ‘nidah’, the religious practice of abstaining from sexual touch during menstruation.

“Nidah”, which literally means “impure”, is a euphemism for menstruation, and a code-word for the set of religious laws that regulate sexual practices. According to these practices, a woman who is menstruant cannot be touched by a man, not even her husband. When a woman is single, that means she cannot be touched by any man, ever, in any way. When a woman is married, that means that she cannot be touched by her husband until after she purifies herself by going to the mikveh, the ritual bath. In reality, this is a two-weeks-a-month practice, since women are taught to wait an extra week after menstruation for, you know, more stringency or whatever. And it is not just sex that is forbidden but all touch — even a comforting hand-holding or passing the salt. Couples that practice these laws spend two weeks a month living as roommates in separate beds. Then, on mikveh night, they must have sex.

This happens every month. Or at least every month in which a woman bleeds.

Sure, many women swear by these rules. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”, or whatever. In school, we were also taught that this is the secret to a happy marriage, that every month is like a honeymoon, yada yada.

We are also taught that if we don’t do it, we would get cervical cancer. And our babies would be born with birth defects. So there’s that.

“Family purity” it is called.

This social media campaign is like hasbara for religious patriarchy.

But not everyone loves it. Some women I know use pills to avoid getting their periods, just so they don’t have to do it. Other women have watered down the practices to the bare minimum. Many others go to the mikveh once before the wedding and never again.

And in at least one Facebook group that I belong to, religious women write posts nearly every day about the various traumas that they experience going to the mikveh. From invasive glares and comments by mikveh attendants, to pressures by the husband, to strange feelings about standing naked in front of a strange woman, to feelings of sexual dysfunction by mandated times of yes sex/no sex.

In fact, researchers have confirmed that there is no correlation at all between keeping these practices and sexual or marital happiness. In this pioneering 2009 study by Ellen Labinsky, Talli Rosenbaum, and others, that myth was blown wide open.

From the 2009 study on sexuality among observant Jewish women: Those who keep the practices of nidah reported greater sexual dysfunction and significantly less physical and emotional satisfaction compared to married women in the wider population.

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The initial outcry over this campaign came not from secular Israeli women who were angry at being preached to about sex by religious women using the most powerful tools at their disposal — celebrity influencers on Instagram. That wasn’t the furor.

The outcry came via celebrity gossip-monger Guy Pines who disclosed that the celebrities were paid for their interviews — 150,000 NIS altogether

The backlash was fast and furious. Yael Bar Zohar was attacked on social media for what was perceived as acting. She fought back and said that this was not “scripted”, and that, by the way, women should be paid for their time.

The campaign was paid for by Ruti Leviav Yelizarov — daughter of billionaire Lev Leviav — and Bracha Shilat. According to the organizers and their website, the purpose is to so-called “empower” women in their intimate relationships by convincing them to keep nidah. The name of the organization, “She’asani Isha”, refers to the daily blessing that men recite, “Thank God for not making me a woman”. The rabbi who apparently nudged the campaign forward is Rabbi Chaim Shlomo Diskin, chief rabbi of the city of Kiryat Ata.

Leviav Yelizarov told Channel Arutz 7 that the campaign wants to “enable all women of Israel — religious, secular, haredi, traditional — to understand the depth of the ‘Jewish secret’ to family purity, and to ‘immerse’ their relationships in light, holiness, and joy, and to sanctify the Jewish home.”

It is kiruv, missionizing, on a whole new scale. A massive social media campaign specifically aimed at married women, with the goal of twisting women’s sexual habits, using all this God rhetoric of holiness and happiness.

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I have no issue with women who keep these practices and are happy with them.

I have an issue with hiding women’s unhappiness, women’s real life experiences.

I know about that unhappiness. I kept most of these practices for most of my fertile years, even though I hated it.

That unhappiness is often kept secret, a source of shame or guilt or fear. (“Will my children really be born with birth defects?”) It is very hard to argue with the God rhetoric. Except for the secret FB groups, there is very little space for religious women to share how much they hate this. So many will keep doing it — as I did for so long — for all those reasons of fear, shame, guilt, and loneliness.

Also self-sacrifice for the greater good. As in, you know, you want to do the right thing. Even if it hurts you. Women are given that message all the time. So often that it becomes like this background noise to our lives. Do it even if you hate it. It’s what the family needs. What the nation needs. What the collective needs.

My bigger problem is that this campaign is just another package of lies being sold to women. How many “secrets to happiness” have we all paid for during the course of our lives? The lies come at us from every direction. The diets that will make us happy. The devices that will make us happy. The plucking and waxing and twisting and tightening that will make us happy. Everywhere we turn, we are being sold the idea that if we just comport our bodies a bit more, hurt ourselves and harm ourselves a bit more, we will finally receive happiness.

As if.

It’s all a lie.

Ironically, the one thing that really does make women happy — that is, being paid for our work — is the thing that caused this particular pile-on. Not that women were being used to participate in this patriarchal persuasion machine. But that they were paid. That tells us everything we need to know about women in society.

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Finally, some women are starting to get angry. A class-action suit was filed against the campaign and its celeb presenters for creating a false campaign.

I don’t know if they will win, but I think it’s an important step. To tell people representing rabbis, billionaires and everyone else to stop telling women what to do with our bodies and our sexuality. To stop trying to sell us lies that we need to follow someone else’s rules for the sake of the family or the nation or to find our own happiness. Just stop. Stop. Stop.

I hope the suit will spur on some public honesty about this whole topic, and offer a model of women talking back to the cultural forces trying to sell us things we don’t want, pandering lies about what we need, and using our bodies for their own benefit.

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