Women's Modesty in Israel - 3 Perspectives - NYTimes.com Re "Lechery, Immodesty and the Talmud" (Op-Ed, Jan. 20): One needn't in any way defend the indefensible, like the harassment of girls or women of any age, to be astounded by Rabbi Dov Linzer's conclusion from recent events in Israel that religious directives about modesty are necessarily about "men controlling women's bodies." Rabbi Linzer is certainly correct that Judaism mandates men's self-control. But exhortations by revered Jewish religious leaders (not self-proclaimed guardians of public morality) to give particular care to matters of modesty in times of widespread societal licentiousness are about one thing only: honoring the Jewish religious tradition. (Rabbi) AVI SHAFRAN Director of Public Affairs Agudath Israel of America New York, Jan. 20, 2012 As a Reform rabbi, I salute the perceptive essay by Dov Linzer, an Orthodox rabbi, on the humiliating treatment of women by the ultra-Orthodox authorities in Israel. Their call for gender segregation on buses is but one aspect of extremism, in the name of Judaism, that demands that women accept the status of being unfitting and unworthy of full participation in both religious and secular Israeli life. Rabbi Linzer, in criticizing the Orthodox's faulty reasoning that women be "covered and sequestered" to protect men from having improper impulses, reflects not only the Talmudic teaching that it is men's responsibility to control their urges, but also a comment by Golda Meir. While prime minister, she was asked to place a curfew on women in an effort to end a series of rapes. She refused, saying: "It's the men who are attacking the women. If there is to be a curfew, let the men stay home. I applaud Rabbi Dov Linzer for decrying the way radical ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel are attempting to segregate women and impose extremist standards of modesty. But his argument that, according to the Talmud and Jewish law (Halakha), it is men's responsibility to restrain their sexual desires and resist the temptations of women, is ultimately just an apology that conceals a deeper problem. Jewish law is a world constructed by men, for men and primarily about men. The core of the problem is that women are not equal partners and participants in formulating Jewish law. Putting the onus on men perpetuates the very inequality of the legal system. A more self-critical analysis is required of those in the Orthodox Jewish community who, like Rabbi Linzer, wish to live in a world in which women are equal. The writer is the author of "Women and Jewish Law."