MK Michaeli Demands Bible Be Modified To Include More Inspirational Women

“This should have been done years ago.”

Jerusalem, October 27 – An opposition lawmaker known for pursuing female empowerment has promised to continue the fight during the coming winter parliamentary session with a legislative proposal that would require the addition to the Hebrew Bible of multiple strong female personalities, to address what she has deemed a historical and literary injustice to women.

MK Merav Michaeli of the Zionist Union delegation vowed today that once legislative activity resumes on Tuesday, November 1, she and several parliamentary allies will work to gain passage of a law mandating that for every male figure mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, at least one positive female role model be inserted into the narrative, so that future generations will not face the assumption that the formative text of Jewish faith and history dismisses or marginalizes the role of women.

“Whoever is responsible for changing these things, we will find them and require that they modify the text appropriately,” declared Michaeli. “It is, frankly, both intolerable and shocking that this far into the twenty-first century, and so many decades after the advent of feminism, such a basic barometer of male-female equality in our culture lags so far behind. This should have been done years ago.”

Michaeli’s proposal in its current form would mandate the formation of a committee of academics to study the Biblical text and recommend where strong feminine characters should be added, or which male characters should be made into female. The integrity of the existing narrative will be preserved to the furthest possible extent, in the assessment of the committee, but where conflict between the two values arises, the experts will be instructed to favor the inclusion of positive women role models over the current text.

Lawmakers on both ends of the political and religious spectrum have already promised to block or defeat the measure, for different reasons. “This ridiculous proposal falsifies history and makes a mockery of our traditions,” proclaimed MK Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism. “It constitutes yet another futile assault on everything our culture holds dear, as if only new ideas have merit, and everything must be understood only in light of those ideas, which will inevitably be swept away by the next wave of new ideas.” He compared the proposal to Palestinian efforts to erase Jewish history in the Holy Land.

Meretz Party Chairwoman Zehava Gal-On, however, opposes the bill on other grounds. “It would be a pointless gesture to try to make the text of the Tanakh gender-balanced,” she explained. “Instead, we should be aiming for a version that eliminates the male-female distinction entirely, and promotes true equality.” A more productive direction, she suggested, would be replacing all Biblical references to “Jews” and “Israel” with the more historically sensitive term “Palestinians.”

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