Women Not ‘Cinderellas' In Israeli Life

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31327, 25 March 1967, Page 2

Women Not ‘Cinderellas ' In Israeli Life

When Israel appointed a woman as its first Foreign Minister (Golda Meir) the country became a “breaking-through ground” for women in diplomacy. Britain, Canada, Brazil and other countries appointed their first woman ambassadors and sent them off to Israel.

“It was inevitable that qualified women should go to the top in Israel,” Mrs Joan C o m a y, an Israeli writer and architect, said in Christchurch yesterday. “If we were to make our young country a dynamic force we could not afford to waste the manpower of women. Our women have absolute equality—nothing is closed to them.” “CINDERELLAS” In Its huge programmes of aid to developing countries, Israel also has a special concern for the “Cinderellas.” On Mount Carmel it has a home economic institute for women of developing countries, where 1000 trainees from many parts of the world are learning nutrition, care of children, cooking and how to handle the foodstuffs now available in their countries. It was the only training establishment of its kind in the world, Mrs Comay said. “In this Decade of De-

velopment, Israel is regarded as the one success story—so much so that the new countries have turned to us for help in state-building,” she said. Israel, with a population of 2j million, has 800 technical aids “ambassadors in shirtsleeves” scattered through 60 countries, including Africa, the non-Arab Middle East countries, South-east Asia and South America. In addition, about 3000 people from overseas countries are training in Israel in farming, defence, youth leadership and on many other projects. The influx of overseas students and trainees into a country that was originally made up of refugees from most parts of the world nurtures a climate of international understanding and interest in other lands. “You can ask any small child to name the capital of Nepal and he will promptly answer, Katmandu, because he has probably met Nepalese or seen them in the streets of Jerusalem,” she said. A country that is neither living in easy peace nor actu-

ally at war with its threatening Arab neighbours, Israel has come a long way in its 19 years of state life. “But we have much unfinished business to do. You are not finished with people when you just bring them into a country from so many other lands; your problems only just begin then,” Mrs Comay said. “But we have created a working democracy in an area that knows little about democracy.” Born in South Africa, Mrs Comay went to Palestine (as Israel was then) in 1946 and lived in Jerusalem until seven years ago when her husband was made the Israeli permanent representative at the United Nations. A qualified architect and a journalist, Mrs Comay is the author of six books about Israel and one on the United Nations, “U.N. In Action.” Her latest, “Ben Gurion and the Birth of Israel” will be published at the end of this month. She has signed a con-, tract for another, “The Men Who Changed the Map”, about the men who created Israel.

Having finished his term at the United Nations, Mr M. S. Comay and his wife are on a holiday visit to New Zealand before returning home. “I shall be very glad to get home to Jerusalem and settle down to being a housewife again,” Mrs Comay said.