The World - News from May 20, 1988

Israel’s Supreme Court overruled rabbis by ordering the appointment of the first woman to a Jewish council that administers synagogues and ritual baths. The case was a rare intervention by an Israeli secular court in religious affairs run by Orthodox rabbis. The rabbis had prevented Leah Shakdiel, 36, an Orthodox Jew, from accepting a municipal appointment in 1986 to the synagogue and bath council in Yeroham in southern Israel. The court ordered her reinstated within 30 days. The head of Yeroham’s religious council, Moshe Peretz, said he will resign if the decision is carried out.