The Cause Célèbre of the 1960s How Iranian Jewish Women Fought for Inheritance and Divorce Rights

In 1967 and 1975, the Iranian parliament (the Majlis) passed the most significant legislation regarding women’s rights in Iran, known as the Family Protection Law. Muslim Iranian women already had inheritance rights according to the sharia (the Islamic religious law). The law now granted all Iranian women the right to impede polygamy, to initiate divorce (if subject to abuse), and to claim custody of the couple’s minor children. The Iranian Jewish rabbinical leadership sought to exclude Iranian Jewish women from these reforms in the name of tradition and religious practice. Iranian Jewish advocates of women's rights decided to challenge this entrenched patriarchy by calling for the implementation of family reform laws that had been ratified in Israel in 1965. This article analyzes the struggles of these Iranian women and the role they played with the support of progressive Jewish Iranian men, Israeli politicians, and Israeli rabbis.