It’s become an ominous fixture of the mass anti-government protests roiling Israel: a coil of women in crimson robes and white caps, walking heads bowed and hands clasped. They are dressed as characters from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and the eponymous TV series.
The women, growing in numbers as the demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies intensify, say they are protesting to ward off what they believe will be a dark future if the government follows through on its plan to overhaul the judiciary.
“This display is a representation of the things that we fear,” said Moran Zer Katzenstein, founder of the women’s rights advocacy group Bonot Alternativa, or “building an alternative,” which is behind the Handmaid’s protest. , she added “Women are going to be the first to be harmed” under the overhaul..
In a move that has sparked widespread opposition, Netanyahu’s government is pushing to weaken the Supreme Court and limit the independence of the judiciary, steps they say will restore power to elected legislators and make the courts less interventionist. Critics say the move upends Israel’s system of checks and balances and pushes it toward autocracy.The overhaul has sent tens of thousands of people into the streets in protest each week.
Unmissable in the crowd are the women in red robes, turning otherwise usual protest scenes into an otherworldly sight. Ahead of one demonstration, a group of women rode the train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in costume, transforming the cars and the platform into what could have been a scene from the Hulu series.
