Renee Rabinowitz
Israeli-American psychologist and lawyer (1934–2020)
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Rabinowitz was born in Belgium on April 7, 1934. Her family fled The Holocaust in 1941. Rabinowitz fled Belgium with her family to France and then Spain. They eventually ended up living in Cuba before emigrating to the U.S. She grew up in New York City, before leaving the city to attend the University of Chicago, where she earned master's and doctoral degrees in educational psychology. Her 1969 Master's thesis was titled The perceived locus of control of the reinforcements among sixth-grade Negro children. Her 1974 dissertation was titled Personal Causation, Role-Taking, and Effectiveness with Peers: A Study of Social Competence in Elementary School Children.
She also earned a Juris Doctor degree from Notre Dame Law School.
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Career
Rabinowitz taught psychology at Indiana University. She later served as in-house legal counsel at Colorado College, and as a professional volunteer at the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma.
El Al discrimination lawsuit
In December 2015, Rabinowitz was flying business class on an El Al flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Tel Aviv, Israel. After being seated next to a Haredi Jewish man, the man complained to an onboard flight attendant that he did not want to sit next to a woman because of his religious beliefs. As a result, Rabinowitz was forced to move seats. After speaking to Anat Hoffman, director of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the organization filed a court case on her behalf for unlawful discrimination. IRAC represented Rabinowitz at the trial.
In June 2017, Rabinowitz was awarded 6,500 shekels (about $1,800). The trial also ruled that El Al's practice of requiring unwilling passengers to accommodate Haredi religious mores violated the country's Prohibition of Discrimination in Products law. The court required El Al to update its policy within six months to comply with Israeli discrimination law. After the verdict, IRAC lawyer Riki Shapira Rosenberg said they expected this to be extended to other airlines.
Related incidents
In 2018, the Israel Religious Action Center attempted to run an advertising campaign reminding Israeli women that they were not required to change seats at the request of men. The proposed advertisements were blocked by the authorities. In the same year, NICE Ltd. CEO Barak Eilam criticised El Al after they forced women to move seats at the request of Haredi men. Speaking about the incident, IRAC said that the incident was a violation of Rabinowitz's court decision.
Personal life and death
Rabinowitz had three children from her first marriage. She was divorced from her first husband in 1986, and married Rabbi Stanley M. Wagner of Denver, Colorado, in November 1990. She gained two stepchildren through her marriage to Wagner. Rabinowitz and Wagner made Aliyah to Israel in 2006, but frequently visited the United States. She lived the final years of her life in an assisted-living facility in Jerusalem. Rabinowitz died on May 19, 2020, in Jerusalem.