By Uri Yanay
Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
The article focuses on the establishment of the first four refuges for battered women in Israel. It discusses the ways in which the refuges were founded, and highlights the principles underlying their organization and operation. Each of the refuges was initiated by a local group of women whose feminist ideology led them to establish this voluntary service without state assistance and despite opposition from different, often vocal, groups. The need for these refuges reflected a social problem -domestic violence -that Israeli society refused to acknowledge. The number of battered women seeking safe-haven encouraged the government to partially fund existing refuges, and to help establish new ones.
Today, women's refuges are the only public service for adult crime victims in Israel. The article focuses on the initiatives, formations, and principles underlying women refuges in Israel. It also analyzes the existing partnership between the voluntary and the public sectors in this domain