My colleague Debra Nussbaum Cohen, a wonderful writer who has been dedicated to the issue of advancing women in Judaism for 15 years, responded to my post on the Sisterhood about women and work. Read it here. What do you think? Where do you stand in this discussion? Weigh in, here or at the Forward. Read the rest of this entry →
In Friday's Jerusalem Post.
If all the people whose biographies appear in Jewish Sages of Today: Profiles of Extraordinary People were in the same room, it would be quite an impressive gathering, a venerable "who's who" of today's American Jewish and Israeli world. But fame and renown are not what editor Aryeh Rubin was looking at in the people whom he chose to profile. Rubin, a successful businessman, philanthropist and scholar, was not looking for "stars" but "sages."
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As I was driving my daughter to school for an afternoon exam, I received a work call about a knotty issue that left me with a lot of explaining to do about power, money and some complexities of office politics. This is my life, I thought. Though I’ve long since abandoned any hope of being free to do only one thing at a time, and I’m not sure I would have chosen to expose my child to all that she heard on the speakerphone, nevertheless, after 17 years at this parenting stuff, I am happy to report that I am no longer self-flagellating about doing it all at once. Read the rest of this entry →
The purpose of this treatise is to examine the practice of gender segregated transport in the Ultra Orthodox communities of Jerusalem.... [T]his is not a study of multiculturalism, rather an assessment of a specific religious cultural practice and its impact on gender equality in an advanced state purporting to be a secular democracy. We explore the way in which knowledge is imparted differently to men and women and support Tamar El-Or’s argument that Ultra Orthodox women are educated to maintain their ignorance, which has a profound impact on the way Ultra Orthodox men and women have come to understand their respective roles in a patriarchal society. The treatise also sets out to test some of the core assumptions inherent in feminist curiosity by suggesting that the Ultra Orthodoxy’s pathological curiosity and hypervigilance of the female body underpins some of the more discriminatory practices that disempower women.Read the rest here. Hat Tip Joel Katz Read the rest of this entry →
Goel Ratzon, a 60-year-old man with long white hair and penetrating eyes, has at least 17 wives and 28 children, though the precise figure remains elusive. Ratzon, who apparently believes himself to be something of a messiah, or the modern embodiment of King Solomon, was arrested last week in Tel Aviv, as were some of the wives, following an eight-month undercover operation that included some daring work of a female detective who presented herself as a willing conquest. The details emerging over the past few days about life in his cult/commune/harem form a disturbing and mysterious portrait, in part because of how zealously many of the women have come to his defense. Read the rest of this entry →
"When I see a women wearing a tallit, it burns my eyes," an Orthodox man told me during the course of my research on Judaism and masculinity. "It makes the synagogue seem Reform or Conservative, where women are trying to me like men." The statement was and remains jarring for so many reasons. I wonder how a man, who presumably walks into synagogue to pray, can be so disturbed by the sight of a woman cloaked and engaged in prayer all the way on the other side of the mehitza. I wonder why a woman in a tallit has the potential to disrupt a man's entire Jewish identity, challenging his own self-definition as "Orthodox." The statement, though, about a woman "trying to be like a man," which has repeated itself in countless discussions -- in person and virtual -- is perhaps the most troubling and the most telling. The entire discussion of tallit is ultimately about men's perceptions of women, and of themselves, and a need to maintain a gender status quo. Read the rest of this entry →
We need to recognize that the ultra-Orthodox obsession with removing women from public spaces is in fact an act of systemic violence that is often accompanied by pointed violence (cursing, spitting, pushing, beating up, throwing acid and stealing babies, to name a few incidences from the past 2–3 years). This communal compulsion is a threat to women’s physical and emotional well-being, and goes against the basic tenets of democracy, humanity, and even Torah. Yes, the Torah tells us that all human beings (men AND women) were created in His Divine image and deserve dignity and respect.MORE AT THE FORWARD SISTERHOOD Read the rest of this entry →
Ever since Att. Gitit Nachliel’s legal precedent in which the parents of a recalcitrant husband were forced to pay child support as grandparents, Mavoi Satum has been inundated with requests for similar lawsuits. Mavoi Satum, and mesorevet get “L”, have been celebrating a major victory following the ruling of the Jerusalem Family Court (Judge P. Marcus) in which the parents of the recalcitrant husband were forced to pay for child support of their grandchildren. Mavoi Satum Legal Aid Director Att. Gitit Nachliel won this victory based on information that became available about the parents conspiring to hide the whereabouts of their son and facilitate his recalcitrance. “L” has been an agunah for four years, and her husband left the country when she was pregnant with their youngest child. For more information about this and other Mavoi Satum’s legal precedents, contact Gitit Nachliel. Read the rest of this entry →
The Center for Women's Justice, under the leadership of Susan Weiss, has released a series of YouTube videos that tell shocking stories of agunot, women struggling to attain independence from controlling husbands and find themselves stuck in the intransigent rabbinical courts. Click here to watch. Savta Bikorta Read the rest of this entry →
Former Jerusalem City Councilwoman and current Executive Director of IRAC Anat Hoffman was detained last week for her suspected involvement in the crime of Wearing a Tallit.
According to Ynet:
The police reported that Hoffman was investigated at the Merhav David Station after the events at the Western Wall on the grounds that she disrupted the status quo at the site. Hoffman was questioned about her role in organizing the prayer service and the clashes that ensued. She was reportedly asked to give her finger prints. At the end of the investigation, she was released to go home. Hoffman, who was surprised by the police involvement in the issue, told Ynet, "An officer sat there who asked me if I initiated the minyan, how many women came, whether they wore tallitot (prayer shawls customarily worn by men during Jewish prayers) and donned kippot, and whether we held the Torah scrolls and held a procession to Robinson's Arch. This is, after all, what have been doing every first of the (Hebrew) month for 21 years already."Joel Katz at Religion and State in Israel brings an array of items relating to this story, including video coverage of the incident, blogs, and a horrifying list of questions that she was asked in her interrogation, such as:
* Were women wearing tallitot? * What is a tallit? * Did the women wear kippot? * Did you hold a Torah scroll? * Did you hold a Torah scroll with intent to read it?
Anyone interested in joining a letter-writing campaign to protest this event, write in here.
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