Entries tagged with 'Women's Rights'
A Tragic Weekend in the Congo
The following will disturb many readers.Over the course of a single weekend last month, over 175 women in a village in North Kivu in the Congo were raped by Rwandan rebels, the United Nations reported today. Most were systematically raped...
What the Success of Women Rabbis Means for Judaism
Reposted From HuffingtonPost.comRabbi Laura Geller is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California. She is the first woman to be selected to lead a major metropolitan synagogue. Prior to being chosen for this position in 1994, she...
Adventures of a Fresh New Intern
Zoë Bernard is a participant in the Machon Kaplan Summer Social Action Internship program, interning at Jewish Women International. Approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are assaulted physically by an intimate partner annually in the United States. This is,...
Discrimination Begets Vigilantism
Organized crime tends to bring to mind images of well-suited, powerful Italian men, thanks to movies such as "The Godfather" and TV series like "The Sopranos." It has never before, in my experience, led me to think of vigilante gangs...
The State of Human Trafficking
How have efforts to combat human trafficking paid off in the last year? The State Department seeks to answer that question, as it does ever year with the release of its annual "Trafficking in Persons Report" for consideration by the...
Saudi Women Against Women's Rights?
Saudi women are required by law to have a male guardian who has authority over and responsibility for them. Some Saudi women's rights activists have pushed back against guardianship, with some success, demanding that Saudi women to have the...
Sex Ed Still Failing our Students
Here's a disturbing piece of news: A recent CDC study found that 17 percent of sexually active teenaged girls use the "rhythm method" - timing sexual activity to avoid days on which the chance of conception is high. There are...
A Big Step for Pluralism
It's been a tough week. Thanks to all of you who bore with the rather ominous message I sent out last Monday and wrote back with your comments and questions. I was grateful for the chance to talk about the...
The Bridal Path Not Taken
I'm a little behind in my reading, so I just caught the piece in the May 17 NY Times Magazine about the implicit message sent by the fact that the two most recent Supreme Court nominees are both female,...
Troubling News on Rosh Chodesh Sivan
Today is Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the beginning of the Hebrew month of Sivan. Throughout the year, we have been supporting and keeping you updated on the Women of the Wall (WOW), a progressive prayer group that meets monthly at the...
Foxes in the U.N. Henhouse
The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, or CSW, is purportedly "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women." It meets yearly to evaluate progress, set standards and policy, and identify challenges moving forward. It strikes me,...
A Social Action Mothers' Day
Ah, Mother's Day. I have wonderful memories of being dragged to nurseries to pick out new trees and annuals, of Mom's new Toro tractor, of cooking everything-and-the-kitchen-sink omelets with my dad and brothers. Growing up, I didn't have any idea...
Oklahoma! You're NOT doing fine!
"The Haters" are at it again. Today the Oklahoma legislature enacted two crazy anti-abortion anti-woman measures. In the first instance they've voted to compel women to undergo an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before having an abortion. Of course, the idea behind this is to make a woman too guilt-ridden to go through with the procedure.
Happy 62nd, Israel!
Today is Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, which marks the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Around the world, we celebrate this holiday on the 5th of the Hebrew month of Iyar. Below, I have compiled 62...
Food for Thought on Equal Pay Day
Today is Equal Pay Day, marking the 110 extra days the average woman must work into 2010 to catch up to what the average man made in 2009. It is a unique holiday, one we observe by working to eliminate...
Words from the Wall for Rosh Chodesh Iyar
Today marks Rosh Chodesh Iyar, the beginning of the Hebrew month of Iyar. Rosh Chodesh, which literally means "head of the month," is the holiday that marks the beginning of each month in the Jewish calendar. Throughout the year, we...
Breaking the Cloud Ceiling
There are thirteen human beings in space right now, four of whom are women. This is awesome. I'm not sure why it has become humdrum, from a technological and space-exploration point of view, that there are people orbiting the Earth at...
Deal or No Deal
The decision to move critical health insurance reform toward passage by means of reconciliation may constitute a victory in the fight to preserve access to abortion services in reform. The Senate bill contains anti-abortion language that (though imperfect) is far...
Welcoming Rosh Chodesh with Women of the Wall
"Wondrous God, in ancient days You led our people from bondage to freedom; redeem us now out of our exile from one another, making all Israel one united people!" -From the liturgy for Rosh Chodesh Tomorrow is Rosh Chodesh Nisan, the...
Standing with Our Sisters at the Kotel
Shelly Lindauer is the Executive Director of Women of Reform Judaism. This post first appeared at RJ.org. In this week's Torah portion, Ki Tisa, the Israelites begin to worry that Moses will not return from Mt. Sinai, and in their...
The New Israeli Woman
In honor of it being International Women's Day, I'd like to perform a little experiment with you. What first comes to mind when someone asks you to describe an Israeli woman? A tough kibbutznikit? A beauty in army uniform? Golda...
Talking 'Bout a Revolution
I just read a thoughtful piece about religious pluralism and civic equality in the Huffington Post by Joshua Stanton, a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College and co-Editor of the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue. Stanton speaks about the current situation...
For Out of Zion....Reflections - On a Very Busy Season
Rabbi Stanley M. Davids is the Immediate Past President of ARZA. This post first appeared at RJ.org. Resa and I returned home to Jerusalem on January 25th. We plunged immediately into what has become a month long period of programs, meetings,...
An Epidemic of Sexism
Sometimes, believing in gender equality and working toward it means celebrating victories. There were victories in achieving women's suffrage with the 19th Amendment, passing women's rights legislation such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963, affirming a woman's dominion over...
Next Week, For Purim, No Segregation Allowed
In honor of Purim, that most silly time of year, when we are commanded to drink and disguise ourselves until we cannot recognize even those we know best, I'd been planning a fantasy Purim spoof of my own, in which...
I'm Going to Texas, and I'm Packing my Tallit!
This weekend, I will be joining NFTYites from across the country at URJ Greene Family Camp for Veida, which is NFTY's yearly business and elections meeting. Along with my three-ounce bag of liquids, URJ camp sweatshirt, and plenty of RAC...
Human Trafficking in Post-Earthquake Haiti
As aid flows to the victims of Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti, we cannot forget that those suffering the effects of this disaster will not be affected equally. Some will be shaken from lives of prosperity into poverty; others, those already...
The Women of the Wall's Struggle for Religious Liberty in Israel
Rabbi Jill Maderer serves at Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia, Penn. This post originally appeared at BlogRS and is reposted with permission.When I prayed with Women of the Wall (WoW) in 1996, I never imagined that in 2010, women...
Rabbi Yoffie on Women of the Wall
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, had an op-ed published last week in the San Francisco Bay Area's J Weekly, titled "At the Wall, which side is the right one?: The Kotel belongs to the entire...
Focus on the Court: 37 Years of Roe v. Wade
Today marks the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Roe v. Wade. As Friday at the RACBlog is our "Focus on the Courts" day, it is only appropriate that we use this time to do a quick review...
Raise Your Voice For Women of the Wall!
It has been so exciting to be in touch with many Reform Jews, through email, phone, or our recent webinars concerning the Women of the Wall, a monthly progressive prayer group that has recently met challenges to their desire to...
Marriage is Becoming a Better Deal for Men
While gender-based pay discrimination is still rampant in most industries in America and the Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 182) languishes in Congress, a recent study by the Pew Research Center has shown that in one of five marriages "women have...
Yoffie On Women of the Wall
We are continuing to follow the series of events surrounding the Women of the Wall, and I hope that you are now, too. In recent months, the Israeli police have increased pressure on Women of the Wall, a progressive monthly...
A One-to-One Ratio
Harri Plotnick is an intern at the Religious Action Center. She belongs to Congregration Keneseth Israel, where she also teaches religious school.The product of 40 years of feminist work since the main push for the Equal Rights Amendment in the '70s...
Anat Hoffman on Being Interrogated by Police
There must be more than one way to liberate the Western Wall. It's not only a job for paratroopers, a test that ended in the Six Day War of 1967. The Wall as a national and religious site now needs...
Up Against the Wall: Anat Hoffman Interrogated
Our coverage of the Women of the Wall, the monthly Rosh Chodesh prayer group, continues, with the latest news on the police interrogation of Anat Hoffman in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Hoffman is the Director of the Israel Religious Action Center...
Achieving Diversity in the Workplace
Diversity is a potent agent of growth and change in nearly any field. Achieving diversity, however, is no simple undertaking; we must, as Secretary Clinton articulated in a commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania, "find a way to celebrate...
Yemeni Child Bride Fights for Divorce
Headline: A Yemeni Child Bride Fights for Divorce. The far more incredible element is that she wins. I apologize for ruining the surprise, but this is perhaps one of the most incredible news stories I have ever read....
RACblog Goes Meta: Our List of the Top 10 Top 10 Lists
It's the end of another (secular) year, and the end of decade as well, so of course, our inboxes and Google Readers are overflowing with "Ten 10 lists." Because we at the RAC are nothing if not "meta," we thought...
"History is Made of Moments Like This"
In the past few weeks, you may have been following our coverage of the story of Nofrat Frenkel, who was arrested for wearing a tallit while praying with the Women of the Wall. The New York Times covered the Women...
It's 1 A.M....Do You Know Where Your Senators Are?
This morning at 1:08 AM the Senate voted 60-40 along party lines for cloture and an end to debate on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nevada) extensive Manager's amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590). This...
Some Color at the Kotel: Rosh Chodesh Tevet
Last Friday, Rosh Chodesh Tevet, 153 women found it in themselves to get up early on a wretched, rainy, and miserable morning and walk to the Kotel, for what could be - following Nofrat Frenkel's arrest one month prior -...
Continuing to Fight For Reprodutive Health Care
The defeat of the anti-choice Nelson-Hatch amendment marked a significant victory for the Reform Movement, other pro-choice faith communities, all Americans committed to protecting reproductive rights, and for the millions of women who will require abortion services in the years...
From Jerusalem, Reasons to Keep Hoping
Anat Hoffman is the Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center in Jerusalem. This post originally appeared as a message in IRAC's December 14, 2009 newsletter, The Pluralist. To sign up for updates from IRAC, visit www.irac.org.I know...
Senate Tables Anti-Choice Nelson-Hatch Amendment
On Monday, the Senate voted 54-45 to table the anti-choice Nelson-Hatch amendment preserving the compromise abortion language in the Senate health insurance reform bill. The Senate language protects a woman's right to use her own funds to purchase coverage for reproductive...
Lessons Learned
On December 6, 1989, the city of Montreal was rocked by a shooting massacre at the Universite de Montreal's Ecole Polytechinque. A disgruntled and disturbed man who blamed women generally for the disappointments in his own life stormed the university's...
Gender Segregation in Israel: A Slippery Slope
Tevet is soon upon us, that aptly-named month in which our feet leave imprints on the ground because everywhere is wet and muddy. It is in this month that IRAC will release its new comprehensive study on gender segregation in...
Questions and Answers on the Stupak-Pitts Amendment
What is the impact of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment? Why would so many women lose access to reproductive health care if Stupak-Pitts is included in the final bill? Although proponents claim the Stupak-Pitts Amendment maintains the status quo by preventing federal...
Jerusalem Residents Reach the Tipping Point
Anat Hoffman is the Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center in Jerusalem. This post originally appeared as a message in IRAC's November 30, 2009 newsletter, The Pluralist. To sign up for updates from IRAC, visit www.irac.org. Nofrat Frenkel's...
Dec. 2nd is "Stop Stupak" Lobby Day and Rally!
On Wednesday, December 2nd there will be a national lobby day and rally on health care reform here in Washington, D.C. Pro-choice advocates, leaders, and individuals will converge on the Capitol with a three-fold message which parallels the priorities of...
Women's Rights, and Wrongs, in Israel
Although women are the victims of discrimination the world over, it is particularly troubling when we see evidence of anachronistic gender-based inequity and abuse in a democratic state. There have been several disturbing reports of violations of women's rights in...
Words on Women of the Wall
Dear Friends of IRAC, I am shocked by the recent criminal arrest at the Kotel. Nofrat Frenkel, a 28 year-old Israeli medical student, a committed Conservative Jew, and a friend and fellow member of Women of the Wall, was arrested...
Eradicating Fistula: The Urgency of Now
As Nick Kristof articulated in his recent Op-Ed on the subject, "perhaps the most wretched people on this planet are those suffering obstetric fistulas." He's right. As many as four million women in sub-Saharan Africa - joined by another 30...
Woman Arrested for Wearing Tallit at Western Wall
A woman was arrested today by Jerusalem police at the Western Wall, the Kotel, which is for many the most sacred site in all of Israel. What was her crime? Publicly wearing a tallit, a prayer shawl traditionally worn by...
Taking Health Care - & Reproductive Choice - to the Senate
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to unveil the Senate's health care reform bill bill to select Senators today. The House's version of a health care reform bill, which passed earlier this month, included a dangerous provision that threatens women's reproductive...
Abortion & Health Care: It's Going to Be a Tough Fight
My friend Rev. Debra Haffner, Co-founder and Executive Director of the Religious Institute, has a great posting up this week on Huffington Post, "A Solomon's Choice on Abortion: Let Compassion and Justice Prevail". In it, she argues that it is...
What Happened Last Saturday? The Stupak Amendment and Health Care Reform
Although working and attending the URJ Biennial last week, my colleagues and I found some time on Saturday to hungrily follow what we hoped would be a triumphant moment in the fight for comprehensive and just health care reform -...
Update on Israeli Bus Segregation
Some of you already know that my voice is not its usual, assertive self these days - I lost it shouting in South Africa, and it has yet to return in full. Now I work with a speech therapist, who...
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month
As some may be aware, October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. Various women's and domestic violence groups have found different ways to mark this month and remember the victims and survivors of domestic violence and one of the most powerful...
Gender Inequality and Violence Against Women in Guinea
As with so many other categories of injustice, the gender inequality narrative is radically different between the developed world and the developing world. In North America, Europe, Australia, Japan, and the rest of the "first world," the greater part of...
Abortion Polling: Another Impetus for Common Ground?
Kristin Williams is the Media Relations Associate at Faith in Public Life. This post originally appeared at Faith in Public Life's blog, Bold Faith Type.Back in May, Gallup found that more Americans identified as "pro-life" than "pro-choice" for the first...
Human Trafficking: Giving Our Voices to the Silent
Nathan Markiewitz is the Social Action Vice President of (e)YGOW, the youth group of Wise Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio. To subscribe to Wise Temple's social action-themed Global Updates, email nmarkiewitz@gmail.com. As my temple youth group's new Social Action Vice President,...
Recession & Slavery: A New Urgency
Debt-bonded rice farmers in India and Cambodia... child sex workers in Thailand and Belarus... forced charcoal miners in Brazil... Slavery is not history. Slavery is the contemporary, daily experience, the status quo, for more than 12.3 million men, women,...
It Takes a Movement
Rabbi Marla J. Feldman Union for Reform's Judaism Interim Director of Development. She is the former director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism. Ache Yehaya and her child are alive because of you. During the month of...
Healing the Ritual: Abuse & the Mikva
Daphne Price is the executive assistant to Rabbi David Saperstein at the Religious Action Center.I had a very clumsy week last week, and because of that clumsiness, I found myself covered in marks and bruises. I look like I...
Searching for Common Ground
In his commencement speech to Notre Dame graduates last spring, President Barack Obama spoke of "Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words." And on the issue that made his speech so controversial, he said: "So let's work together to reduce the...
"I am equal and deserve equal protection."
Eliza Scheffler us aparticipant in the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism's Machon Kaplan summer program for college students. She is a student at Yale University and an intern at Hadassah. Equal Rights Amendment: "Equality of rights under the...
Fireworks, Sunshine, and Expectations
Hannah Helfman is a participant in the Religious Action Center's Machon Kaplan summer program for college students. She is a student at Dickinson College and an intern at Jewish Women International. I was excited to come to DC this summer...
Different faiths, same fight
Deborah Swerdlow is a participant in the Religious Action Center's Machon Kaplan summer program for college students. She is a student at the University of Florida and an intern at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. This is my city,...
Reducing the Rollback of Reproductive Rights
After last week's murder of one of a few doctors in the United States to perform late-term abortions, many eyebrows were raised at the lack of access to abortion in our country. Roe v. Wade protects a woman's right to...
Eulogy for Dr. Tiller
Rabbi David N. Young is the assistant rabbi at Temple Sinai in North Miami Beach, Florida. This post originally appeared on Rabbi Young's Blog on June 5th. The poet Marcia Falk adapted a poem ascribed only to the name Zelda,...
Support Dr. Tiller's Staff with Notes of Appreciation
As my colleague Jill blogged on Monday, reproductive rights advocates across the country are mourning the murder of Dr. George Tiller, a well-known abortion provider who ran a women's health clinic in Kansas. Yesterday, I got an email from NARAL...
Finding Common Ground
Like so many others across the country, I was completely shaken when I learned that Dr. George Tiller, one of the few American physicians who performed late-term abortions, was shot to death in the foyer of his church in Wichita,...
Delayed Discrimination
Despite many advances, women in the workplace continue to face numerous inequalities, from discriminatory paychecks to inadequate access to childcare. The Supreme Court's 7-2 decision in AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen, handed down yesterday, illustrated how the Court can be a...
Getting Social Action at Prom
It's prom season! While this time of year leaves teens thinking about dresses and limos, corsages and up-dos, one group of high school women is concerned with misogynistic themes and lyrics in pop and hip-hop music....
Are you the Mystery Donor?
A recent series of acts of philanthropy have many asking questions. In the past couple of months, somebody has given a total of $81.5 million to fourteen very lucky colleges in nine states. Not even the schools that received the money...
Raising Awareness About Gender Integration
Judith Hertz is a member of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism. All views expressed are her own. While in Washington, D.C. for the Consultation on Conscience I took an hour to attend a meeting at USAID on...
Equal Pay for Equal Work
This year, I am one of six legislative assistants working at the RAC; of the six, four--including myself--are female, two are male. All of us have bachelor's degrees, and are, generally speaking, equally qualified and equally skilled. (I am, of...
Blog for Fair Pay!
Calling all bloggers and tweeters! April 28th will mark Equal Pay Day - the point in 2009 when the average woman's wages finally catch up with what the average man earned in 2008. And in an effort to raise our...
OMG, GYT 4 STDs!
GYT is a new campaign launched this week by MTV and Kaiser Family Foundation, in partnership with Planned Parenthood, to encourage teens and young adults to "Get Yourself Tested" for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The campaign comes at a time...
Celebrating Women
Yesterday was International Women's Day, a global celebration of the achievements of women.Thinking about what to say on this International Women's Day - in a year when economic instability across the world is creating a dire situation for many women...
Are Teens Getting the Message?
According to a recent report by the National Center for Health Statistics, the birthrate for American teenagers jumped 3 percent last year, a sharp reversal of previous trends. From 1991 to 2005, the birthrate for young women ages 15 to...
8 Reasons to be a Feminist
The Tygrrrr Express, a conservative blog recently added to The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles website, posted a blog on December 24th titled "Lighting Candles and Smacking Women: 2008 Hanukkah Style." (This particular post has been removed from The Jewish...
Fighting for Women's Rights in South Dakota
In South Dakota this November, voters will be asked for the second time since 2006 to outlaw almost all abortions. Initiative Measure 11 would prohibit abortions except in cases where the mother's life or health is at a substantial and...
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