Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is the scholar in residence at National Council of Jewish Women. Her most recent book, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World, was both a National Jewish Book Award winner and an American Library Association Honor Book. She writes a weekly newsletter.
It turns out that when you enroll a kid on a tourist visa in the first grade in Jerusalem, the Ministry of Education doesn’t like it very much. We had come for a sabbatical year; my husband, Nir, is Israeli, so this was home for him, both for family and a lot of his work…
On Monday, Dr. Ruth Westheimer appeared on the “Diane Rehm Show” and made what have already become widely circulated remarks suggesting that, once a couple is naked and in bed together, consent is considered already granted and irrevocable: “I am very worried about college campuses saying that a woman and a man… can be in…
The Black Lives Matter movement that has erupted in the past few months in response to the killing of unarmed African-Americans — the most well-known of whom are Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice — has struck a deep chord with Americans of all races and backgrounds. As the protests continue, more and more…
Illustration by Kurt Hoffman Yesterday, prominent Modern Orthodox Rabbi Barry Freundel was arrested on charges of voyeurism. The police report obtained by the media indicates that he had used cameras to record women showering as they prepared to use the mikveh. Freundel should, and will, have his say in court. These charges are serious, though,…
The first days of school are, once again, upon us. Teachers, parents and students alike are thinking about school supplies, those first lessons, the new routine. But for some students — especially female students in junior high and high school — and those who work with them, attention has also, once again, turned to the…
Does a woman need to give up friendships with members of the opposite sex when she marries a man? For Rabbi Rachel Miller Solomin, the answer is yes. In a piece for Tablet, she writes about the decision to write a friend — a Catholic priest with whom she said explicitly she would never have…
This is the fifteenth entry in an ongoing series exploring Jewish feminism. I’m a Jewish feminist for a lot of reasons. On the one hand, given that feminism is about removing external hindrances to the project of everyone living out their highest, holiest, Divinely-given potential —why wouldn’t I be? There’s still plenty of homophobia, transphobia…
Rabbi Steven Wernick, the new head of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, has made it clear that one of his priorities for the organization is outreach to Jews in their 20s and early 30s. As Conservative Jews gather for the USCJ’s biennial in Cherry Hill, N.J., December 6 — the first of Wernick’s tenure…
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