Elana Sztokman
By Elana Sztokman
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Life How Badly Do Women Want To Be Married? New Research Challenges Talmudic View
How badly do women want to be married? This is a question that has been asked from the Talmud to The New York Times, and the answers can be counterintuitive. Tav l’metav tan du m’lmetav armelu. “It’s better to lie with another body than to lie as a widow.” (Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 7a) This Talmudic…
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Life Danger in Doubting Women’s Tales of Sexual Assault
A 27-year old woman from Pardes Hanna committed suicide after the police released the prime suspect in her rape. The suspect is a former police officer in the Hadera police station in Israel — the very same station where the woman went to complain. In other words, the man was believed and let go by…
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Life Jewish Feminists Take on the RCA
In a bold and passionate move, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) has sent two letters to the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), a leading Orthodox rabbinic organization, in an attempt to advance women’s leadership roles in synagogues and communities. One of the letters reads: As the major rabbinic arm in the Orthodox world, the…
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Life On ‘CSI,’ Evidence of Feminism’s Unfinished Work
The scene is riveting: The body of a murdered woman has been discovered in the middle of the city. Throngs of professional men and women — detectives, crime scene investigators, and the coroner — scurry around collecting evidence, analyzing the circumstances of the crime, and comparing theories. Then, someone discovers the victim’s handbag. “Oh, this…
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Life Religious Girls’ School Fails To Integrate Ashkenazic and Sephardic Students
A religious girls’ school in the Israeli town of Emmanuel — a school that first made headlines in 2008 when it was discovered that Sephardic students were separated from Ashkenazic students both in and out of the classroom — is back in the news. Though its ethnic segregation was declared illegal by the Supreme Court,…
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Life For the First Time, a Woman Is Named JNF’s Head Forest Ranger
The history of modern Israel can arguably be told through its trees. Forested landmarks mark battles, settlements, roads and monuments, each of which has a piece of the narrative that together weaves the story of the Jewish people in the modern era. Trees are also swamped in the history of the Jewish collective, with forested…
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Life Why Jewish Women Are Wearing Burqas
Fundamentalist Muslim women and fundamentalist Jewish women have a lot in common. Both groups live under the forced rules of ancient, male-controlled religious legal systems that place extreme emphasis on women’s body cover as the supreme symbol of righteousness and community purity. In conversations I have had with Muslim feminists over the years, the similarities…
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Life My Son, the Babysitter?
There are moments when I feel bad for boys. Like every time my son tries to get a babysitting job. The scene is almost always the same. A parent — almost always a mother — calls up to ask my oldest daughter to babysit. My daughter, in age-appropriate behavior for a 17-year old, will often…
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