Letter to the Editor: Sisterhood Column ‘Skip the Pink’ Missed the Point
On behalf of the American Zionist Movement, I write to express my disappointment in the blog post which appeared on The Forward’s blog, The Sisterhood, on March 17, titled “For Women’s History Month, Let’s Skip the Pink”
The Israeli Consulate in New York and the American Zionist Movement hosted an event last Wednesday evening celebrating women’s history month. The event “Feminisrael”, featured accomplished Israeli women who are in the US as part of Israel’s delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. It was moderated by a young American Muslim woman, who works for an Israeli hi-tech company. The audience, close to 200 people, included men and women, young and old, religious and secular, and by all accounts the program was exciting and well-received.
Invitations to the event were sent personally to several members of the Forward, and the event was streamed live through Facebook as well as on z-cast. As a result, any reporter could have listened to the panel without attending. We would have welcomed coverage of an event positively highlighting both Israel and women. Instead, the author chose to only criticize the color of the event flyer. Yes, the author did try to reach our office on Friday. Her call was returned, and she was invited to return the call at anytime before Shabbat and a mobile number was left. The call was not returned.
Whether pink is a good color for women’s events may be a legitimate question, but certainly not, I believe, a more important one than a discussion of the trials and challenges that the participants have overcome and why Israel seems to be such a great environment for the advancement of women.
If the writer is interested in the furthering of women’s causes, then using her status as a writer to cover the positive items as they come up would do more to support one another than to only focus on the color of promotional materials.
We at the American Zionist Movement are doing important work in the ongoing effort to connect American Jews to Israel. We invite Ms. Chernikoff to learn more, visit – and cover that.
Karen J. Rubinstein is the Executive Director of the American Zionist Movement.
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