Emily Shire
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Starting The Debate On Zionism And Feminism
Emily Shire’s Twitter bio says it all — combining pride in Israel, feminism and femininity, too: “My high school yearbook quotes were of Golda Meir and Carrie Bradshaw.”
Shire, a 27-year-old law school student and contributor to the Forward, became a voice for young feminist Zionists when she published an essay in The New York Times passionately opposing those feminist activists who excluded Zionists from marches taking place on International Women’s Day.
“As a proud and outspoken feminist who champions reproductive rights, equal pay, increased female representation in all levels of government and policies to combat violence against women, I would like to feel there is a place for me in the strike,” she wrote. “However, as someone who is also a Zionist, I am not certain there is.”
Her argument sparked a storm on social media.
“It got way more attention than I expected,” she said. “It felt like a niche issue, but I was surprised that people seemed to care enough. Many American Jewish women are icons of the feminist movement, and we think it’s a space that we’re comfortable in, and that it should go hand in hand with Jewish values.”
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
