Welcome to the Forward’s Jewish News coverage about feminism and womens issues.
Feminism
The Latest
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Life Back-Room Rabbinical Court Deal Bars Women
For the first time in 12 years there is no woman on the committee responsible for appointing judges to Israel’s rabbinical courts, after the Israel Bar Association failed to elect a woman as its members’ representative. This is being viewed as a tremendous blow to promoting the rights of women who must face these courts…
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Life Blu Greenberg Q&A: Not Enough Change
In 1997, Blu Greenberg chaired the first International Conference on Feminism & Orthodoxy. About 400 attendees were expected and more than 1,000 showed up, hungry for a community of other women committed to both traditional Jewish life and their own religious potential. The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, which was born of that first gathering and…
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Life Looking Past Fashion for Social Messages
While my son’s religious yeshiva recently invited mothers to an evening of mother-son learning, my daughters’ mixed-gender school decided to hold an event for women that revolves around “styling.” The flier reads: “Dear community chaverot (meaning either female members or female friends), you are invited to a unique evening on the subject of ‘Style Together’…
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Life Katie Roiphe Gets (Part of) it Right
Katie Roiphe’s call in the New York Times for more tolerance for risqué behavior and dirty jokes at work inspired a pretty unanimous dismissal in the feminist blogosphere. (DoubleX, Jezebel, Pandagon, Feminisiting, and here on the Sisterhood.) In her piece, Roiphe declares that our limited tolerance for the capacious concept of sexual harassment, which could…
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Life Torah Study Devalued When We Bribe Our Kids
Why do we need to tell our kids that they can’t do important things for their own sake, but only to get some kind of reward? The notion of manicures for middle school girls in a Jewish school disturbs me on a variety of levels. Since Elana Sztokman wrote so well about why they are…
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Life Ms. Magazine’s Legacy: Q&A with Abigail Pogrebin
New York Magazine’s cover story this week is an oral history of Ms. Magazine in honor of the 40th anniversary of its first issue. The article is written by journalist Abigail Pogrebin, the 46-year-old daughter of Letty Cottin Pogrebin, one of the founding editors of the magazine, which was the first exclusively written and published…
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Life Israeli Feminist Pioneer: Q&A With Alice Shalvi
Alice Shalvi, 85, is one of Israeli feminism’s founding mothers. She has been a Hebrew University faculty member, head of the modern Orthodox girl’s school Pelech, co-founder of the Israel Women’s Network, and recipient of dozens of awards and honorary degrees. In 2007, she was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for lifetime achievement and contributions…
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Music ‘Wild Flag’ Jewesses Keep Rockin’ Hard
I recently went down to the Bowery Ballroom to see the rock band Wild Flag perform. They’re a fairly new all-female rock group consisting of two of Sleater-Kinney’s Jewish former members, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss, and two other pioneering female rockers, Rebecca Cole and Mary Timony. I’d been listening to their new album, “Wild…
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