JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The president of a religious feminist organization apologized in a video Wednesday for silencing victims of a former president of the group who has been accused of sexual harassment. Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, a nonprofit that has led the charge for empowering women in Orthodox Judaism, was implicated when two former executive directors said that…
A few days after the story of sexual harassment and emotional abuse that former colleagues and I endured became public, something truly tragic happened: My dear friend Miriam Isserow suddenly died. Miriam was brilliant, funny, irreverent, indefatigable and fiercely dedicated to justice and compassion for victims of abuse. She easily saw through politics, ego and…
Updated April 13, 9:15 p.m ET with statements from Sharon Weiss-Greenberg. Multiple claims of harassment have emerged against a pioneering figure of women’s empowerment from former employees of the organization she helped found. Bat Sheva Marcus, a renowned sex therapist who was the president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, was accused in scathing Facebook…
Across the spectrum of Orthodoxy, some women are “checking out.” Whatever the baseline of a given community, from the most conservative to the most “open,” there are some women who want more: For some, this might mean that they wish their education had enabled them to help their young sons with Torah homework, while others…
A follow-up to an essay published last week, “Do Pluralistic Jewish Organizations Stop At The Orthodox?” A few months ago, I attended a lecture by an acclaimed academic, an Orthodox Jewish female leader. She recounted a story: Highly credentialed with degrees from Ivy League institutions, she was invited to be on a panel discussion at…
When I was a little girl, my father always led the shacharit (morning service) on the High Holidays. The tunes permeated our house, beginning whenever he decided the season should. Sometimes he started ‘practicing’ as early as Purim. He knew it all nearly by heart, and even as a young child, I sensed that he…
Meet Michal Kohane, the latest Maharat-in-training to be offered a pulpit in the Modern Orthodox Prospect Heights Shul in the heart of brownstone Brooklyn. Kohane was recently announced as the new “Rosh Kehila,” head of the community, by the community rabbi Ysoscher Katz. Born and raised in Israel, Kohane has had a leading role in…
I never did like the name “Open Orthodoxy”. It doesn’t take a Talmudic genius to see its not-so-subtle insinuation, that the rest of the Orthodox world is somehow…“closed.” Closed, though, to what? To beliefs at variance with those of the Judaism of the ages? Well, yes, that’s the definition of Orthodoxy. Closed to innovations rejected…
