The doors are open to everyone at Shabbat services held on the ground floor of this Nostrand Avenue building in Brooklyn. But, unlike most Orthodox spaces, here it’s the women who lead prayers. Men? They can sit in the back. “Men are welcome,” said Nechama Levy, 32, who organized the new prayer group. “But this…
A photo posted by The JWE (@thejwe) on Oct 18, 2015 at 9:06pm PDT I was surprised and saddened by Livia Levine’s recent article in the Sisterhood, “Can Haredi Women Learn to Lean In.” It is disappointing and disheartening that Haredi women in Israeli don’t see themselves as competent enough to be managers and surprising…
I teach management in a Haredi college for women in Jerusalem. I’m not myself Haredi and so I’m often surprised by the students’ knowledge base – sometimes they are much more aware of the “outside” world than I would expect (with knowledge of things like Abercrombie and Fitch’s discriminatory hiring policies) and at other times…
A poster for the group promoting haredi women political candidates, ‘Lo nivcharot; lo bocharot,’ which means, if we can’t be elected, we will not vote for you. There is a new feminist revolution happening in Israel, and it is emerging from one of the most surprising places: Ultra-Orthodoxy. Over the past two years, ultra-Orthodox or…
A New Jersey teenager was charged with multiple counts of bias intimidation after he allegedly tried to lure Orthodox women as part of a gang initiation. Police said Rafael Laurano-Flores, 18, of Lakewood had planned to touch and knock down an Orthodox Jewish woman in the southern New Jersey township, according to the Asbury Park…
Sunday’s inaugural graduation at Yeshivat Maharat was no ordinary cap and gown ceremony. Rather, it was history in the making for Orthodox women. As Ruth Balinsky Friedman, Rachel Kohl Finegold and Abby Brown Scheier prepared to become the first women to hold the title maharat in the Jewish community, faculty members of the school and…
When asked at a JOFA panel about the status of women in Israel and what can be done to protect women’s basic rights, I replied that I would first make it illegal for a political party that has no women on its list to run for the Knesset. Thankfully, I’m not alone in this sentiment….
This is the tenth and final post in “Feminist, Orthodox and Engaged,” a series by Simi Lampert on love, sex and betrothal in the life of a Modern Orthodox woman. The other day my fiancé said to me, likely in response to something ridiculous that I’d just blurted out, “Marriage is whoever you marry.” I…
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