Jewish feminism
"[11] In 1854, Fanny Neuda wrote the first Jewish prayer book known to have been written by a woman for women, called Hours of Devotion; it was translated into English and published in the United States 12 years later.
[22] In 1976, the first women-only Passover seder was held in Esther M. Broner's New York City apartment and led by her, with 13 women attending, including Gloria Steinem, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Phyllis Chesler.
[30] Miriam's cup originated in the 1980s in a Boston Rosh Chodesh group; it was invented by Stephanie Loo, who filled it with mayim hayim (living waters) and used it in a feminist ceremony of guided meditation.
Rabbi Weiss had originally announced that graduates would be called "rabba", but when the Rabbinical Council of America threatened to oust him, he recanted and created the term maharat.
[46] In 2013 the Israeli Orthodox rabbinical organization Beit Hillel issued a halachic ruling which allows women, for the first time, to say the Kaddish prayer in memory of their deceased parents.
[56] In 2016 it was announced that Ephraim Mirvis created the job of ma'ayan by which women would be advisers on Jewish law in the area of family purity and as adult educators in Orthodox synagogues.
An article in Cross-currents criticizing advancing women's leadership writes that: "The entirety of traditional Jewish religious life, including its age-old ritual norms and societal norms, even if they lack formal codification, reflects Torah values, be they halachic or hashkafic; every aspect of our multi-millennia traditional religious communal modality is embedded in or predicated upon halachic or hashkafic axioms.
[66] In addition, during the 2013 municipal elections in Israel, three haredi women took an unprecedented step and ran for their local municipalities—Shira Gergi in Safed, Ruth Colian in Petach Tikva, and Racheli Ibenboim in Jerusalem.
In an article in YNet, Reider-Indorsky claimed that there is a strong feminist movement brewing in the haredi community, and asked non-haredi women to stay out of their own internal revolution.
[73] On 18 March 1922, the American rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan held the first public celebration of a bat mitzvah in the United States, for his daughter Judith, at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, his synagogue in New York City.
[84][85] In 1955, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative Judaism declared that women were eligible to chant the blessings before and after the reading of the Torah, a privilege called "Aliyah".
[22] Further, the late 1960s saw Bat Mitzvahs, a public coming of age ritual for Jewish girls, become widespread after Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative Jews allowed women to partake in and lead a congregation in prayer.
[86] In 1974, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards adopted a series of proposals that equalized men and women in all areas of ritual, including serving as prayer leaders.
Paula Hyman, a member of Ezrat Nashim, wrote: "We recognized that the subordinate status of women was linked to their exemption from positive time-bound mitzvot (commandments), and we therefore accepted increased obligation as the corollary of equality.
[105] In 1983, the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), the main educational institution of the Conservative movement, voted, without accompanying opinion, to ordain women as rabbis and as cantors.
[134] In 2013 the Israeli Orthodox rabbinical organization Beit Hillel issued a halachic ruling which allows women, for the first time, to say the Kaddish prayer in memory of their deceased parents.
Forming the basis for the discussion of women becoming soferim, Talmud Gittin 45b states: "Sifrei Torah, tefillin and mezuzot written by a heretic, a star-worshipper, a slave, a woman, a minor, a Cuthean, or an apostate Jew, are unfit for ritual use.
Because a decision to terminate a pregnancy carries serious, irreversible consequences, it is one to be made with great care and with keen awareness of the complex psychological, emotional, and ethical implications.
"[165] They also issued a statement in 2011 condemning the then-recent passage of the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" by the U.S. House of Representatives, which they called "a direct attack on a woman's right to choose".
[166] In 2012 they issued a resolution opposing conscience clauses that allow religious-affiliated institutions to be exempt from generally applicable requirements mandating reproductive healthcare services to individuals or employees.
[169] In 2006, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that women should be allowed to deliver eulogies and that the burial societies, or chevra kadisha, should not impose gender segregation in the cemetery.
However, in January 2011, a ruling of the Israeli High Court of Justice allowed the continuation of the gender segregation in public buses on a strictly voluntary basis for a one-year experimental period.
[171] In 2013 the Israeli Orthodox rabbinical organization Beit Hillel issued a halachic ruling which allows women, for the first time, to say the Kaddish prayer in memory of their deceased parents.
However, Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall, issued a statement saying in part, "In future, efforts will be made to ensure that this does not happen again, and the introduction of Torah scrolls will be banned for everyone—men and women.
[182] The latest in a series of RCA resolutions—" that since there is a significant agunah problem in America and throughout the Jewish world, no rabbi should officiate at a wedding where a proper prenuptial agreement on get has not been executed"—was passed on 18 May 2006.
In 1968, by a unanimous vote of the law committee, it was decided that the Joint Bet Din of the Conservative movement could annul marriages as a last resort, based on the Talmudic principle of hafka'at kiddushin.
According to Rabbi Mayer Rabinowitz, the Chairman of the Joint Bet Din of the Conservative Movement, just the threat of this action was sometimes enough to compel the former husband to grant a get.
This ruling stemmed from the Public Litigation Project initiated by the advocacy organization Center for Women's Justice as one of a number of successful lawsuits filed in Israeli civil courts claiming financial damages against recalcitrant husbands.
[188] In 2016, in a groundbreaking ruling, the Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court ordered a man jailed for thirty days for helping his son refuse to give his daughter-in-law a divorce for eleven years.
The Women's March had four co-chairs, Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Bob Bland, and Carmen Perez, who were called to resign due to their failure to denounce the leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, who had been known to be openly antisemitic, homophobic, and transphobic.
