Our Social Justice
By Molly Dillon, 6/08/2020
From 2013 until 2017, I was honored to serve as a political appointee in President Obama’s White House. In my role in the Domestic Policy Council’s Office of Urban Affairs, Justice, and Opportunity, I entered the White House gates each morning with the responsibility of expanding and protecting the civil rights of all people in our country. On any given day, we could have been working to coordinate better services for LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness, expand access to voting rights, reform the criminal justice system, and close the pay gap for women--just to name a few. In... Read More
By Ally Karpel, 5/05/2020
Tomorrow, May 6, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Trump v. Pennsylvania/Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, two consolidated cases challenging the Department of Health and Human Services October 2017 rules that drastically expanded employers and universities’ ability to claim a religious or moral exemption from the contraceptive coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act. This is the third time that challenges to the birth control benefit have reached the Supreme Court. The ACA requires insurance plans to cover all FDA-... Read More
By Ally Karpel, 1/06/2020
Growing up in Texas, the summer of 2013 was a monumental time to be inspired by the power of women’s voices. A high school student at the time, I remember eagerly following along that June as State Senator Wendy Davis stood firm in her iconic pink running shoes as she filibustered a highly-restrictive abortion bill for 11 hours straight. The bill sought to impose some of the harshest targeted regulation of abortion providers (TRAP) laws in the country, including a requirement that abortion clinics meet the same standards that hospital-style surgical centers do, and a mandate that... Read More
By Ally Karpel, 12/03/2019
In the spring of 2019, an alarming surge in anti-abortion legislation took place in state legislatures across the U.S. Nine states enacted gestational age bans on abortion, many as early as 6 weeks -- before most individuals even know they are pregnant. Fortunately, all bans have been blocked by federal judges from taking effect for the time being. Four states adopted legislation that would ban abortion immediately in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade, joining eight other states that already had so-called “... Read More
By Katie Wysong, 10/30/2019
Thirty years ago, Congress first officially designated October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Domestic and sexual violence cut across lines of class, race, nationality, gender identity, and sexual orientation - and the Jewish community is not immune. We care about the issue of domestic violence not only because it effects our community, but also because our tradition teaches us to. Domestic violence violates the Jewish belief in kavod ha’briyot, the fundamental dignity of every individual, and is an abhorrent violation of the sanctity and wholeness of the body and health... Read More
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