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Rooted and Stretching

Editor's Note: This piece is excerpted from Rabbi Abrahmson's keynote address at the 2013 WRJ Fried Leadership Conference. by Rabbi B. Elka Abrahamson It has been a remarkable week for women. On Monday, the women's restrooms in the United States Capitol happily boasted a line, thanks to the record-smashing 94 female House members needing to use it. In like fashion, 26 women will join Israel’s new parliament, a record-setting increase from 21 in the 18th Knesset. Among the new members, Pnina Tamano-Shata, Israel's first female Ethiopian elected to Knesset and also Ruth Calderon, who established Alma, an egalitarian, liberal yeshiva in Tel Aviv. On Tuesday, we marked the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision to protect women's reproductive rights. Though these rights continue to be challenged, 40 years - a number of note within Jewish tradition - reminds us to recommit to women's health and to accessible birth control for all women who make that choice. Of far less significance but more discussed this week, Michelle Obama cut her bangs (a cut deemed insufficient by Republicans critics), and she appeared in a ball gown designed by, if you can believe the audacity of the woman, Jason Wu, the same guy she wore four years ago. My favorite commentary was by a CNN female reporter who remarked, "Perhaps she just likes the dress."

Role of Sisterhood in My Congregation/My Personal Journey

By Rosanne M. Selfon Congregation Shaarai Shomayim in Lancaster, PA, has been my Jewish home almost since the day I was born. When my husband David and I returned to Lancaster in 1974, there was no doubt we would join a synagogue (YES! There are Jews in Lancaster which is the 4th oldest Jewish congregation in constant use in the United States). Growing up, David had had a less than stellar relationship with his Orthodox congregation so joining my Reform temple was a non-issue. We jumped into temple life immediately. Sisterhood welcomed me warmly. My first position was chair of public relations; one year later, I became a vice-president. In 1976, I became sisterhood president with a four year old, a three month old, a career-building husband and a dog. Those were the days when 150 women attended luncheons, only daytime programming existed, and every woman in our congregation supported sisterhood. Social activities, holiday celebrations and almost all fundraising were within sisterhood’s domain. I loved instituting new projects. Help was plentiful; you simply had to ask. Our sisterhood, which predated NFTS, was a successful organization that met the needs of many women.

4 Voices on the 40th: Roe v. Wade Anniversary

By Connie Kreshtool As I look forward to the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision I recall the relief that I experienced when the Supreme Court announced its decision.  I represented the Women of Reform Judaism on the Board of Directors of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (now Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice). After the decision was handed down I joined several RCAR board members in a press conference aired nationwide by CBS to celebrate this victory.  For years prior to the ruling we had been speaking out as people of faith that every woman should have the right to an abortion in this land of religious and individual freedom.  With the Supreme Court decision we looked forward to an era when women would be free to choose an abortion if necessary for her physical or mental health.

Voices for WRJ: Parashat B’shalach

by Rabbi Avi Schulman The Torah depicts the extreme peril our ancestors faced when they left Egypt. Gathered at the shores of the Sea of Reeds with Pharaoh’s army bearing down on them, God performed a miracle by splitting the sea in two. The Israelites crossed over on dry land and then saw their foes drown as the waters crashed over Pharaoh’s warriors.
Voices of WRJ

4 Voices on the 40th: Roe v. Wade Anniversary

By Rabbi Shira Stern and Rabbi Donald A. Weber In late 1983, we were overjoyed to learn that we were pregnant with our first child. That joy lasted until our four-month checkup, when our obstetrician met us with “that look.” What followed were blood tests, amniocentesis, and finally a high-resolution sonogram which showed that our baby’s internal organs were growing on the outside of her body, and there appeared to be no brain growth at all.

4 Voices on the 40th: Roe v. Wade Anniversary

By Rachel Laser, Deputy Director of the Religious Action Center A few years ago, I made myself a scrapbook of key documents I had saved from my past. The second page is an article that my mother wrote for WOMANKIND, published by the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union in October 1971, entitled “…and Jill came tumbling after.”  I was two years old and I was Jill. The piece tells the story of my mother’s experience with sexism in raising boy/girl twins, including the sexist feelings she and my father had to resist. As a child of progressive Jewish parents in this era, the most significant moral lesson I marched for and learned throughout my childhood was the idea that women are equal to men.

4 Voices on the 40th: Roe v. Wade Anniversary

By Lindsey Oren, Age 15 As women, it is both our biological duty and right to be the mediators between society and our bodies. In a world where the ideals and thoughts of true beauty are far from true and forever changing, it is imperative that we remain in control ourselves. Yet acquiring and maintaining such control is a struggle; a struggle, a storm through which we, as a gender, have battled. Against the wind of others’ voices, those who feel they are brimming with a knowledge which they in reality entirely lack. Against the rain of others’ tears, using emotion alone to fuel their fire. Against the clouds of thought that fogs the minds of those both near and far, embossing that which should in truth be suppressed.

Roe v. What?

Sarah Krinsky

For someone in her early 20s, forty years ago feels like a different era. After all, it was a time before cell phones, before laptops, before Twitter and Facebook. Did such a world even exist, I sometimes find myself wondering?

Apparently, I’m not alone in my lack of concern for or even knowledge of the world of the 1970s. A recent poll found that among those under the age of 30, only 44% know that Roe v. Wade, the landmark court case, even dealt with abortion. This is not to say that when questioned, “millenials” (those ages 18-29) disagree with Roe’s legalization of abortion – 68% of us think that at least some health care professionals should provide legal abortions, and an overwhelming 60% think that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. However, our striking lack of knowledge about our past can be dangerous for as Jews keenly understand, not forgetting the past is essential to the maintenance of justice and progress in the present.

Contemporary Reflection on Parashat B’Shalach

By Patricia Karlan-Newmann

In every generation, Jews have understood the significance of the Torah in their lives. We have studied, written, and taught about the meaning of Torah and its relevance to contemporary circumstances. With the publication of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary in 2007, the teachings of women scholars and Jewish professionals on the significance of Torah in their lives is now available in a scholarly compendium. The “Contemporary Reflections” section in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, “enable us to hear women’s voices that reckon with divine revelation… each essay shows the significance of Torah as a record of God’s revelation to Israel: it is a repository of Jewish memory, however incomplete, from which we, as individuals and as members of contemporary Jewish communities, can attempt to hear and understand the voice of God.” (Ellen Umansky, “Women and Contemporary Reflection,” The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, page ix)

Today’s Ten Minutes of Torah is excerpted from The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, pages 402-403.

There are moments that define us: unexpected or unplanned moments when the decisions we make, the actions we take, determine all that will follow. Crossroads come disguised in many forms. Many are unmarked, without a hint of what is ahead.
Torah Study