Got a long, impressive beard and the keys to a once respectable Rabbinical institution whose founding father has passed away? Have no conscience, and no marketable skills? Boy, have I got a business for you. It’s called the […]
On Thursday, the Fast of Esther, religious women gathered outside Maasiyahu prison to make a point: Every Jewish woman who marries according the present halachic ceremony acceptable in Orthodox Judaism is a potential prisoner. The current state of […]
I once read a book by a Western doctor who did his obstetrics residency in Algeria. The place had no equipment. No medicine. Not even educated staff. In the end, he concluded that it was ” just a […]
With the beginning of a New Year, I thought I would bring you up to date on some of the lives I brought to your attention through these columns. Every one of them became part of my life, […]
On September 12-13, I had the great privilege of being invited to speak at a Symposium on Women Victims of Fundamentalism and Domestic Violence, held under the auspices of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. Twenty countries […]
In 1911, Lady Musgrave, President of the East Grinstead branch of the Anti-Suffragette League said she was strongly against the vote being extended to women. “Put not this additional burden upon us,” she pleaded, as “women were not […]
When G-d parted the Red Sea and let the Hebrews pass, the Torah tells us that Miriam, Moses’ sister, took up her tambourine and led all the women in dancing and song in praise of His holy name. […]
When Joseph slandered his brothers, the commentators tell us, he didn’t lie. He just told the truth with an evil intent. Rabbi Moshe Morgenstern, head of a special court that has been freeing agunot (women chained to husbands […]
Two thousand years ago, when exploitive merchants extorted women by raising the cost of the Temple offerings women were required to bring after giving birth, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, Nasi Israel and its highest Rabbinic authority said: “I […]