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This month, we celebrate “40 Years of Women on the Bimah,” leading up the 40th anniversary of Rabbi Sally Priesand’s historic ordination as the first female rabbi in the United States. Through May,...
In 55 days, Americans across the country will go to their polling places and decide who will be the next President of the United States. Many people have deemed this November the most important...
Women working full-time year-round are paid only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts....
A month ago, I tempted you with a taste of current fiscal policy (warning: please read Sequestration Part 1 before this, or you will be very confused, not to mention less informed!).
The Reform Movement has strongly supported the right of women to have the access and ability to make their own reproductive health decisions.
We hear a lot these days about the war on women, about the slew of crucial issues affecting women and their health and rights. It’s hard to tell who’s “winning” this war – or if calling it a “war”...
Yesterday we read in Isaiah the famous line, “Is this not the fast I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?" ...
On November 5, a middle-aged woman walked up to her polling place in Rochester, New York. She entered the voting booth, and filled out her ballot indicating her preferred candidate. She dropped her...
Rabbi David Saperstein spoke yesterday at the Washington Times 30th anniversary symposium titled “Symposium on Values and Consequences,” where he was joined by Sister Dr. Deirdre Byrne (Little...
Yesterday four women were detained at the Western Wall, each for wearing a tallit. The authorities say they were disturbing the public peace according to regulation 201 A4 of the Israeli legal code...
Caution: Lots of learning contained in the post below; read at your own risk....
In response to Rush Limbaugh's comments that Georgetown University student and birth control advocate Sandra Fluke is a "slut" and "prostitute" as well as his follow up remarks that she (and oth...
Yesterday morning, Rabbi David Saperstein stood with other leaders from the Washington Interreligious Staff Community (WISC) at a press event launching the 2013 Faithful Budget. The Faithful Budget...
Recent weeks have brought the issues of birth control, health care, and other reproductive rights into the forefront of our country’s political debates. In the background of these debates is a...
I know I’ve already written here about the Violence Against Women Act: I’ve written that 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year; one in four women in the...
Our nation’s well-being depends on the smooth functioning of the judicial system and on the checks and balances it ensures as one of the three co-equal branches of government. Right now, the system...
At a recent Knesset hearing I attended about women being forbidden to speak on certain radio stations, the manager of one of the stations told us his solution for a woman’s voice on air. He said...
This post is part our weekly Get Out the Vote 2012 series, focusing on ways to promote civic engagement in your Jewish community and highlighting portions from the RAC’s Get Out the Vote 2012 guide...
I first fell in love with Washington, D.C., when I lived here for six weeks as part of the RAC’s Machon Kaplan College Internship Program. Now that I’ve lived here for nearly two years, I’ve...
Last week I asked you to support Christiane Amanpour covering gender segregation, and you did not disappoint. Thousands of you made it clear how important it is to cover this issue. This week, I...
As we were enjoying the long weekend at barbeques or on the beach, I’m sure that many of us also stopped to consider the sacrifices of our troops – both those who currently protect us across the...
As two recent college graduates with many friends who are unemployed or working as unpaid interns, we are all too familiar with bleak employment and financial prospects. It’s disheartening to know,...
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R), who has a history of restricting workers’ rights in his state and who is facing a recall election in two months, signed the repeal of the Equal Pay Enforcement...
Now that it is finally April 17, I can officially wish our women readers, "Happy New Year!" Why so late, you might ask? April 17 marks how far into 2012 a woman has to work to match what the...
Today I had the opportunity to attend a briefing at the White House titled “The Importance of the Violence Against Women Act.” The event was introduced by Lynn Rosenthal, the White House Advisor on...
Yesterday afternoon, the Senate passed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) with a 68-31 vote. This outcome of this vote proved that at least some issues of national...
Last Thursday, the Center for Disease Control released new data indicating that between 2006 and 2010, approximately 60% of sexually active teenagers ages 15 to 19 were using “highly effective...
Years ago, as an undergraduate at NYU, I was working on my senior honors thesis, “On the Ordination of Women as Rabbis.” It had been only 11 years since the first woman was ordained, but it was...
I experienced a profound moment of clarity Monday afternoon. Attending Reform Jewish Voice of New York State (RJV) Advocacy Day in Albany, I listened intently as Rabbi Linda Goodman of Union Temple...
Although the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act has historically been one of the least polarizing political issues since its introduction in 1994, the House and the Senate have found...
In response to Representative Rosa DeLauro's (D-CT) introduction of the United States Leadership to Eradicate Obstetric Fistula Act of 2012 and in light of the crisis that obstetric fistula poses...
Our Weekly Legislative Update is here to bring you the latest from Washington, DC on the issues facing Congress. This week, the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act is the talk of the...
Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to pass a version of the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization that prioritizes some victims over others and politicizes the safety and well-being...
Although the Senate passed a bipartisan version of VAWA last month that would extend protection from intimate partner violence to all victims regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity,...
When I was asked earlier this month if I might be interested in contributing a guest post to RACblog to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Rabbi Sally Priesand’s ordination as the first female...
The author of this post, Barbara Lerman-Golomb, is a member of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism.I never defined myself as a feminist. Then about 10 years ago I began writing a semi...
Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) has introduced the latest bill that would severely restrict women’s reproductive rights—and this one is targeted at D.C. women, even though the District of...
For the last 15 years my life has been devoted to social justice work, tikkun olam, an important tenet of Reform Judaism. There were so many women who played an important part in my life in the...
As we’ve written about before, the House and Senate are having difficulties reconciling their different visions for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)—which is...
Tomorrow, the Senate will have the opportunity to vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, a piece of legislation that would truly make a difference in the lives of women and families and bring theUnited...
This afternoon the Paycheck Fairness Act failed in the Senate with a vote of 52-47. This vote to proceed with consideration of the legislation was a chance to make real progress toward economic...
Tel Aviv is a city known for its beautiful beaches. Our beaches might look like many other Mediterranean countries, but there is something very unique about the beaches in Tel Aviv. We have one...
Last week, the New York Times published an article that corrects the established understanding of the science behind morning-after pills, which can be taken after sex to prevent pregnancy. FDA...
It’s hard to believe we’re already two weeks into the month of June, but I’d like to rewind for a bit and reflect on the beautiful guest posts we were able to feature here last month. Each month,...
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and others recently sued the Obama administration over the birth control insurance benefit, to my dismay and to that of many people of faith. Our...
As we get closer to hearing the Supreme Court’s decision about the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, we have been tirelessly working on one specific part of the ACA’s implementation:...
The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) today released a study on Rabbinic Compensation by Gender. The executive summary provided by the CCAR in many ways states the obvious: there is a ...
A the end of 2011, I wrote that the new strategy for anti-choice advocates is to roll back reproductive rights at the state level, allowing them to create real barriers to women’s health services...
It’s only Week 2 of the RAC’s Machon Kaplan Summer Social Action Internship Program, and already our participants have been blogging up a storm! You’ve seen their RACblog contributions on the...
On Friday, we celebrated 40 years of Title IX, a section of the Education Amendments of 1972 that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal...
