Jewfem Blog

Image: Youtube Screen Capture (Read the rest at The Forward)Over the past week, two men heading religious institutions in Israel have been added to the notorious roster of suspected sex predators in the religious Jewish world. Rabbi Ezra Scheinberg was caught by police two weeks ago at Ben Gurion airport trying to avoid arrest on charges of rape, sexual harassment and indecent assault. Ten women have come forward so far and the police expect more complaints now that the court lifted the ban on releasing his name. According to the complaints, Scheinberg would rape women who came to him for spiritual counseling, and told the women it was part of their healing treatment. The police conducted a search of his house and removed computers, cell phones and other equipment.   Scheinberg, the 47-year-old founding head of Orot Ha’ari yeshiva in Safed, is considered a leading religious Zionist kabbalist and was known for his mystical “blessings” and abilities to “see” into people’s souls. He was considered a protégé of the late chief rabbi Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, father of Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the current chief rabbi of Safed. Eliyahu has since disassociated himself from Scheinberg, and ordered him to leave Safed and resign from his yeshivah post. Judge Uri Shoham allowed the publication of the rabbi’s name in order to “encourage other complainants, who have requested not to expose themselves until now, to testify about what the suspect did to theme. There is also room to warn the public against him.”   According to police reports, Scheinberg, who is married and has eight children, had a confrontation with one of his accusers earlier this week, in which he said the sex was consensual. The woman in turn called him “impure.” The woman wrote in a letter to Scheinberg , “Thank God I am free of you…Thanks to your arrest, we can lift our heads again…We know you’re the evil one and we are fine, that you are twisted and we are straight, you are impure and abominable and we are the victims…After all these years of your intimidations, we are no longer scared. Your scare-tactics no longer work on us….If you had one drop of integrity of justice, of truth you would ask for our forgiveness. But your heart was always made of stone” Although Orot Ha’Ari students originally responded with shock, they no longer seem to be backing their former rabbi. His books have been thrown in a big trash can, and staff are calling him “an abomination”. . One of his former students wrote a scathing testimony accusing Scheinberg of being “an actor who fooled us all,” a rabbi who was never around the study halls of the yeshivah, and about whom “nobody could tell you what he did with his free time–and he had a lot of free time.” The student added that nevertheless, “he knew how to present the image of the highest tzaddik [righteous man].”   The most significant backtrack is of Safed Chief Rabbi Eliyahu, who went from being Scheinberg’s top ally to his greatest detractor. “The rabbi...

There was a sense of subdued determination among the 450 people swarming the halls of the Wohl Conference Center at Bar Ilan University during this year’s Kolech conference. Some of the attendees had been coming to Kolech conferences for years, while others had not been born when Kolech, Israel’s premiere religious feminist organization, was established in 1998. Still other Orthodox feminists told The Times of Israel they did not attend the July 13 event because it was no longer necessary for them to be there. However, judging by the range of topics covered, the unapologetic perseverance driving Orthodox feminism today leaves no stone unturned and no stained-glass ceiling unshattered. The lives of Orthodox Jewish women have changed dramatically in a relatively short period of time. Just six years ago, no Orthodox women had received rabbinic ordination, only a handful of “partnership minyanim” (Orthodox synagogues that promote women’s inclusion) existed in Israel, sexual abuse was still largely swept under the rug, and Jewish lesbians were still a small and mostly unseen community. In fact, at the 2009 conference, participants were surveyed about what title they would theoretically give a woman rabbi – rabbanit, rabba, and “important woman” were all on the list. The title of “maharat” had not yet been invented: Back then, it was all still hypothetical. READ the rest at Times of Israel

"Elana Sztokman is one of the most proactive Jewish feminist thinkers on the scene today. An award-winning author of three books on gender equality in the Jewish world, a PhD in sociology and a former executive director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Association (JOFA), Dr. Sztokman seeks the edge. This past spring, she inaugurated a course, Dynamics of Jewish Feminism, via webinar for a worldwide reach. Judith Plaskow, Rachel Adler, Blu Greenberg and Letty Pogrebin were among the more than 30 distinguished panelists over the course of 8 weeks. Energized by the response,Szotkman has now embarked on a second course, DESIRE: Sex, Judaism and Feminism . Susan Reimer-Torn interviews her for the Sisterhood. "Susan Reimer-Torn: What made you decide to offer a webinar on Sex and Desire?Elana Sztokman: I realized that almost all our feminist conversation lead to sex. We manage to dance around the issue. We do talk about slut-shaming, for example, or excessive modesty demands. But what are those really about if not owning women’s sexuality? Girls’ and women’s sexuality are some kind of communal property that needs to be purely maintained. When we talk about inequality in marriage and divorce and the agunah issue, it all comes down to cultural practices that see a woman as the property of a man — with all that entails. Talking about our own desires explodes that basic assumption. It lets women take back ownership of our sexuality, ownership of our bodies." Read more: http://forward.com/sisterhood/311669/desire-sex-judaism-and-feminism/#ixzz3gK6347Rv

"Help! Our 'Half-Jewish' Daughter is Becoming Frum "Both my wife and I are half-Jewish, and raised our kids as mostly cultural Jews. For the record, our kids are technically Jewish because my wife’s mother was Jewish. This past year while away at college, one of our daughters became increasingly drawn into the Chabad and has told us that she wants to both keep kosher and observe Shabbat this summer and plans on studying in Israel next spring. "We want to support her in wherever her heart and mind goes and are excited to learn from her. But we are also aware of the second-tier status of women in certain Orthodox sects, including the Chabad, and are worried this particular path into Judaism might get in the way of her ambitions. Seesaw, how do you suggest approaching her about this? We suspect this might be a crucial moment and want to get it right. Elana Maryles Sztokman writes:  "Help Her Rememeber Her Old Self Too "There are many beautiful aspects of Orthodoxy, and of Chabad, that can be very attractive to young people coming from non-Orthodox backgrounds. The richness of traditional practices, the seeming tranquility of Shabbat meals, the communal singing, and the escape from secular pressures around material culture and body. All of these can be very alluring, especially to a 20-year-old forging a vision of her own life. The problem is that the allure itself can be entrapping. Orthodox language, especially language aimed at convincing non-practicing Jews to embrace Orthodoxy, is often absolute and black and white. The lifestyle is often presented (especially in places like Chabad) as an all-or-nothing endeavor. And the demands to keep the most extreme formulations of religion are often engulfed in a combination of super-suave marketing and God-pressure. As in, “God has asked this of you, and even though it looks strange it will give you the greatest high.” So to speak.This pressure is especially felt with women, who often go from surfing on the beach or having creative career ambitions to putting on long skirts and scarves and giving up all former iterations of the self in favor of frenetic motherhood. Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/spirituality/310436/help-her-rememeber-her-old-self-too/#ixzz3gK8azoNr

  Your intimate partner will love you for it….You will get some great ideas about how to communicate more effectively in the bedroomYou will benefit from personal connections with some of the best sex therapistsYou’ve really wanted to talk about some of these topics for a long time and haven’t had a space to do it – this is it!You can ask all your questions in a safe, closed, private, online environment where you share only what you want to share about yourselfTaking this course can be a romantic date-night with your partner!If you’re having sexual issues or problems or pains (emotional or physical), this is your chance to learn moreBecause sexual power and health is a feminist issueYou are ready to start living more fully and open the doors that often remained closed.Because you know you want to! Sign up here http://www.jewfem.com/telecourse/brand-new-telecourse-from-jewfem-com Questions? FAQ here Or contact Elana directly This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

A few months ago, I was at a conference on Jewish feminism at Bnai Jeshurun in Manhattan, speaking on a panel about visions for the future. We talked about a lot of typical feminist issues – gender wage gaps, women’s leadership, sexist cultures – and it was all interesting and important. But right before the panel was about to end, the panelist to my left, an impressive woman named Rachel Tiven, asked for the microphone one last time. “I promised my friend I wouldn’t lose my nerve to say this,” she said. “So here goes: If you want to do something really feminist, go home and have sex. Have lots of great sex with the person or people of your choosing. That is what feminist liberation is about.” This comment took everyone by surprise. But the sort-of nervous laughter was an indication not only of shocked awkwardness but also of the strange place that sex has in our society, all around us in commercialized forms but nowhere comfortable for real, serious engagement. The more her words echoed inside of me, the more I realized how right she is. We don’t really talk about what good sex is, what healthy sexuality is, about our deepest desires. And for many people, especially women, that often translates into a kind of trap, of feeling caged in to a life in which our desires and our sensualities never really see the light of day. We never really free our sexuality. A lot of this has to do with sexism, and with lingering messages about what makes correct womanhood. So much of sexism and patriarchy in Judaism is about how society owns women’s sexuality. The ubiquitous discussions about modesty, for example, which have morphed into a society-wide obsession with women’s clothing choices and an astonishing spread of slut-shaming practices even in secular schools, is a reminder that women’s sexuality is still considered communal property. The idea that anyone with authority can take it upon himself or herself to police women’s and girls’ bodies, at proms or in bus ads, remains frighteningly persistent. Practices of gender segregation, which are couched in language of “modesty”, also turn women’s bodies into objects of sexual gaze rather than women’s own personal flesh, the tool with which we live our lives and breathe and love and feel.   Read the rest at Jewrotica  

  Image: Yeshivat Maharat The past two weeks have been historic for Jewish women. Orthodox women in both Israel and New York were ordained as clergy – although with a variety of titles from Maharat to Rabba to Rabbi, but effectively all as rabbis. While Yeshivat Maharat is now the veteran institution with five years of experience at this, Yeshivat Har’el appears more liberal in calling women “rabbi” or “rabba.” Israeli Orthodoxy thus effectively caught up with and then surpassed American Orthodoxy, creating a bizarre and beautiful historic twist in which organizations seem to racing against one another to demonstrate the greatest commitment to women’s advancement in religious Judaism. The advancement of Orthodox women is part of a historical narrative around women’s leadership in the Jewish world. All the denominations have roots in the conception of Jewish leadership as exclusive men’s clubs. The fight for women’s inclusion in the rabbinate began in earnest with the feminist movement of the 1960s – although in reality it began much earlier. The first Reform woman rabbi, Sally Preisand, was ordained in 1972. The first woman Reconstructionist rabbi, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, was ordained in 1974. The first Conservative woman rabbi, Amy Ellberg, was ordained in 1985. The first woman rabbi in Israel, Naamah Kelman, was ordained in 1992. Three women received private ordination from Orthodox rabbis before Yeshivat Maharat opened: Mimi Feigelson in 1994, Evelyn Goodman-Tau in 2000 and Haviva Ner-David in 2004. The ascent of women has been slow but gradual – and nevertheless invigorating. There are few areas of the Jewish feminist movement that can show such clear markers of impact as the struggle for women’s rabbinic leadership. Even if the struggle is far from over – with high-status positions still male-dominated, and issues of equal pay, work-life balance, LGBT inclusion, and others still painfully unresolved – the fact that women have gained titles is extremely significant. Titles are a vital step to being seen, heard and respected, which are vital for women to be included as leaders. Actually, though, the story of women’s rabbinic leadership begins earlier than third wave feminism. The very first woman rabbi, Regina Jonas, was ordained in Germany in 1935. And the truth is, Jewish history is replete with women who served as rabbis – informally and without being ordained – before denominational divides had fully taken over Jewish life. Chana Rochel Wernermacher became “rebbe” of Ludmir (1805-1888). Pearl Shapiro, the daughter of the Maggid of Koznitz, prayed with tallit and tefillin, and held court like any other rebbe (1768-1848). Merish daughter of Eliezer of Lizhensk, served as a rebbe in her community, as did Freida and Devora Leah, the daughters of Rabbi Shneir Zalman Liadi, the founder of the Chabad movement. Gershon Winkler’s beautiful book, “They Called her Rebbe: The Maiden of Ludomir,” has an extensive compilation of women in the shtetls of Europe who served as rabbis. Women have often served as leaders, just without recognition and without systematic impact on women’s lives. Remembering the history of women’s struggles for...

From Suzannah Weiss:......I also know women who can testify to the effects of the opposite approach. “The so-called protectiveness can be really detrimental,” Dr. Elana Maryles Sztokman — who describes herself as “a recovering daughter of a control-freak father” — told me.   It instills a complete lack of trust, teaches the daughter that she can’t rely on herself, cannot trust herself, cannot handle herself, that the world is scary for her because she’s a woman but it’s not scary for men, that she will always need him and will never be independent nor should she ever want to be.Read more at Bustle here http://www.bustle.com/articles/85104-are-overprotective-fathers-cute-or-controlling-why-overprotection-actually-harms-young-women?utm_source=FBOnsite&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=1

By Amanda Borschel-Dan in Times of Israel: Author Elana Sztokman, the former head of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, published op-eds railing against widespread belittling of Freundel’s abuse as “just voyeurism” during his sentencing. ‘The rabbi is saying, “I own you, I am consuming you with my eyes”‘ “When we think about clergy acting out sexual abuse, we’re looking at a pattern of men… who need to assert their power over others, be more powerful, use their subjects, our kids, as objects in their sort of need to assert power,” she said in a conversation from her Israel home this week. “Voyeurism is a huge emotional violation, but sometimes we don’t have the language to talk about it. There is no violence, no touch, but really the essence of sexual abuse is the ultimate manipulation of power and control. The rabbi is saying, ‘I own you, I am consuming you with my eyes,'” said Sztokman.   Read the rest here: http://www.timesofisrael.com/why-more-reports-of-rabbinic-sex-abuse-are-a-good-thing/

  I haven’t written in a while about the war on women in Israel, but that’s not for lack of news. Unfortunately, this week alone has seen a whole bunch of new fronts against women. Here is a quick round-up: [Links are in blue] Exclusion of female paramedics. Tenth grade girls completing their mandatory volunteer service with the Magen David Adom emergency services in Ramat Gan were forced to go home or remain inside the office because a few religious ambulance drivers refused to allow them to ride with them in their ambulances. This was the culmination of a gradual build-up of exclusion. First they were given fewer shifts than the boys. Then they were asked to stop their activities in the middle of a shift and do office work or go home. Apparently male ambulance drivers were not willing to ride with girls in the vehicle, citing religious observance. It is worth noting that the men are not “ultra-Orthodox” but religious Zionist, illustrating the spread of the war on women to places that used to be considered “moderate”.“Unity Day” excludes girls.  The commemoration of “Unity Day” to mark the anniversary of the murder of three boys last year included events where girls were forbidden from singing. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Makor Haim high school in Kibbutz Kfar Etzion specifically requested that no girls be allowed to sing at the event, which took place at the Dror high school in the Lev Hasharon region. The school apparently also insisted that the dialogue circles taking place between the students be separated by gender. So much for a vision of unity – unity among males, perhaps. This is not the first time that calls for so-called unity applied to men and boys only. Religious women are often told to subsume their own ideas and concerns for the sake of “unity” or “community coherence”. I wrote about this at length in my first book, “The Men’s Section”, about the many ways that opponents of women’s advancement cite “community coherence” or “unity” as a justification for excluding women. Even former Education Minister Shai Piron, who was a congregational rabbi before becoming a Knesset Member, forbade women  from even holding a Torah scroll on Simchat Torah claiming the need for community consensus – that is, consensus among men.  Beware of the “unity” smokescreen for women’s exclusion.Intersectionality: Racism and sexism in the Rabbinical Court.  “Apparently there is something worse than being a woman in the rabbinical court: being an Ethiopian woman,” wrote attorney Batya Kahana Dror this week about an experience she had representing an Ethiopian agunah (“chained woman”) who has been waiting for seven years for a get. The rabbinical judges mocked her repeatedly, mocked Ethiopians generally, implied that Ethiopians are stupid and money-hungry and do not know Hebrew, and more.Women excluded from health conference on women’s health. For the past five years, the Puah Institute for fertility and women’s health has been running conferences on women's health without women. Despite tremendous protests, this practice...