Jewfem Blog

Madonna has got me thinking about Barry Freundel. To be honest, Madonna often gets me thinking about body, sexuality, and women’s power. I consider Madonna one of the most body-empowered women out there. She has full command of her body, and uses it as her artistic canvas. She can do anything she wants with it, put on any item of clothing and pose in any position, and the effect is one of power and ownership. I frequently find myself wondering whether she represents an ideal of body empowerment, whether on some level I should be teaching my daughters to admire and emulate her for her complete ownership of her life and seeming ability to do anything she wants. (Of course, then the Orthodox voice in my brain usually kicks in and reminds me of how far Madonna is from anything familiar to me in my own relationships with my body.) Anyway, knowing this about Madonna, I was surprised to discover a few months ago that she took to twitter to express her anger that a photo of her was leaked without her permission. The photo was an unpolished image of her in bra and underwear, apparently in a dressing room. “This is a fitting photo I did not release,” she wrote. “I am asking my true fans and supporters who respect me as an artist and a human to not get involved with the purchasing trading or posting of unreleased images or music.” The reason I was surprised at her reaction was because the week before, she had done a topless photo shoot for a French magazine. It was a strange juxtaposition to me, that she would upset about this photo of her in her underwear when just days before the entire world just saw her undressed. But then I realized, it’s all about control, about power. The French shoot was her choice and with her direction. The leaked photo, despite everything Madonna had done, was still an invasion of her privacy. I have been thinking about this the past few days since posting a blog about the impact of Freundel’s actions on his victims and on other practicing Jewish women. What I argued in this post is that there is a such thing as sexual abuse that does not involve physical contact, and that we should not dismiss the impact of this kind of abuse on its victims just because there was no sexual penetration. In fact, I wrote, that the recovery from this so-called non-violent abuse can be just as emotionally challenging as violent sexual abuse because of the way it plays with the victim’s mind. - See more at: http://lilith.org/blog/2015/05/voyeurism-and-the-yeshiva-girl/#sthash.AEoekrmc.dpuf

Does anyone else sense a kind of mind-twisting irony in girls photographing their underwear-clad behinds as a statement of feminism? I mean, i fully agree that the women's underwear industry is mostly oppressive and based on unrealistic patterns of sexually objectifying women, not just thongs.....So part of me loves this image and this movement of young women really talking back to their culture and saying NO to victoria's secret and anorexic barbie-doll models. I love that. But i also think that there is something problematic about the photographic pose for the article, which still feeds into society's need to visually gorge on women in states of undress. Especially behinds. I mean, we all heard that the butt is the in thing this year, right? So this picture could be taken as part of this. It's tricky. Like, do we HAVE to have our half-naked pictures taken and spread on the internet in order to feel feministly empowered? Somewhere in me, that just feels wrong. This is why i have mixed feelings about the latest feminist trend, of body-exposure-as-empowerment, the idea that the more free I am to expose my body as much as I want, under my terms, the more empowered i am.... You can see it with all the ads of "real" women in their underwear (and often lots of make-up and hair-styling). You can also see it in the "free the nipple" movement, which forces society to look at women's breasts in completely unsexual ways. This feels like the latest message for women -- that to be fully empowered, you have to be willing to be as undressed as possible in the most public way possible. And while there is certainly something empowering about owning your own body and sexuality, i don't know that maximum-exposure is the only way to go. I mean, in some ways this is where feminism started: by trying to protect women from having our bodies and our sexuality owned by the public. So who is more empowered and more feminist -- the one who voluntarily strips and gets paid lots of money, or the one who is free not to have to strip and be gazed upon by anyone? I feel this dilemma in some of the discussions about so-called "modest" dress codes in school. For the record, I'm totally against dress codes, and think kids should be able to wear whatever they want. And I'm mostly against adults policing girls' bodies and measuring their skin and sexualizing them with commentary about knees or shoulders or prom dresses. I think adult commentary on kids' bodies -- especially girls' bodies -- is one of the most damaging things we can do to a person's sense of wholeness with her self and her body. Adults should not comment on girls bodies, period -- we shouldn't tell them that they are lucky to be tall or have nice "curves" or flat stomachs, and certainly not that they should try to change their bodies, like get thinner or...

One of the most infuriating responses to the Freundel scandal I‘ve heard is the argument, “But it wasn’t rape.” As if to say, what he did was not such a big deal — after all it’s not categorized as a “violent” crime. In one really frustrating exchange I had, a radio host kept insisting that the requested 17-year prison term was too long because “it wasn’t rape,” he said, “I would rather be watched than penetrated.” This comment is absurd in that it assumes that victims have a choice about how to be violated and that one is “better” than the other, but more dangerously it belies the very real and powerful impact of this category of so-called “non-violent” sexual assault. This is a type of assault that we need to understand better, because in this digital age, it is likely to increase. What is the damage that is caused to a victim of voyeurism? That is the question that prosecutors in this case were trying to quantify. The prosecutor’s brief, followed by victim testimony in court, painted a portrait of sexual and spiritual trauma. It included victims who are afraid to get undressed, who are having difficulty resuming their intimate relationships, who have trouble trusting rabbis, who cannot walk into synagogue, who cannot walk into a mikveh, who are questioning their entire Jewish identity and religious practice. Therapists have known for some time that emotional abuse can be just as hard to heal from – if not harder in some cases – than physical abuse. As a friend of mine, who had been in an emotionally abusive relationship for 12 years before her husband hit her, told me: “When you see a black eye, there is no denying that you have a problem that you need to fix. But when it’s emotional abuse, it’s harder to know and identify. And it’s hard to trust yourself.” The victim of so-called non-violent abuse is trapped in a web of mind games: What did I to deserve this? Why am I feeling so bad? Everything is fine, isn’t it? It’s my fault that I’m feeling this way. Recovering from non-violent abuse does not involve surgeons or bandages or rehabilitation. It requires taking ownership again of your own mind and your own truth. It requires learning to trust yourself and trust the world around you, even when the world proved itself to be unsafe. This is the kind of challenge that, for some victims, can take a lifetime. Read more: http://forward.com/sisterhood/308634/stop-minimizing-freundels-actions-by-saying-he-is-nonviolent/#ixzz3e4zWiJYF

[Cross-posted from The Jewish Week] Adrienne Rich  This week would have been the 85th birthday of Adrienne Rich, the Jewish feminist poet who died three years ago leaving behind a tremendous legacy of ideas and words that helped shape many people’s gender identities and inspired the work of feminist activism. Adrienne Rich narrated her life and our world through her poems. Her poetry chronicles her transformation from bored, repressed suburban wife to restless, passionate, lesbian feminist activist. Her descriptions of the inner lives of women – radically spoken at the time from a woman’s point of view – were revolutionary then and continue to resonate today. As women (and others) struggle to break free from societal expectations of gender, Rich’s voice gives power and credence to the process of social change and discovering freedom. She embodied the personal as political. She did not merely narrate feminism; she also urged it along with power and vision. Her impact on the evolution of the feminist movement can be felt in the many tributes to her since her death, which testify to the sometimes very personal ways in which her writing affected people, liberated women and often validated the desire to live fully and embrace their passions and identities. The Jewish Women’s Archive also paid tribute to her last month as part of Poetry month. Still, I think that in the Jewish world, her impact has perhaps not yet been fully actualized. We still have a lot to learn from her. Her poetry leaves signposts for Jewish feminist activists, bits of power and encouragement along the way. One poem that articulates the mission in a way that particularly relates to Jewish life is “The Roofwalker” (1961), where Rich wrote of the “half-finished houses”. She asks, “Was it worth while to lay--/with infinite exertion--/a roof I can't live under?/All those blueprints/ closings of gaps/ measurings, calculations?/A life I didn't choose/ chose me: even/my tools are the wrong ones/for what I have to do.” This resonates deeply with me, and possibly with others who are trying to make changes around gender within Jewish life. I also feel that the life chose me, of fixing the roof of the half-finished house that I am not sure I can live under. It is half-finished because Jewish women have not been fully able to make our mark on the culture. And the “measurings, calculations” remind me of all the Talmudic and halakhic discourse with which the Jewish house is built. There are other, better tools out there, and Rich reminds me to search for them and use them. Adrienne Rich also brilliantly revealed the ways in which gender oppression take place on the female body. In the poem "Tear Gas," she wrote "The will to change begins in the body not in the mind/My politics is in my body." Her book, “Of Woman Born,” goes even further in unpacking the myriad societal constructs around motherhood. Indeed, in Judaism the female body is at the center of incessant discourse and discord, as Jewish...

Convicted of recording 52 women naked in the mikveh, with another 100 women who are past the statute of limitations.... Untold emotional, psychological and spiritual damage to the women..... victims who can no longer step foot in synagogue, who can no longer trust rabbis, who no longer want to be Jewish, who are reliving nightmares of abuse, who do not want to go the mikveh, whose marriages are strained, whose identities are in question...... Below is a detailed description of the crimes of Barry Freundel. Read it and tremble.   SUPERIOR COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CRIMINAL DIVISION - MISDEMEANOR BRANCHUNITED STATES OF AMERICACase No. 2014-CMD-18262 Hon. Geoffrey AlprinSentencing Date: May 15, 2015V.BERNARD FREUNDELUNITED STATES' MEMORANDUM IN AID OF SENTENCING The United States of America, by and through its attorney, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, respectfully submits this memorandum in aid of sentencing. The defendant, Bernard Freundel, is before the Court for sentencing after pleading guilty to 52 counts of Voyeurism, in violation of 22 D.C. Code §§ 3531(6) and (c), involving surreptitiously videotaping 52 separate women. In light of the extraordinary scope of the defendant's crimes, the premeditation and planning involved, the substantial abuse of the defendant's position of exceptional trust, and the severe impact on the victims, the United States submits that a sentence of 208 months of incarceration would serve the interests of justice in this case. In support of its recommendation, the government relies on the following information. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORYBetween approximately 1989 and October 2014, the defendant, Bernard Freundel, was the sole rabbi of Kesher Israel Congregation, located at 2801 N Street, NW, Washington, D.C. The defendant also taught courses on ethics at Towson University for approximately five years, and seminars on Jewish law at Georgetown Law Center since the early 1990s. The defendant's influence was felt not only within Washington D.C., but around the world. For years, the defendant was a leader in an effort to establish uniform standards for conversions to Orthodox Judaism in the United States, and to ensure that many American conversions would be accepted by Israel. At one time, his reputation was that only his conversions would be guaranteed to be deemed valid by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. As a result, people came from all over the region and the globe to study with the defendant and convert with him as their sponsor. In 2005, a Jewish ritual bath (known as a "mikvah") opened at 1308 28th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. Known as the National Capital Mikvah, the building is located across a courtyard from Kesher Israel.' A mikvah is used primarily by Orthodox Jewish women for monthly spiritual purification and by individuals as the final step in the Orthodox Jewish conversion process. The use of the mikvah and many of its attendant rituals and blessings are prescribed by Jewish text and tradition. As an initial matter, immersion in a mikvah is regarded as an intensely private and spiritual experience. As noted in a community...

The following is a guest blog post by Naomi Pelled, the new Technical Director of "A Jewish Feminist", and a self-described third-generation Jewish feminist.  When I was asked to work with Elana on the tech side running and recording a Telecourse series on Jewish Feminism, I was delighted.  I thought how fascinating it would be, a series on issues affecting Jewish Women from every walk of life, and where I could listen and learn from some world renowned Jewish Women, who have expertise in many pressing women's issues.  I had always considered myself a feminist, following in the footsteps of my mother and her mother before her, but I wasn't an ‘active feminist'. When we met, Elana gave me a copy of her book, 'The War on Women In Israel'. I thought to myself, what a great new Shabbat reading book, but feared that it would irritate my Israeli husband, who is so closed when it comes to Feminism.  This is not because he is anti-women's rights, but because he grew up in the Israeli religious school system and is very naive about these issues. I started reading the book on Shabbat and realised that there are so many news items in Israel, that I take for granted, which I should actually be questioning and not just accepting.  I was so proud as a religious Jewish women, that I have my own mind and do not vote according to what my husband says, but was struck by the number of religious women, whose political affiliations are controlled by their husbands, to the detriments of their human and women's rights. I always believed in woman's rights and equality between men and women. Before making Aliyah, I worked for corporations in HR.  One aspect of my role was to enforce HR governance, working to ensure men and women were paid fairly and equitably to one another. I grew up in the UK, the youngest of three children, and the only daughter.  My mother separated from my father when I was two and a half years old.  My mother never remarried and says her life is far less complicated without a man.  My father, on the other hand, remarried within eighteen months. My mother demonstrated that she was self-sufficient and an emotionally intelligent woman who could hold down a full time job, be a single mother, look after her children and do all home duties, to a high standard.  She was a great role model.  She taught us all that she, as a woman, could be a successful teacher and sensitive mother.  My elder brother, helped around the house with vacuuming, cooking and clearing away and babysitting for me. He has grown up to be a great dad, who shares all household responsibilities from caring for the children, as soon as they woke up, to cooking and cleaning.  He is involved in many other tasks that 50 years ago would have been considered a woman's duty, When I see my father now I see...

Here are 7 tips for how to make the most of your Dynamics of Jewish Feminism telecourse: Watch with friends!  Invite your friends over -- you know, the ones who you are ALWAYS talking to about these things -- plug into a nice big screen, find comfy seats and make a fresh batch of coffee. And the added bonus: you get to split the registration fee! A win-win.Shut everything else off. Take a little break from your cellphone, your email, and shuttling your kids around. Turn this into "me-time", a little present for yourselfAsk questions. This is your chance to engage directly with some of your favorite Jewish feminist writers, leaders and activists. Make the most of it by sending in your own questions before the webinar. Send in questions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. the recording. If you can't watch live, you can make a time to watch any time. Join the conversation. Sign in to the group conversation and find out what other people are thinking, too. Collect the reading list. You will be receiving lots of book and article recommendations. It's a treasure chest for Jewish feminist readers!Tell others about it. Tell other people about it -- colleagues, co-workers, community members, neighbors -- and find out who shares your interest in Jewish feminism.  To register, click here   For more information, contact Elana at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Have you signed up yet for the “Dynamics of Jewish Feminism” telecourse? Still deliberating? Well, here are SEVEN great reasons to join that will help you make up your mind: Engage with the best and the brightest. Hear Prof Judith Plaskow (author of “Standing again at Sinai”) talking with Prof Rachel Adler, (author of “The Jew who wasn’t there”) discuss and debate what Jewish feminism means.Take on the hard issues. Send in your own questions to Lilith founder Susan Weidman Schneider and feminist artist Jacqueline Nicholls as they debate “s*lut-shaming” in Jewish lifeBreak open taboos. Be part of the conversation on sexuality in Jewish life, with experts Talli Yehuda Rosenbaum, Rabbi Haviva Ner David (founder of the Reut mikveh), and Carrie Bornstein (Mayyim Hayyim)Help make change. Find out how women like Debbie Gross, Lori Weinstein (Director of Jewish Women International), Debbie Gross (founder of the Crisis Center for Religious Women) and Yudit Sidikman (founder of El-Halev) address sexual abuse and violence against women.Demand action. Learn what veteran agunah activists Dr Susan Weiss and Dr Susan Aronoff are working on to fix this problem.Envision the future. Be part of the conversation where Rabbi Naamah Kelman(HUC) , Nancy Kaufman (NCJW) and author Letty Cottin Pogrebin discuss and debate women’s leadershipConnect with others just like you. Be part of an online community like no other, a group of like-minded Jewish feminists from around the world So what are you waiting for? Sign up today!

It’s hard to be a feminist in Israel today. You walk around thinking that it should be obvious that women are equal human beings, fully capable of living independent, free lives. But that belief is challenged in every corner of your life, every day. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Michal Patelle Sure, there are some signs in Israel that women are doing great. We have women pilots, women as heads of the Supreme Court, and even a woman Nobel Prize winnerin science. We once even had a woman prime minister, elected back in the sixties. Indeed, today more bachelor’s degrees are handed out to Israeli women than to men. All these are nice little snapshots of a country where there is a possibility of women to make real advances. But these snapshots are only part of the picture. Looking deeper, they do not reflect the reality on the ground. Take the issue of women in academia, for example. The bachelor’s level is where equality ends. There are more women than men in universities, but fewer female professors. In fact, as the professional level rises, men outnumber women in increasing proportions, like an inverted pyramid. Men are promoted more and more, despite a larger pool of women. This obnoxious pattern has persisted for decades. Or take women in politics. Although the number of women Knesset members has increased gradually over the past 15 years, we are still below 30% female representation. What’s worse, on the municipal level only two out of the 230 cities in Israel have women mayors. It is an appalling statistic. And by the way, even though we have had several women heading the Supreme Court, all told only 10 out of 64 Supreme Court justices. The issue of women in the army is also a problem. Although the army has also been slowly including more women in coveted positions many of the most elite units are still all male. Women’s positions are also under tremendous threat from the pressure to conscript more religious soldiers – whose first demand is always to remove women’s presence. The army is reportedly building an all-male base, and already a few weeks ago women soldiers were asked to leave the mess hall when religious soldiers needed to eat. Get ready for more of that. All of this somehow makes sense to the army establishment. And that’s because in general there is an entire sexist culture in the army which assumes women to be weaker, lesser, not serious. My daughter, a Captain in Intelligence in the IDF, constantly tells me stories of the grassroots sexist culture she experiences. Sure, women can rise to certain places, but the sexism remains ubiquitous. This in turn affects the entire culture of women in business. Israel is heralded as a hi-tech haven, and yet women are systematically excluded from that world, where business relationships are usually culled from those elite army units where women are usually absent. Women head fewer than 8% of top hi-tech companies in Israel and are a mere 16.6% of board members all told. Women are often just not seen, like in the bestselling book...

For Yom Ha’Atzmaut -- Israel’s 67th Independence Day – I decided to create a list of 67 inspiring women in Israel. To do this, I crowdsourced this assignment, with a simple Facebook status update, “Who are the most amazing Israel women that you know? The ones changing the world for good?” Well, the answers came fast, with the most beautiful, loving energy. I was so moved. And once I started collecting them into a list, the numbers far surpassed 67. In fact, the list became closer to TWICE 67. So actually, here is a list of 134 amazing Israeli women for you to get to know this Yom Ha’atzmaut – and at a certain point I really just had to stop (apologies in advance to those I left out who deserve a place here. There are many of you….). The women on this list are activists, educators, artists, scientists, rabbis, writers, and “firsts”, and leaders in a whole range of fields. Some of the women I know well and love, and some I am meeting myself for the first time in this list. They are all worth getting to know. Get ready to be inspired. [PS Feel free to leave comments with names of other women who should be on the list!] Social activists "Firsts" -- Breaking Glass Everythings Thought Leaders Artists Politicians Jewish educators and scholars Lawyer-Activists Rabbis Scientists Writers Miscellaneous  Social activists Linor Abargil. Israeli beauty queen who won the Miss World beauty pageant in 1998, shortly after being raped. Since then, she has become a global advocate in the fight against sexual violence with the film “Brave Miss World”. Daphni Leef. Social activist, video artist, and editor. In July 2011 she was one of the organizers of a tent camp in central Tel Aviv, sparking the 2011 housing protests in Israel. Beth Steinberg. Executive Director and co-founder of Shutaf, Inclusion Programs for Children with Special Needs in Jerusalem. As a parent of a child with special needs, she struggled to find workable, appropriate activities for her child. Beth believes that a well-run inclusion program can help educate and change values, creating meaningful and lasting social change.Rachel Schitskovsky-Ivker. Founder of Hadadi, Breast Cancer support center, a comprehensive center that combines both emotional and material support for women coping with breast cancer – everything  beyond the medical - a supportive community, information, support for family members, specialty accessories for coping with the side-effects of treatment, and other services. Ilana Pinshaw. Director of Microfy, an Israeli based NGO that helps Israeli and asylum seeker entrepreneurs living in the Tel Aviv area become economically independent through loans, training and mentoring. Efrat Degani-Toperoff.  Programme Officer at Yad Hanadiv,  Co-Founder and Chair of Bema’aglei Tzedek and Co-Founder of the Good Neighbour Association and the Psifas Israeli Fund, and a member of the Youth Forum of President Shimon Peres. Avigail Sperber. Filmmaker and activist advocating for religious lesbian women. Founder of Bat Kol organization for religious LGBT community, and creator of award-winning film, “Probation time” about her adopted sister. Phyllis Heimowitz. Founder of “The...