An Abuse of Power: Persecution of a 60 year old Teacher by a Male Dominated Rabbinic Court (Talia Kohen)
Traditionally, Israeli rabbinic courts have been granted power by the state to coerce a recalcitrant husband to grant his wife a religious divorce (“get”) through fines, imprisonment, and/or the confiscation of a driver’s license. There is a rare, but compelling reason for this: a woman with only a secular divorce cannot remarry- she is an Agunah – chained, at times, for life.
Too much information or not enough: Addressing adolescent female sexuality from high school through (Talli Yehuda Rosenbaum MSc, PT)
The following article, written by sex therapist Talli Y. Rosenbaum, addresses the question of sexual education for religious adolescent girls. Opponents of sexual education cite modesty concerns as well as fear of implying tolerance of premarital sexual activity. However, many compelling arguments may be made in favor of such education. Sexual education recognizes the development of the sexual self as a normative part of the developmental process. Educating young women about their bodies and about sexuality empowers them to view sex and their sexual sense of self in a positive, and not potentially threatening manner. Sexual education teaches young women to respect and appreciate themselves, empowers them, and provides them with tools to make the appropriate boundaries necessary to feel safe, secure, present, and autonomous in their future marital sexual relationship.
Independence Day (Alexa Neville)
Once a year, on Yom Hazikaron, we unite with the rest of our country men and women to mourn the fallen soldiers who died in the course of battle, who defended our borders, and who were killed simply due to the fact that they were wearing the uniform of which we are so proud
Feminist Art in Traditional and Religious Judaism (David Sperber)
Jewish feminist art by women active in the traditional religious world is still a marginal phenomenon in the general art world and in the Israeli art field in particular. This article, together with the first major exhibit in a museum to exhibit such work, “Matronita: Jewish Feminist Art” (The Museum of Art Ein Harod), which I co-curated, invites a reflection on the complexities of the feminist Jewish religious experience.
