On this 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, there is much to remember. I remember in particular the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911, a fire that killed more than 140 workers, most of them Jewish and Italian young women immigrants. This tragedy focused national consciousness on working conditions and eventually led to significant changes in American labor practices. It influenced the consciousness of Jewish women like me. I heard the story from my grandparents, and it helped shape my vision of social justice and maybe even the sense that women could change the world.
We have moved from behind the mechitza (the barrier that separates men and women during prayer) to the front of the synagogue, from being relegated to the private sphere of religious life to the very center.
New rituals have changed the face of American Judaism, from bat mitzvah (the first was in 1922) to covenant ceremonies for daughters, to rituals for menarche, miscarriage and abortion.
Women's scholarship has transformed the questions we ask about history and sociology and women's study of traditional Jewish texts, like the groundbreaking Women's Torah Commentary, published by the Reform Movement, that has changed the way the we look at Torah and sacred text. Women are not only fully part of the Jewish conversation, but also women's voices and women's experiences have transformed the conversation. The revolution in the way Jews think about God, spirituality, and prayer is largely attributable to women taking their experience seriously and sharing it with the entire community. And women have helped the Jewish community become much more inclusive as we challenged our own sense of marginality, leading us to be more sensitive to others who had also been excluded -- gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered individuals, Jews of color, Jews by choice, poor Jews, old Jews, young Jews, Jews with disabilities. And the list goes on.
There is much to celebrate and much work yet to do. Anniversaries like this remind us of other anniversaries. Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the ordination of the first American female rabbi. Forty years: we're almost out of the wilderness, perhaps, but we're not yet in the Promised Land.
According to Advancing Women Professionals, 70 percent of the Jewish professional workforce are women, yet there are still very few women in top leadership positions. Gender equality remains a challenge and continues to discourage many talented women from entering Jewish professions. And although the Jewish community talks the talk about being "family friendly," for many female (and male) Jewish professionals, it hardly walks the walk, making it more difficult for women (and men) to want to choose this work. Female rabbis still earn less than their male colleagues, even when you control for size of congregation and years of experience. A recent study by the Forward determined that female executives (the few that there are) earn $0.61 for every dollar earned by their male colleagues.
So we remember, we celebrate and we recommit to do the work we learned from our grandparents as they told us the story of those who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. We need to continue our work to create a world where all human beings can be part of the conversation, where all of us are safe, protected and fully engaged in the world as equal players with equal opportunities. A promised land we may never enter, but a vision that continues to inspire our work to change the world, for women, men and for all of our children.
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Rabbi Andrea Myers: It Gets Beautiful: One Rabbi's Perspective on Being Jewish and LGBTQ
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2011
International Women's Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arianna Huffington: International Women's Day: Life (and Work ...
The 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day on March 8 2011
Still, women are often overlooked as a vital philanthropic resource, even in the Jewish world, where as you point out, the ranks of so many foundations and organizations are populated by females. Those who wish to secure their future in Jewish causes ought to pay closer attention to the philanthropic power of women, both lay and professional, and develop fundraising strategies that will appeal to their priorities.
The two concepts equality and difference are often opposed to each other. And yet, they can be compatible. Equality can celebrate difference in that uniqueness need not be valuated on a hierarchical scale. This is not only true of individuals but also groups and divisions of humanity. Our differences as grounded in our existential condition need not be held subordinate to or reduced to power relationships. The question before us is, "how to respect the other free of the genealogy of patriarchy?" The overall binary of Femininity and Masculinity can be held in balance. This is a societal ideal. One strengthens and complements the other. Two caveats should be our concern here: (1) that equality must not be conflated with sameness. The feminine should not mimic or become the masculine in the pursuit and struggle for equality. (2) It is incumbent upon ourselves to regard gender roles as dynamically fluid expressions of this tentative but evolving balance between the antipodes of this binary. The boundary between female and male roles is elastic and permeable in part.
This applies to all religious practice. And, within Judaism, for instance, not only has this transformation accelerated in the Reform and Reconstructionist (i.e., Liberal) denominations but also has spread to the Conservative (and possibly Masorti) and Orthodoxy.
At Isabella Freedman, year-round transformative spiritual programs are also rooted in the stories of the early labor and women's rights movements as the Center was originally "The Jewish Working Girls Vacation Society", providing much-needed respite from inhumane working conditions in NYC's garment district, bringing these young women to the Connecticut Berkshires, at no cost to them, to build community and freely engage in creative cultural pursuits - the birthright of all people, exemplified by the unfortunate denial of these rights, all too often, as in the tragic case of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
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