Dr. Elana Maryles Sztokman is an award-winning author, anthropologist, educator, and activist, and the founder of The Jewish Feminist Academy and Lioness Books. Her forthcoming book, “When Rabbis Abuse: On Power, Gender, and Status in the Dynamics of Sexual Abuse in Jewish Culture,” is due out on June 14.
Elana Maryles Sztokman
By Elana Maryles Sztokman
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Opinion Miriam Isserow selflessly fought for survivors
Her tireless support for victims made us feel that sharing could be a positive thing.
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News Will there be Orthodox women rabbis in Israel?
The headlines heralded what many of us have been agitating for years: Orthodox women are going to be recognized as rabbis in Israel. All over social media, Orthodox women virtually cheered, as did their allies. But that excitement after last week’s decision by Israel’s attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, to require the rabbinate to accept women’s…
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Community To ‘Only Israel’ Voters, Women Don’t Seem To Matter
“God Bless Trump!” read the placards and signs all over Jerusalem. A three-story poster in this exuberant praise of the current American president hangs a few meters from my son’s dorm room in the center of town. He can barely sleep because of the flashiness of it. I can barely sleep because of the implications…
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Life For Women, Gender Bias Continues Even In Death
I read obituaries. I like getting the whole picture about a person’s life, to be moved by other people’s passions and work. Perhaps it is the sociologist in me, inspired by Margaret Mead, who liked to be inspired by people’s real lives. Perhaps it is more compulsive, my need to know where we are headed,…
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Life Shouldn’t Zionism Prioritize the Rights of Women?
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. Sure, there are some signs in Israel that women are doing…
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Opinion Rabbi Elyashiv’s Legacy of Women’s Pain
Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the 102-year-old Lithuanian religious figure who died this week, is being hailed in some circles as the “greatest leader of his generation”. He may have been great to some men, but for women, his ideas and rulings were often the cause of enormous pain. For example, he was a vigorous adherent…
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Life Keeping Young Women Hidden — at the Expense of Their Bodies
Despite my earlier post, it now appears that Rabbi Yizhak Silberstein did support the idea that a girl whose mother refused to buy her “religious clothes” should cut her legs in order to force the mother’s hand. An apparent recording of the rabbi’s discussion of this topic surfaced on the Internet today, in which he…
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Life Reversing Israel’s Chronic Underrepresentation of Women in Politics
The City of Modi’in, Israel may yet see 50% female representation on its city council in the next election. Mayor Haim Bibas, speaking recently at an evening dedicated to women in leadership, said that he personally hopes to see women as fully equals in the local party lists in 2013. “We need to hold Mayor…
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FIRST PERSON As a rabbi, he helped others mourn. So why wouldn’t his daughter say kaddish for him?
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