Tag Archive: Women of the Wall
The Day the Bat Mitzvah Marched with the Torah
By Rabbi Ralph P. Kingsley, October 2013 One of the memorable moments of my thirty-one year rabbinate at Temple Sinai of North Dade was the day that a Bat Mitzvah carried the Torah during the Hakafah on Shabbat morning for the first time. Not only was her face aglow, but so were the faces of…
Reading Torah
By Judy Roitman, October 2013 I am the daughter and granddaughter of cantors (my grandfather was the great David Roitman). I was raised in a Conservative-leading-towards-Orthodox home, with many Orthodox relatives. When, as an adult living in Lawrence, KS, I first witnessed a woman reading the Torah during services, I began to cry. Something integral…
Coming of Age, Again
By Cathy Swerdlow, October 2013 I became a Bat Mitzvah at a Conservative synagogue in New York State in 1965, but it took me years to realize that my ceremony and that of the boys in my class were not equal. You see, I conducted the Friday evening service only. And, after reciting the Kiddush,…
Men and women together at the Kotel 1967
By Andrew Kaplan, October 2013 I’m an American who served with the Israel Defense Force in the Golan Heights during the Six Day War. A few days after the war ended, I was in East Jerusalem, which at that time was still under martial law. I immediately went to the Western Wall, which of course,…
Davening in Monsey
By Michal Boyarsky, October 2013 As a child, I attended a shul in ultra-Orthodox Monsey, New York. Ours was the odd one out in that neighborhood: other families walked to shul, the men dressed in black-and-white suits and black hats, the women wearing dark dresses and thick stockings. Our family drove fifteen minutes to get…
Summer of ’89
By Ruti Kadish, October 2013 In the summer of 1989, at the age of 25, I celebrated my bat mitzvah at Jewish summer camp. Growing up in Israel, reaching the age of mitzvot was marked by a meal with extended family in our home. In my secular Ashkenazi home, heavily informed by my mother’s kibbutz…
Women of the Wall, Judaism, and you!
I want your help to bolster Israel’s women’s rights movement. You can bolster this front-line work by demonstrating the depth of support for the notion that women should be full partners in modern Jewish life.
Torah and Half-a-Torah
When I was Bat-Mitzvahed in a Conservative synagogue a long time ago, girls did not read from the Torah. Bat Mitzvahs took place on Friday night, not Saturday morning. Girls did not wear a tallit, and their speeches about the meaning of the Haftorah portion they read were truncated. As a Hebrew Day school student,…
Taking Our Place: Faye Moskowitz
October 2013 I can still picture myself, a little girl, sitting among my aunts, my bubbie, and my mother in the balcony of the small Detroit schul where from time to time we looked down to pick out our family’s men as they prayed. I have earlier impressions of a time when I was still…
Women of the Wall Legal Victory
A precedent-setting ruling, decided in reaction to the continual arrests and harassment of NIF grantee Women of the Wall, held that the Orthodox authorities do not have a monopoly on determining how Jews pray at the Kotel. The decision is a major victory in the ongoing struggle for women’s rights at Judaism’s holiest site.
Join Us
Join NIF's email list to receive urgent updates, smart analysis, and opportunities to get involved.