Link Roundup: Gay Marriage and Gender Bias
Welcome to this week’s installment of Lilith’s Link Roundup. Each week we post Jewish and feminist highlights from around the web. If there’s anything you want to be sure we know about, email us or leave a message in the comments section below.
Shoshannah Stern, a deaf Jewish actress, took a stand against sexual assault in a video for Deaf Hope, an organization dedicated to ending “domestic and sexual violence against Deaf women and children.” [The Sisterhood]
Last week, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wal-Mart in an enormous discrimination lawsuit involving 1.5 million female employees. [Jezebel]
Bridges, a Jewish feminist journal, announced that it is closing its doors after 21 years. [Jewschool]
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, a lesbian and gay rights activist, made headlines last week during a gay marriage protest (prior to New York’s passage of the same-sex marriage bill). In a video posted by The Times Union, Kleinbaum was seen putting her arm around a Hasidic protester while holding a pro-equality sign, prompting him to spit on her and to repeatedly shout “You’re not a Jew!” [The Shmooze]
CNN correspondent Dana Bash was pressured to step down as a trustee of Jewish Women International because of the organization’s stance on abortion rights. [JTA]
A growing gender bias has begun to plague women rabbis. Not only have recent JTS rabbinical school graduates been struggling to find jobs, an article in the Star Tribune revealed that many female rabbis have been losing their jobs as a result of synagogues downsizing. [The Jewish Week] & [Jewesses With Attitude]
Last week, Hillel Israel held a Bat Mitzvah ceremony for twelve Holocaust survivors at Tel Aviv University. Each of the women studied and gave a sermon on the Torah portion that they would have been given had the Holocaust not happened. [Haaretz]
Various women’s groups, including the Center of Jewish Pluralism and the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women, filed a petition in Israel demanding that women be allowed to contend for the position of Rabbinical Court Director. While no decision has been made, Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy expressed his support for the measure. [Ynet]
Knesset members expressed a widespread opposition to a proposal which would increase Israel’s retirement age for women from 62 to 67 (not 64, which was originally proposed). Despite this, many women still feel that Israel is not doing enough to promote women’s equality. [The Marker] & [Haaretz]
Writer Sue Fishkoff shed light on the struggle faced by transgender Jews to find a place among the Jewish community. (Side note: Lilith has been covering these concerns for over a decade. Read our article on Transgender Jews from Lilith’s Spring 2002 issue.) [JTA]
Marlo Thomas explained how all of the recent political sex scandals are good for feminism. [Huffington Post]
A compromise was reached for Orthodox Israeli basketball player Naama Shafir, allowing her to wear skin-toned elastic sleeves under her basketball jersey. She had requested this citing modesty concerns. FIBA, the International Basketball Federation had previously denied her request to wear a t-shirt under her team jersey. [Ynet]
EvaShow, an Israeli women’s intimate apparel company, revealed that Haredi women make up 20% of its customer base. Though they are required to dress modestly in public, ultra-Orthodox women have begun a trend of dressing sexy behind closed doors. The company’s founder added, “One of our clients told us that these nighties make for a peaceful home, because her husband feels more satisfied. It may even contribute to increasing the birth rate in Israel.” [Ynet]
Following the release of the new parody children’s book Go the F— to Sleep, Amy Sohn asks would the book have gotten the same positive reaction if the author were a woman? [Babble]
