From the Editor
If you have ever righted a wrong, helped drive change, or improved the world (even just your own corner of it), this message is for you: Now is the moment to share that story. Say how you were moved to push against things as they are, to help move toward things as they should be. You’re needed as a role model.
Lilith has hosted, nurtured and mentored more than a hundred interns through the years. They see how a magazine is made, but also, we hope, how change is made. And we hope they eavesdrop attentively when people in the office give voice to their experiences to improve gender and economic and racial parity, LGBTQ+ protections, reproductive justice, religious freedoms, physical safety, the health of our one and only planet, and more.
In the face of fascism or direct threats to life and liberty, when despair threatens to drain our energies, we can be and must be thankful for occasional good news. As I write, some of the hostages held in the Gaza tunnels for more than a year are returned alive, though recovery from the trauma of their captivity may take a lifetime. May all the hostages return home speedily and safely. And then we can dare to feel hopeful at the fragile possibility for peace that a ceasefire might hasten.
But with good government elusive for so many, afar and nearby, the scales tip toward despair. And despair fuels passivity. That’s why it’s more important than ever to recount hopeful stories of action. Remember the time when women were punished for our appetites (an appetite for being heard, for having a voice, for leading a prayer service, for autonomy over our own bodies, to dress as we please, play as we choose). Corrections—the push-back against gender disparagement, for example—did not drop like manna from the heavens. They were brought about (not “came about” in some passive voice) because real-life activists ceaselessly, devotedly, energetically propelled improvement.
Action is an excellent antidote to despair. But for young women right now there isn’t much of an instruction manual. So if you are responsible for improvements in the world, please tell and retell the steps you took to effect change. You (and likely it’s most of you) who have ever spoken up at a meeting, called a legislator’s office with an opinion, chatted up a librarian about book bans, faced down a PTA resolution, joined a community organization to get things done better, carried a banner reading “Get Your Laws Off My Body,” called out biased comments at a social gathering—your hour has come; the time is ripe to say what you did, and why.
Jewish women in popular mythology are the outspoken ones, loudmouths advocating for justice in Jewish life and in the world at large. So name the causes you support with your time and energy, tell where you give your tzedakah dollars. Share the letters you sign and what you say when you make a phone call opposing a dangerous piece of legislation. These are all examples to surface and share in this parlous time. With every narrative you tell you’re adding information to the instruction manual. Your own story is going to be the key to mentoring another.
This is not mentoring to help someone climb higher on a career ladder or succeed more comfortably in the workplace—though these can be commendable too. This is about sharing how you acted—recently or in times long ago—to avert bad outcomes. Or if you couldn’t stop the out-of-control vehicle with your own hands, tell how you managed to slow it down. Harm reduction is honorable too. So is foregrounding compassion.
You may tell your stories repeatedly, not only to reach new generations. The causes themselves go round and round. Who would have imagined that in 2025 we’d be fighting to restore abortion rights? Or dealing with a worldwide antisemitism renewing itself from the ashes of the 20th century?
For more examples of making change, read on. And let’s create a new narrative of hope.
