As second wave feminism gathered peak velocity forty years ago, the late bombastic and behatted Congresswoman (D-NY) Bella Abzug persuaded Congress to designate August 26th as Women’s Equality Day . It recognized the 19th Amendment to the Constitution that in 1920 gave all U.S. women the right to vote. Read More »

As I watched HBO’s incisive documentary Gloria: In Her Own Words , one irony became clear instantly: Gloria Steinem is an icon who is utterly uncomfortable with the whole idea of being an icon. Read More »

In May, the Hasidic Jewish newspaper, Der Tzitung , made a lot of people angry by photoshopping Hillary Clinton out of a photo in the name of tzniut , or modesty. Within days, the incident spawned a fabulous internet meme where people photoshopped women out of iconic images. Read More »

On August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting any citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex was ratified. Today, 91 years later, we take a look back at the Jewish women who dedicated their lives to women’s suffrage in America and around the world. Read More »

Don’t miss the premiere of the HBO Documentary, “Gloria: In Her Own Words ” on August 15th at 9PM EST. The Women’s Media Center is celebrating this event with a video contest : describe your vision for the future of feminism in a 2 minute video. Gloria Steinem also made headlines by calling for a boycott of NBC’s The Playboy Club. Read More »

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is inarguably a Jewess with attitude – not to mention clout and intelligence. Justice Kagan, who was sworn into office on August 7, 2010 , has just wrapped up her first year as an Associate Justice on the country’s highest court, and what a year it’s been. Read More »

Last Thursday on “The Tonight Show,” Roseanne Barr announced her candidacy for President in 2012. Inspired by Sarah Palin (who she claims is stealing her act), Roseanne plans to run as a member of the “Green Tea Party” on the platform of “no taxes, the forgiveness of student loans and all debts and the use of vegetables instead of money. Read More »

Ask any one of my friends or family members: in the weeks leading up to JWA’s Institute for Educators, I was a mess. As the dishes piled up on my desk at the office and my eyeballs crossed from looking at spreadsheet after spreadsheet of catering orders and flight information, a battle between stress and excitement raged in my mind. Read More »

I wanted to write an Eating Jewish post about Tisha b’Av, yet as I started looking through my various cookbooks, I noticed that most of them had no mention of the holiday. It was often missing from the index and even recipes containing ingredients that would usually be included in a dish prepared on Tisha b’Av had no mention of it. Read More »

August is here, and with it the last few weeks of rest and relaxation before the holidays, school, and general hustle and bustle of fall. What better time to take a moment and explore some of the remarkable stories on jwa. Read More »

This was originally posted at Mamash and Rabbis for Human Rights-North America. “A day of darkness and gloom; a day of cloud and shadows; spread like soot over the hills…their vanguard a consuming fire, in their wake a devouring flame” These are the words of the Hebrew prophet Joel. Read More »

Today in 1998 , children’s television favorite Shari Lewis, a puppeteer who created the characters Lamb Chop and Charlie Horse, passed away at the age of 64 from cancer. Read More »

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the bill to raise the debt ceiling. While the bill itself may not have made everyone happy, the appearance of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords sure did! Rep. Giffords returned to the House for the first time after being shot at a rally in January. After a long and difficult recovery, Rep. Read More »

Aurora Mendelsohn of Rainbow Tallit Baby discusses the use of the word “egalitarian” in different aspects of Jewish life on Jewschool. She writes, “I could not help channeling Inigo Montoya; “Egalitarian…You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means. Read More »

I’m not usually a fan of parodies. That’s not to say I don’t like humor – au contraire! But like Leah once wrote for JWA , I, too, often find parodies to be uncreative, offensive or both. Still, even I was taken in by the latest pop culture parody to hit the web. Read More »

Maybe you’ve heard: As of last Sunday, same-sex marriage became legal in the state of New York. The law, which passed in June, went into effect over the weekend. Read More »

Last Friday, a temple in a Boston suburb was filled to overflowing. Among the 1500 or so people present were the National Football League’s 2011 MVP and the host of NBC’s hit show, “The Celebrity Apprentice,” the Presidents of the oldest Catholic Read More »

Today British singer Amy Winehouse passed away at the age of 27 . She was found dead in her home in London. The cause of death is yet unknown, but considering Amy Winehouse’s very public struggle with substance abuse and mental illness, there is an almost universal assumption that her death was somehow substance-related. Read More »

When I was a young adult and ready to start on the birth control pill, I found that its cost was not covered by my health insurance. Paying the retail price was onerous. It didn’t seem right that insurance wouldn’t cover contraception, though it did cover the cost of giving birth and possibly even abortion. It just didn’t make any sense. Read More »

She wrote a book. She was an actress. She sang opera. She became a professor. She toured the world by herself. She paid her own way. She was a musical superstar. She rode a bike around San Francisco. Read More »