It’s tough to admit, but Israelis just don’t get very worked up about prostitution. In a country with a long laundry list of worries concerns, it seems like the most benign of practices, and an inescapable fact of life. This nonchalant attitude stems from the fact that neither selling one’s body nor purchasing sexual services is a crime in Israel. Read More »

Getty Images Mitt Romney In my piece, published this week on Salon, I wrote about Mormon gender roles being highly prescribed, with men defining themselves “in contrast to women but also against other men in the secular world. Read More »

Getty Images Cote de Pablo plays Ziva David This week marked the landmark 200th episode of the CBS procedural “NCIS.” The drama is about a team of agents at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. (In one early episode, they’re described as “the Internal Affairs of the Navy. Read More »

wikimedia commons Target: The Pill Online feminism’s victory in the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy — and the victory for gay marriage in California — shouldn’t obscure another fight over cultural issues that’s gearing up: birth control is going to be the hot topic in the coming days. Read More »

Getty Images Reproductive rights activists in Seattle show their support for Planned Parenthood. Not to flog a whimpering horse with a frayed pink ribbon, but since the Komen defunding of Planned Parenthood story broke last week, and the organization Read More »

istock Just because I wear pants, it doesn’t mean I lack dignity. Or self-respect. Or even modesty. Which is why I find pieces, like this one, suggesting that dignity for a woman means excessive body-cover, so offensive. Read More »

Loyal readers of The Sisterhood know well about the battle over women’s exclusion that is pulling Israeli society apart at its seams. Read More »

jwa.org The program from Myra Hiatt Kraft’s funeral. According to tradition, football players wear a patch with the Roman numerals of the Super Bowl — this year is Super Bowl 46, or XLVI — on the left side of their chests. Read More »

Getty Images Thousands take part in Komen’s Race for the Cure. We just heard that the Susan G. Komen board of directors reversed course and will continue funding Planned Parenthood after all. Read More »

It’s been quite a week (yet again) for the politicization of women’s health. As [Debra Nussbaum Cohen] and(http: //blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/150612/) and a Forward editorial noted the Susan G. Komen foundation pulled its money form Planned Parenthood. The money, of course, is not the issue. Read More »

Getty Images David Cross Is there a statute of limitations for how long a grown man should hold a grudge against his father? I have asked myself that over and over ever since I read the Talk of the Town in the Jan. Read More »

Women who have long supported the breast cancer fundraising organization Susan G. Komen for the Cure are today taking off their pink ribbons (metaphorically, at least) to protest the news that it has cut off funding to Planned Parenthood because the Read More »

The most surprising part of the story about Rav Aharon Bina’s alleged emotional abuse of his students at Netiv Aryeh comes from the reactions: It is astounding to see how many people apparently knew this has been going on but continue to sing his praises. Read More »

“With unstoppable tears and broken hearts we regret to announce that last night around 5AM, after hours of fighting and holding on, our precious Ayelet – the heart of our world, the light and strength for so many, could not fight any more. Read More »

While Purim is still more than a month away, Israeli bakeries are already full of hamentashen and newspapers and magazines are full of advertising campaigns for children’s costumes. In the charged atmosphere of Beit Shemesh, even Purim has now become a battleground in the escalating ‘exclusion of women’ in the ultra-Orthodox community. Read More »

“Matronita” — from the Latin matrona, a woman of high social and moral status — is a term appearing dozens of times in the Talmud to refer to a woman who engages in discussions with the rabbinic sages. Read More »

Could Lady Cora Grantham be — gasp — Jewish? According to this piece on Tablet she may indeed be. A reader spied the fact that on PBS’ website for its hit Masterpiece Theater Classic series “Downton Abbey,” Lady Cora is described as the daughter of “Isidore Levinson, a dry goods multi millionaire from Cincinnati.” Mr. Read More »

My husband never babysits — and it doesn’t bother me one bit. Allow me to explain: Following an extended maternity leave, I’m about to return to graduate school to complete my master’s degree in English literature. Naturally, people have been asking me about what I’m going to do for childcare. Read More »

A Los Angeles-based filmmaker and acting teacher named Robin Garbose recent published this essay in Haaretz, explaining why she became Orthodox as an adult. In her piece, Garbose laments that with the current criticism of Haredi values like gender separation, “the baby is being thrown out with the dirty bathwater. Read More »

A 27-year-old woman was attacked last week while she was hanging posters on behalf of her employer. Natali Mashiah was in the Ramat Beit Shemesh neighborhood when she alleges that a group of Haredi men called her a “slut,” a “shiksa,” and smashed her car’s windshield and windows while she was inside of it. Read More »