Activism

More than half a century after the August day in 1944 when Ruth Gruber coaxed reluctant refugees off the bus—told they would be taken to the showers, these concentration camp survivors refused to disembark—I stood on that very spot in upstate New York.

So, it’s an educators’ conference. You can imagine, we are caught in our business casual pastel prints and scarves, pencil skirts and ballet flats.

On August 22, 1893, a child was born who would make the world a decidedly wittier place.

I have always loved Tu B’Av, a holiday that honors the ancient tradition in which maidens, dressed in white, gather and dance in the fields and vineyards, intent on meeting their beshert, their soul mate. Per tradition, the unmarried men of the village came out in droves and watched the women dance. There is a discrepancy regarding who “chose” whom during those ancient times. Perhaps it was mutual: eyes and hearts locking in, the couple leaving together to embark on their life of male-female partnership.

We are a little more than six months from the end of the world (!) Or from the end of the world as we know it—December 21, 2012.

For the first time in world history, this year every country competing in the Olympics has a female athlete on its team.

As JWA's Institute for Educators comes to a close, we wanted to share a few moments ... and messages.

Sally Ride died on Tuesday at the age of 61. First American woman to go into outer space. The first. The very first. American. Woman. Astronaut.

This week teachers from around the nation are participating in JWA’S Institute for Educators.

Are women in Chassidic communities nothing more than oppressed victims? Is the Haredi threat to civil liberties in Israel, which is represented by segregated busses, real?

Introduction:  25 bright and impassioned teachers from all over the country are sitting in a large circle in a nondescript room of a Sheraton Hotel in a suburb of Boston. But what they’re talking about is far from nondescript. This is day one of the Jewish Women’s Archive's Institute for Educators, four intensive days focused on a cutting edge curriculum called Living the Legacy, which brings to life the rich and deep history of American Jewish activism. At the core of the curriculum lie stories, sharing them, living them, cultivating them, and in the words of Judith Rosenbaum, the Archive’s Director of Public History, letting them cultivate us.

“The Feminist Papers,” a highly classified document that up until now has only been rumored to exist, was (accidentally?) leaked last night at 11:15pm.

Who are you?

I mean really . . .

Who are you . . . when you are alone and no one is watching?

What is your wave state?

There is an advertisement that I pass when biking to work.

Anita Steckel was 82 when she died last March. But Anita, her many fans would insist, was way younger than most of us will ever be.

This July marks one year since choreographer, author, and innovator Liz Lerman parted ways with her dance company, formerly the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (now just the Dance Exchange) to fly solo as an independent choreographer.

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to scale tall buildings better than Spiderman, it’s . . .

Julie Taymor! The brilliant! The invincible! 

On July 2, 1965 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) began its work for women's equality, enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which among other things prohibited employment discrimination within labor unions. This week, we take a glimpse even farther back, to the turn of the century, to the roots of women organizing for fair prices.