Panel: Aimee Baron, MD, FAAP, is the founder and executive director of I Was Supposed to Have a Baby, an organization that provides support and educational resources for people struggling with fertility and infant loss. Elana Frank is the CEO & Founder of the Jewish Fertility Foundation (JFF), an organization that provides financial assistance, emotional […]
Navigating Egg Freezing, Genetic Testing, and Fertility Read More »
About ten years ago, my husband and I, then married 26 years, signed a post-nuptial agreement. The GET (Get Equal Treatment) organization asked married couples to sign their newly written agreement as part of a campaign to encourage the use of prenuptial agreements. It was apparent that, despite the best efforts of many, too many
Pre-Nuptial Agreements: A Factor In Preventing Cases Of Aguna Read More »
This discussion is excerpted from the author’s Women, Jewish Law and Modernity: New Opportunities in a Post-Feminist Age (Ktav Publishing House), which has a more extensive presentation of the halakhic arguments. There is a widespread custom of arranging special meals in honor of a new bride and groom during the first week of their marriage
Women’s Participation in Sheva Berakhot Read More »
Within the traditional halakhic framework it is only the chatan who fulfills the active role of effectuating kiddushin, only men who serve as witnesses and, by custom, only men who speak aloud. For our wedding thirteen years ago in New York, at which an Orthodox rabbi was our mesader kiddushin, we sought ways to give
Something Old, Something New Read More »
“Ani mekabelet tabaat zu, v’hareini mekudeshet lecha kedat moshe v’Yisrael,I accept this ring and I am thereby sanctified to you according to the laws of Moses and Israel.” With those words, I became an active participant in my wedding ceremony. Moments before, Rabbi Saul Berman, our mesader kiddushin, had instructed the witnesses that they would
My Wedding: The Choices I Made Read More »
So this is our June bridal issue. And why not, for as Orthodox feminists we have a lot to say about marriage and all that it should signify: traditional values, halakha, ritual, equal dignity, covenantal relationships and new beginnings. Judaism advocates marriage. Barely out of the womb, the child hears our wistful formula, “… may
Modern Marriage, the Jewish Way Read More »
The mishna in the Talmudic tractate of Kiddushin, page 29a, states “…and all positive, time-bound commandments (mitzvot aseh shehazeman gerama), men are obligated [in] and women are exempt [from].”1 The gemara acknowledges that there are exceptions to this rule when the Torah (either explicitly or through the interpretation of the Oral Law) states that women
Women and the Fufillment of Positive Time-Bound Commandments Read More »
Now that Orthodox Jewish women have the ability to access Torah on a high intellectual level, they have begun to inquire if they too could participate in certain synagogue rituals surrounding the sefer Torah. Would halakha permit them to dance with the sefer Torah on Simkhat Torah? Could they carry the sefer through the women’s
Our Scholars Speak Can Women Touch the Torah? A Halakhic View Read More »
“I’m prepared to divide my beit midrash in half… my synagogue — never… Orthodox women should know that in the synagogue they’re welcome guests, but they’re guests.”1 While one should certainly appreciate the first part of the statement for the remarkable breakthrough that it is — equal access to the beit midrash, one is obliged
A Woman’s Place in the Synagogue Reviewing the Halakha Read More »
This is the season of teshuva, of repentance and of turning one’s life in new directions. On a communal level teshuva means reorienting our values and reordering priorities. In this spirit, we devote the JOFA Journal to the Lanner case. An important youth leader, Rabbi Baruch Lanner has been accused of sexually harassing girls and
The Soul of Halakha Read More »
