Six years ago, when I was asked to give a talk on Yom Kippur, I decided to state some of my core beliefs with the simple declarative: I believe. Among my pronouncements about family, prayer and Israel I said that:



I believe that putting women on a pedestal distracts them from the fact that they do not have full and equal access to Jewish life and ritual. And relegating them behind a divider in the synagogue is the historical equivalent of having forced…

Tanya Rosenblit is still stunned that she garnered international attention last month when she refused to move to the back of a public Egged Bus in Israel. She never intended to make a statement about sexism or racism in Israeli society, she said; she simply wanted to save a little time. The bus, which she boarded in her hometown of Ashdod, travels mostly through fervently Orthodox – haredi – neighborhoods. But the bus was convenient, stopping five minutes from where Rosenblit had a…