Founded in 1971 as a small women’s study group within the circuit of New York City’s Jewish counterculture, Ezrat Nashim worked to collect information on the status of women in Judaism and develop plans to rectify inequalities. Several prominent Jewish feminists, including Martha Ackelsberg, Arlene Agus, Paula Hyman, Elizabeth Koltun, and Dina Rosenfeld, were original members. The group's name is a play on words. While it literally means "assistance of women" it was also the name used to refer to the women's section in synagogues in which women and men sit separately. A year after its inception, Ezrat Nashim presented its demands to the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly in the form of the manifesto included in this lesson, entitled “Jewish Women Call for Change.”