Today we welcome our first post from Eden Marcus, one of our Rising Voices Fellows. Be sure to check the JWA blog each Tuesday for a new post from one of our fellows—and check out the great educational resources provided by our partner organization, Prozdor.

It’s become a tradition that my USY (United Synagogue Youth) chapter board participates in a minyan during our Monday night meetings—the quick break next door in the sanctuary helps us feel part of the temple community. But lately I find these field trips troubling. When people see a group of seven girls walk in, the first thing I hear is, “Where are all the boys?” Or, perhaps even more troubling, “Wait, you don’t have any male leaders?”

During my commute from work yesterday, I stumbled upon an eyebrow-raising website. Playboy—yes, Playboy —was heralding consent as the new sexy on college campuses. 

Party with Playboy, it appeared, had elected to veer away from their traditional rating of the top ten drinking and partying schools, instead offering the Top Ten Party Commandments as a “guide for a consensual good time.”

Sexual assault and intimate partner violence occur in the Jewish community the same as it does in the rest of the country. It is an issue swept under the rug for most Jews. We point fingers at other groups of people— rape happens in the city, in other religious communities, in communities with no religion, but certainly not us, we say!

At its gala dinner on Tuesday, the National Council of Jewish Women will honor Sammie Moshenberg, Director of Washington Operations, for 30 years of service in NCJW’s Washington office.

Hurricane Katrina, one of the most destructive and costliest natural disasters in U.S. history, slammed into New Orleans on this day in 2005.

One hundred and ten years ago today, something surprising happened. Jewish immigrant housewives in New York City—concerned and angry about a sharp rise in the price of kosher meat from 12 cents to 18 cents per pound—launched a kosher meat boycott that lasted nearly a month, spread to several other boroughs of New York, sparked violent riots and arrests, and attracted much media attention before ending with the successful lowering of meat prices.

Sunday morning, as readers of the New York Times were mulling over a long and thoughtful article about Gloria Steinem's legacy, Steinem herself was with friends and fellow supporters of the Jewish Women's Archive to honor three remarkable Jewish women—Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Elizabeth A. Sackler, and Rebecca Traister — at JWA's second annual Making Trouble/Making History luncheon.

For women in the Orthodox Jewish community, domestic abuse is still too often suffered in silence.

It is with a heavy heart and an angry mind, that I have raised and donated my last dollar for Komen.

Today we learned that Susan G. Komen For The Cure, the nation's leading breast cancer charity, is ending its partnership with Planned Parenthood in a move that will result in a major loss of funding for breast exams at Planned Parenthood. Last year, Komen grants totaling roughly $680,000 were distributed to at least 19 Planned Parenthood affiliates to fund breast exams and other breast-health services.