Men & Women

I have often heard that Judaism sees women as more spiritual than men. Is it not just a patronizing way to avoid the issue of the different gender roles in Judaism?

Is it true that men and women have different obligations under Halachah (Torah law)? Is Torah against gender equality?

How can you honestly claim that Orthodox Judaism has any respect for women, with all the religious manipulation on the part of men that keeps them content as second-class citizens within a third-world mentality?

Why does Judaism tell women to keep their bodies covered? Is there something shameful or evil about a woman’s body?

Should any physical contact that is friendly be considered intimate? Hopefully, it should.

This week I attended a prayer service with a difference. It was a Torah reading conducted entirely by women. Most were wearing tallises and kippas.

Why do men and women sit separately at traditional Jewish services?

In the world we live in, women continue to get the short end of the stick. Whatever women’s emancipation gains on one hand seems to get taken away from the other. Working mothers almost always do more work at home than their working husbands. And when was the last time you heard a man ask someone to accompany him home at night for protection?

I have always loved to sing, especially Jewish prayers, and I'd love to lead the singing of the Friday night prayers at my synagogue....

By covering her hair, the Jewish married woman makes a statement: "I am not available. You can see me but I am not open to the public. Even my hair, the most obvious and visible part of me, is not for your eyes."

The issue is even more baffling than you think. Most of the guidelines for prayer, we learned from a lady named Chana who lived about 3000 years ago. Yet all the dominant roles in communal prayer are given to men!

A young woman can and should have a bat mitzvah, but it should be a bat mitzvah, not a bar mitzvah. As she is celebrating being a woman, not a man...