In Janice from Friends and Fran from The Nanny, I see some of myself—a chatty Jewish woman with curls and a loud laugh—and I never found Janice annoying, or saw Fran as anything less than who she is: funny, beautiful, independent.
As Lippmann's characters in Lech excavate their lives in search of clarity, they're ultimately left with this truth: what we're told to believe about ourselves and the world is never all there is.
It was the first time I’d hung out with “other Muslims” and not felt stressed about being Jewish. My girlfriend’s mom recognized me wholly as a Jewish woman and as a woman of her same culture. I had nothing to prove. I was enough.
I had to ask the question a 2015 Always ad poses: "why would I let ‘like a girl’ stop me?" Acting like a girl works, and is not something I need to be ashamed of.
Queen Esther used her power to save and lift up other Jews. That’s my version of Jewish power and feminism. But Julia Haart, the star of My Unorthodox Life, uses her power as a weapon against other Jews.
Clara Lemlich, the female garment workers she led in striking, and the women who have come after her prove that strength truly comes in numbers and in unity.
Rather than reacting from a place of anger, the LGBTQIA+ community needs to follow the example of Weidman Schneider to use education in order to change the perception of this bill and of the community
All Jewish bodies are important, no matter what they do or don’t look like. We have to care for each other in a way that makes every single body feel included.
Bertha Pappenheim and Oma Irene’s work still feels essential today. We still are working to help people in the Jewish community who many would prefer to pretend don’t exist.
Following in the footsteps of Jewish feminists before us, I think educating others to stop the spread of misinformation, accentuating voices that need to be heard, and acknowledging your own privilege is deeply necessary in this fight.
Suffragist Maud Nathan could never have predicted the labor protections and voting rights we have now, and just like her, I can never give up on fighting for what is right.
