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I Believed Diverse Coalitions Would Benefit Jewish Women. Now I Fear We Are All Alone.
(JTA) Daphne Lazar Price - I am the executive director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and a lifelong feminist. Before joining JOFA, I spent 20 years working with faith groups, women's advocates, and other social justice organizations toward social change. I once found it meaningful when people set aside differences to build bridges towards positive change. These days I'm so sad. Sad for the tremendous losses all around. And on a personal level, I'm also sad that I devoted so many years of my life to groups that don't seem to care about me or my pain. After partnering for years, I expected my sister feminist groups to share their outrage about Hamas' war crimes against Israelis on Oct. 7. It is clear that kidnapping civilians of all ages, and brutally attacking women, men, children, babies and the elderly, all the while viciously raping women, is abhorrent. I'm shocked and horrified by too many national and global women's and children's advocacy groups - none worse than UN Women. After remaining virtually silent since the Oct. 7 atrocities, it published an Instagram post saying they "remain alarmed by the reports of gender-based violence on October 7 and call for rigorous investigation." An investigation? What happened to "believe women?" There is video footage and survivors' testimonies. When did it become OK for women's groups to become rape apologists? I can't continue to work with those who don't see me as someone deserving of respect, no matter how they feel about Israel. My attempts to engage former colleagues have been hurtful and fruitless. Their silence will neither erase me nor deter me. We can and will recreate a community of coalitions that will not deny our humanity and our Jewish and Zionist identities. The writer is an adjunct professor of Jewish Law at the Georgetown University Law Center.