War, what is it good for? Policing female bodies, apparently.

COLlive.com reports that women in the Chabad enclave of Crown Heights, New York are organizing a tznius (modesty) contest for girls “in the merit of the safety of Israel.”

Beginning July 20, Project EDEN (which stands for “Eat Ice Cream and Defend Eretz Yisroel Now”) will encourage day camp attendees between the ages of 3 and 12 to wear modest clothing that keeps “necklines, elbows, knees and feet covered at all times.” The clothing compliant will then receive cards they can trade in for “great prize incentives,” like ice-cream and raffle entries. Why? Well, the Lubavitcher Rebbe saw a direct correlation between modesty and God’s protection, so… encouraging pre-pubescent girls to cover themselves up in the peak of summer seems like the natural next step towards a ceasefire, no? Because as we all know, there’s a causal relationship between the collarbones of 4-year-old girls and Hamas’ weapons cache.

Meanwhile, female visitors to the rabbinate in Ashdod, Israel, were initially blocked from entering the building’s bomb shelter on modesty grounds. MK Stav Shaffir told The Forward that her staffer observed a sign on the door that read “For men only.” Turns out the women’s shelter “was just a regular room, with windows and plaster walls and no indications of protection from rocket attacks.” SO NOT A SHELTER AT ALL, THEN. Writes Elana Sztokman:

In response to women’s exclusion from the bomb shelter in the Ashdod rabbinate, MK Stav Shaffir filed an urgent complaint with the Religious Affairs Ministry, demanding to put an immediate halt to the segregation. “The idea that women seeking shelter from a rocket barrage are met with a closed door is untenable,” she told Yediot Ahronot. “Discrimination against women is unacceptable under any circumstances, but when this discrimination prevents women from protecting themselves, it’s not only unacceptable but also dangerous.” Apparently the administration of the rabbinic courts was unaware of the exclusion, and responded to Shaffir’s query with embarrassment. “It was a local initiative of an employee acting without formal authority,” they responded. “The rabbinical court views such attempts at gender segregation in a very severe light and will take serious actions against those involved.”

Just keep those elbows covered, ladies.

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A park in Kiryas Joel which came under scrutiny last year for sex segregation “will now be subject to strict NYCLU and ACLU oversight,” reports Gothamist. The park serves the 22,000-strong Satmar community and is divided into two sections: blue for boys, and pinky-red for girls (natch).

When the park opened in 2013, municipal treasurer Rabbi Gedalia Segdin told Hasidic site Behadrey Haredim that the sections were “separated by hills, which actually form a modesty buffer and allow the place to remain completely pure.” Signage in Yiddish at the entrance further enforced the separation of the sexes.

If the funding for the park came from public coffers, the sex-segregation is patently illegal. The Times-Herald Record reports that the state awarded Kiryas Joel $195,000 to build a park back in 2001, but community leaders turned down the grant. In July 2013, the NYCLU and ACLU requested documents pertaining to the financing and construction of the park. That request was denied, and in December they filed a lawsuit against the Village of Kiryas Joel.

The parties reached a settlement last week, with the community agreeing to allow the NYCLU and ACLU to inspect the park twice each summer for the next three years to ensure that segregation was not being enforced. In addition, signs explicitly stating that the park is segregated must be removed.

“Public parks cannot segregate based on sex any more than they can on race or national origin,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman today. “This agreement ensures that all park visitors have equal access to the entire park.”

Will the ruling actually effect change? The blogger Failed Messiah is skeptical: “This settlement is likely meaningless… Kiryas Joel leaders will just instruct followers in the synagogue or through robo calls to ‘voluntarily’ gender segregate. The followers will do it, the park will be gender segregated, and the NYCLU will have lost, despite its claim of victory today.”

(Image: aerial view of Kiryas Joel park, via NYCLU)

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Every year in the lead-up to Purim, the Jewish media produces joke articles which satirize the major issues of the day. It’s just one of the ways we enact the Purim spirit of “v’nahafochu,” which celebrates the reversal of power dynamics in Esther and Mordechai’s rescue of the Jewish people from Haman’s decree of extermination. This year’s Purim section in The Jewish Week joked that “a whopping 92 percent of American Jews are so disconnected from their traditional roots that they are unaware of the report issued last year that indicated that American Jews are increasingly disconnected from their traditional roots.”

Communal leaders dress in silly outfits, normally serious rabbis let their hair down, and, amidst the revelry, we loosen our standards of decorum. Purim costumes, too, often poke fun at Jewish and secular news stories and personalities—a few years ago I dressed up as Sarah Palin, which should tell you something about my political views.

Often, this is a good thing. Venerated media institutions show a lighter side; we see our leaders as more human. But satire is most effective when we mock the powerful, not those with less power. What happens when the principle of v’nahafochu pokes fun at those without the privilege of power in our community? This Purim, I experienced that firsthand.

I have had both the benefit and the misfortune of being at the center of one of the major Jewish news stories of the year—I am a teenage girl in an Orthodox environment (though I don’t identify as Orthodox, a fact often glossed over by eager reporters) who lays tefillin. I’ve written extensively about this, and consequently, have exposed myself to significant vitriol from those who consider me to be “simply ignorant of Torah Judaism,” and “on a very stupid path that will prevent them from becoming good Jewish mothers.” I’ve also received positive comments and messages, from women and girls inspired by the voice of a tefillin-laying woman in the public sphere. These messages spur me to continue my activism.

Not surprisingly, the phenomenon has been satirized in several places. The first Purim article I encountered about my female tefillin-laying peers was in the YU Observer, the official student newspaper of Yeshiva University’s Stern College for women. The piece, entitled “How to Buy Tefillin: A Woman’s Guide,” begins with the statement, “Buying tefillin for your first time is a scary experience.” The writer then goes on to provide tips to help “a girl feel good about her newest toy.” These include purchasing Tefillin Barbie (how absurd, for a woman to want to see representations of herself in popular culture!), advice for married women about head-coverings that accommodate tefillin (this is an issue that married women have struggled with, and one that I am likely to deal with in the future as well), and what sort of shirt to wear to accommodate the arm-tefillin (the trials I have had in finding appropriate outfits are too extensive to list here).

The primary failure of this satirical article (written by someone who has clearly never been a tefillin-laying woman) is its accidental honesty. Getting tefillin as a woman is scary, people do stare at you and whisper behind your back, and the feeling of your “shidduch points plummeting” is very real. My anxiety over my future place in the Jewish community arises directly from this sort of derision. There is no humor in this advice. The condescending tone and lack of understanding of women who observe this mitzvah serves only to further stigmatize us, to make us a curiosity or a joke.

A few days after Purim, a photograph was shared by a friend of mine on Facebook, and later tweeted by the New Jersey Jewish Standard. It depicted a grinning woman in a long skirt, a striped cape that looked like a tallit, and a head-tefillin perched atop a sheitel; behind this woman stood Rabbi Hershel Schachter. The woman in the picture is Shoshana Schachter, his wife. Rabbi Schachter is the man who recently stated that permitting women to don tefillin “remains a matter of Yehareg v’al yaavor—where one should be killed rather than violate it.” After weeks of trying to laugh off cruel internet comments, Rabbi Schachter’s words pained me so deeply I cried.

Rabbi Schachter is a venerated figure in many segments of Orthodoxy, and I have teachers I like and respect who are his students. As the Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University’s rabbinical school, he carries significant clout, and his halakhic rulings are widely respected. To see Rabbi Schachter amused by and seemingly condoning the teasing of woman who wear tefillin is insulting beyond words. It is already incredibly painful to me to have experienced outright rejection and condemnation for my beliefs; as a person who is committed to halakhic practice, statements that place me outside the halakhic community cut even deeper. By mocking the religious commitment of women who wear tefillin (a commitment which I would expect a man who has dedicated his life to Torah study to understand intimately), Rabbi Schachter further reinforces the marginalization of my peers and myself.

Satire is designed to provoke questions and to weaken disproportionate authority, and Purim is the perfect time for this brand of humor. But to use the holiday as an excuse to deride a small group of girls and women—people who have already been on the receiving end of much censure—is unconscionable. It goes against everything that Purim stands for. Like all groups, the Jewish community benefits from sincere and frequent critiques of power, and from using humor to facilitate those critiques. We are bettered by the yearly opportunity to examine the people and institutions we look to for leadership. It is my hope that next year, we can use Purim as an opportunity to do just that.

Avigayil Halpern is a senior at the Hebrew High School of New England. She is a Bronfman Youth Fellow for 2013, a Rising Voices Fellow through the Jewish Women’s Archive and Prozdor, and an alumna of Drisha’s Dr. Beth Samuels High School Programs. She maintains a personal blog at theprocessofthetaking.blogspot.com. Follow her on Twitter at @avigayiln.

(Image: Girl With Tefillin by Michal Patelle)

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Wait, what? Yes! Jennifer Aniston interviewed Gloria Steinem at the Makers Conference! THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

What is the Makers Conference, you ask? Why, only the most star-studded feminist event in the universe. The inaugural convention was held a couple of weeks ago near L.A., and it sounds sort of like a utopian gathering of the Elders of Feminism. (I would very much like to know how to get invited, without having to run a billion-dollar company, be a movie star, or, you know, become a hero.)

Aniston’s Q&A with Steinem isn’t available online in its entirety, but the L.A. Times has a condensed transcript here. Some highlights from the highlights:

What do you think the biggest problem is with feminism today?

… I think what we don’t talk about enough is religion. Spirituality is one thing, but religion is just politics in the sky. If God looks like the ruling class, you know you are in trouble. And that’s what religion is for, to make the ruling class look like God.

How do women build bridges across racial lines so we don’t just become a movement for upper-class women?

If we act like this movement belongs to white women, we have rendered invisible the [women who have been the] leaders of the movement all along. We need to know each other. Nothing works without trust. [The poet] bell hooks has a great rule: If you buy shoes together, you can do politics together.

How do you feel about women using their sex appeal to advance their careers?

If women could sleep their way to the top, there would be a lot more women at the top.

Amen, sister.

If you enjoyed this snippet, I recommend checking out the Makers website, which was founded about a year ago by AOL, PBS, and some very clever feminists. I know I sound like I’m being paid by them to say this (I WISH), but it’s just really good and I want you to know about it in case you don’t already. The site is a repository of dozens of documentaries and videos about the lives and work of “trailblazing women”—so, in other words, an internet vortex worthy of your valuable procrastination time. I just powered through Margaret Cho, Marian Wright Edelman, Nora Ephron, Sara Hurwitz, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and I feel better than ever about neglecting my housework.

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