As a feminist who cares about voting equality, it is clear to me that current voting rights advocacy is in part descended from the women's suffrage movement.

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.

As last year's election came and went and my disillusionment peaked, I recalled all of the Jewish women who fought to get the right to vote.

To this day, I’m astounded by congregants’ enthusiasm as they hopped on weekly—and eventually daily—Zoom voter phone-banking sessions.

America’s prisons, police forces, and courts seem beyond repair. Imagine how the world might look if God hadn't jumped to punish Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. 

I'm writing this note with a hopeful but heavy heart. In March 2020, I voted for the first time. I believed that this would be a tremendous year for women. 

I couldn’t understand why it was this incident that spurred me to tears—why it was the struggle of a dog rather than the countless struggles of humans that had made me cry.

Typically, walking through the doors of my high school gym brings on a feeling of dread, accompanied by the smell of body odor and wet paint. When I walked into the gym this past November, however, the only thing I felt was excitement. On the day of the 2018 Midterm Elections, I had decided to spend my Tuesday afternoon and evening as an election official, helping voters register, cast ballots, and, most importantly, go home with an “I Voted!” sticker proudly affixed to their shirts.

Judaism never seemed to offer anything that stoked my social justice fire. I didn’t hear many calls to action in services; partly because I wasn’t looking, and partly because services felt mundane to me.