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A digital Jewish library aims to add women’s Torah scholarship to its shelves — by helping them write it
(JTA) — Sefaria, the app that contains a digital collection of Jewish texts, has made everything from Genesis to an essay on Jewish law and gambling accessible at the tap of a finger.
But in one way, it’s the same as nearly every other Jewish library in history: Almost all the texts, from ancient times to the present, are written by men.
Now, Sefaria is hoping to chip away at that gender disparity by organizing and supporting a group of 20 women Torah scholars who are writing new books on Jewish texts.
“It’s relatively recent in the history of the Jewish people that women have had access to as full a Jewish education as men,” Sara Wolkenfeld, chief learning officer at Sefaria, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And so it’s even more recent that women are able to create those works.”
She added, “When I spoke to women about this, I discovered more and more that there were amazing women teaching Torah and many fewer women who were being encouraged to write books of Torah and really have the scaffolding in place to do that.”
The participants in the new program, called Word-by-Word, range from ordained clergy to academics and teachers. They have expertise in subjects ranging from early modern Jewish studies to Jewish thought and Talmud. Most of them are affiliated with Orthodox institutions or received Orthodox ordination. There are no non-Orthodox rabbis on the list.
Non-Orthodox women have been receiving rabbinic ordination for more than half a century, and recent decades have seen the proliferation of advanced Orthodox Jewish educational institutions geared toward women. In recent years, a growing number of Orthodox women have received ordination as clergy as well.
Word-by-Word aims to parlay their expertise into texts about topics such as Sephardic women’s halacha and rabbinic literature, villains of the Torah, and environmental ethics. Many but not all of the planned books will cover women’s issues: Rabbanit Leah Sarna aims to produce a pregnancy and childbirth guide for observant Jewish women and Gila Fine in Israel will explore the six women named in the Babylonian Talmud, for example, while Adina Blaustein in Ohio will produce a book rooted in the weekly Torah portion.
The program will provide the selected scholars with a support system that will help them put their knowledge down on paper — and, crucially, will pay them to do so. Cohort members will receive $6,000 per year for three years to support their work and will also get professional coaching, peer mentoring and networking opportunities with publishers and authors. The goal is for at least 15 to publish books by the program’s end, in 2026.
Erica Brown, director of the Sacks-Herenstein Center and vice provost for values and leadership at Yeshiva University, is leading the program with Wolkenfeld at Sefaria. (Sefaria’s CEO, Daniel Septimus, is on the board of 70 Faces Media, JTA’s parent organization.)
“Word-by-Word is the program I most needed when I started writing books about 15 years ago,” Brown said in a statement. “I needed help articulating my table of contents, editing myself down, structuring my ideas, writing a proposal, and then connecting to publishers,” she said. “There is a huge difference between knowing how to write and knowing how to publish a book.”
“Writing can also be lonely,” she added. “But it doesn’t have to be. With Word-by-Word, we’ll be creating a new Jewish sisterhood.”
The program builds on a sisterhood that has been growing for some time — of Orthodox women engaged in leading Jewish communities. Many of the cohort’s members are themselves graduates of, or teach at, Orthodox women’s educational institutions. At least seven of the 20 have spent time at Yeshivat Maharat, a liberal Orthodox institution that ordains women clergy. Others are affiliated with Orthodox campuses such as Yeshiva University in New York City or Bar-Ilan University outside of Tel Aviv, or Orthodox high schools or synagogues.
At least six of the cohort members are PhDs whose academic work mostly focuses on Jewish texts. Others are senior educators or hold prominent positions at Jewish educational institutions or nonprofits ranging from the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies to the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America.
The funders of Word-by-Word include three foundations that have supported Orthodox women’s learning and advancement: Micah Philanthropies, which allocated nearly a quarter of its grant money from 2021-2022 to Orthodox women’s leadership; the Walder Foundation, which has given grants to projects focused on Orthodox women’s education and leadership; and the Arev Fund, which has provided funding to Yeshivat Maharat, the educational center Nishmat, and other organizations geared toward Orthodox women.
Word-by-Word was open to women of all denominations and its organizers aimed for their advertising to reach a broad Jewish audience. But Wolkenfeld estimates that somewhere between 50% and 75% of the 122 women who applied were, judging from the applicants’ resumes, “plausibly Orthodox.” She also said the cohort’s denominational breakdown may have been a result of the program call for projects that closely analyzed Jewish texts.
“We got a lot of applications that were not actually close analysis of Jewish texts, but rather more, like, writing about themes in Jewish texts,” Wolkenfeld said. “To have a fellowship that was even more diverse, we probably would have needed to have different criteria.”
A predecessor to Word-by-Word launched in 2021, when Sefaria and Yeshivat Maharat partnered to create a writing fellowship for Jewish women scholars. Participants received training and, at the program’s conclusion, each presented a 3,000-word piece at a virtual event. The 14 scholars and rabbis who participated in that program included graduates of Orthodox, Conservative and transdenominational rabbinical schools.
Pamela Barmash, a Conservative rabbi and a professor of Hebrew Bible at Washington University in St. Louis, who is not involved in Word-by-Word, said the absence of non-Orthodox rabbis means “the full orchestra of voices that make up the Jewish community is not there.”
“We only see part of the colors in the spectrum,” she said. “We only see pieces of the Jewish world and we’re missing much of the vitality and creativity and initiative that is found in the rest of the Jewish world.”
Wolkenfeld is an alumna of several Jewish educational institutions and said she feels the increasing gender diversity she sees in institutions of Torah learning has been a boon. Soon, she hopes, some of the women she has studied with will see their names on those institutions’ bookshelves.
“As opposed to where we were, let’s say, 20 years ago,” she said, “I think we now have had the chance to start reaping the benefits of what happens when you have both men and women involved in learning Torah and teaching Torah and disseminating Torah.”
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The post A digital Jewish library aims to add women’s Torah scholarship to its shelves — by helping them write it appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Jewish library and Chabad near Buenos Aires attacked, Argentine Jewish advocates say
(JTA) — Counterterrorism officials in Buenos Aires are investigating after a Jewish library and a Chabad center in a suburb in the Argentine capital were attacked last week.
On Thursday night, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the Israeli Literary Center and Max Nordau Library in La Plata, according to a statement published Friday by the center’s board of directors. Multiple individuals “threw a blunt object filled with fuel at the front of the library, breaking windows and causing material damage,” the board said, noting that the device did not ignite and no one was injured.
The library, a secular educational center founded in 1912 that promotes Argentine Jewish culture, said it is reinforcing security measures in light of the attack.
On Sunday, the Chabad of La Plata was also attacked, according to DAIA, the Argentine Jewish community group, which condemned both attacks. DAIA, which first reported the Chabad attack, did not describe the nature of the attack beyond reporting no injuries.
“We are deeply concerned about the recurrence and the short timeframe of these incidents,” DAIA said in a statement.
The Ministry of Security of the Province of Buenos Aires and the Complex Crimes and Counterterrorism Unit of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police are investigating both attacks.
La Plata’s Jewish population numbers about 2,000, and its Chabad center has existed for more than 25 years. Argentina as a whole is home to the sixth-largest Jewish community in the world and the largest in Latin America, mostly centered in Buenos Aires.
“These acts of violence threaten democratic coexistence and the values of respect and pluralism that we defend our neighbors,” La Plata Mayor Julio Alak said. “We will not allow hatred and intolerance to have a place in our city.”
Argentina is the site of some of the deadliest attacks on Jewish institutions in modern history. A 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people, while a 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish community center left more than 80 people dead. Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, a pro-Israel and philosemitic economist, has advanced efforts to hold Hezbollah and Iran responsible for their alleged role in the attacks after years of foot-dragging by prior leaders.
The incidents in La Plata come as Jewish institutions around the world are on high alert amid a string of attacks since the start of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran in February. Several synagogues and Israeli outposts in Europe have faced arson attacks that a group seen as tied to Iran have claimed responsibility for staging. No one has been injured in those attacks.
Argentina has also faced homegrown antisemitism scandals. In September, a video of a group of Buenos Aires high school students on a graduation trip chanting “Today we burn Jews” went viral, earning condemnation from Jewish community advocates and even Milei himself. The group, from the private school Escuela Humanos, was traveling with Escuela ORT, a Jewish school.
Following the attacks in La Plata, comments on a local news outlet’s Instagram post about the attack on the local Chabad Sunday were filled with antisemitic tropes, including blood libel and false flag theories. Antisemitism watchdogs say false flag allegations, holding that an operation is staged to look like an attack in order to garner sympathy for the victim or attribute blame to another party, have flourished in recent years against Jews and Israel.
The post Jewish library and Chabad near Buenos Aires attacked, Argentine Jewish advocates say appeared first on The Forward.
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Cornell’s Jewish president clashes with students following on-campus debate about Israel
(JTA) — Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff and student protesters are trading accusations after an incident in which protesters surrounded the president’s car following an on-campus debate about Israel.
The protesters, from a group called Students for a Democratic Cornell, released a video appearing to show that President Michael Kotlikoff had backed up into one of them while a protester shouts that the car ran over his foot.
In response, Cornell released its own video depicting what it said was a “harassment and intimidation incident,” its enhanced version of which it said offered “complete footage of the parking lot interactions, instead of clips to support a narrative.” That video shows students surrounding the president’s car as he tries to exit his parking space. After he eventually departs, the students continue to mill around with no obvious indication of injury to any of them.
In a statement of his own, Kotlikoff said that despite being surrounded by protesters who banged on his car windows, he waited until his backup camera showed a clear path before maneuvering out of the spot.
“The behavior I experienced last night is not protest,” Kotlikoff said in his statement, released Friday night. “It is harassment and intimidation, with the direct motive of silencing speech. It has no place in an academic community, no place in a democracy, and can have no place at Cornell.”
In an Instagram post, the protesters rejected Kotlikoff’s claims that they banged on his car and that they had previous records of misconduct on campus. They also reiterated their allegation that he had struck them.
The incident marks a relatively rare example of a clash between a university and pro-Palestinian student protesters two years after the student encampment movement roiled campuses across the United States, including at Cornell. The Ivy League university, like many others, enacted new rules designed to constrain protests that have kept demonstrations at bay amid pressure from the Trump administration to curb what it said was antisemitism among protesters. In November, Cornell agreed to pay $60 million to resolve federal antisemitism allegations.
Kotlikoff became Cornell’s president in early 2025, saying at the time that he was “very comfortable with where Cornell is currently” following “two relatively peaceful semesters” in which there were only isolated incidents that violated university rules around protest. He soon rejected pro-Palestinian students’ demands to cut ties with the Technion university in Israel. But he also urged the campus to foster academic debate around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The event that preceded his clash with students on Thursday represented a striking example of such debate. Sponsored by an ideologically diverse array of groups, including the pro-Israel advocacy groups StandWithUs and the Zionist Organization of America as well as the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which has previously been suspended for violating university rules, the event was the second in a two-part “Israel-Palestine Debate Series.”
The series was organized by the Cornell Political Union according to a format its website says it has long maintained. The format features a lecture by a speaker followed by formal responses from students and an audience debate.
In the first event, held earlier in April, the Israeli historian Benny Morris lectured on the topic “The American-Israeli Alliance Serves America’s Interests.” Morris is a liberal Zionist critic of the Israeli government whose work has included foundational research on the founding of the state arguing that many Arabs were expelled, rather than fled, during the 1948 war.
The second, on Thursday, featured the pro-Palestinian Holocaust historian Norman Finkelstein, who lectured on the topic “Israel Was Not Justified in Its Response to October 7th.” Finkelstein, who has criticized Morris for showing a pro-Israel bias, has compared the plight of the Palestinians to that of Jews during the Holocaust, and Students for Justice in Palestine posted a picture of its members posing with him on Thursday.
Kotlikoff offered introductory remarks at the event, which promoted a no-technology policy designed “out of respect to student[s] who will be given the opportunity to speak openly on a divisive topic.”
The post Cornell’s Jewish president clashes with students following on-campus debate about Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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U of Michigan apologizes after faculty chair praises pro-Palestinian students during commencement speech
(JTA) — The University of Michigan has issued a formal apology after its faculty senate chair went off-script to praise pro-Palestinian student protesters during last weekend’s commencement address.
Derek Peterson, who also praised the memory of the school’s first Jewish professor in his speech, had drawn criticism from Michigan Hillel and from major organizations including the American Jewish Committee.
Now, a growing chorus of faculty members have signed a letter pushing back on the school president’s apology. On the right, Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott has urged the federal government to stop funding the public university over the incident, writing, “If this is what Americans are paying for, it’s time to cut them off COMPLETELY.”
“At today’s U-M spring commencement ceremony, our outgoing Faculty Senate Chair made remarks regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict that were hurtful and insensitive to many members of our community,” Michigan’s interim president, Domenico Grasso, wrote in his letter on Saturday. “We regret the pain this has caused on a day devoted to celebration and accomplishment. For this, the university apologizes.”
Peterson, a history and African-American studies professor who is finishing a stint as faculty chair, had structured his commencement speech around pioneers in university history.
“Sing for Moritz Levi, the first Jewish professor at the University of Michigan. Appointed professor of French in 1896, he was to open the doors of this great university to generations of Jewish students who found in Ann Arbor a safe haven from the antisemitism of East Coast universities,” Peterson told the crowd at Michigan’s football field, to applause.
Shortly after, Peterson added, “Sing for the pro-Palestinian student activists who have, over these past two years, opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza.” Those remarks also received loud applause.
Michigan, like many campuses, was host to a critical mass of pro-Palestinian encampments and other forms of student protest. The tenor of such actions in Ann Arbor has escalated: Protesters have also cut down peonies at the university arboretum and vandalized the home of a Jewish university regent. Recently the attorney who defended the university’s encampment participants from some state-level charges received the Democratic Party’s nomination for a seat on the university’s board of regents.
Peterson’s comments, Grasso said, “were inappropriate and do not represent our institutional position,” which he said was “institutional neutrality.” (Many universities have adopted a stance of neutrality in recent years as they have sought to navigate tensions around Israel.)
Grasso added, “Commencement is a time of celebration, recognition and unity. The Chair’s remarks were expected to be congratulatory, not a platform for personal or political expression.”
Michigan Hillel also condemned Peterson’s speech on Sunday, in similar language.
“Commencement is a celebration of every graduate. It is not a stage for political statements that alienate the Jewish community,” the Hillel wrote on Instagram. “Michigan Hillel is deeply troubled that this occasion was used in that way.” The chapter also said it would “look forward to productive conversations” with Michigan administrators.
AJC head Ted Deutch, a Michigan alum, accused Peterson of choosing to “hijack a unifying moment to inject his anti-Israel politics.”
On campus, however, an open letter rebuking Grasso and defending Peterson’s speech had been signed by more than 1,100 faculty members, staff and students in less than 24 hours.
“His celebration of the students who engaged in those protests clearly connected to his discussions of past efforts by students to target injustice,” the letter said of Peterson, citing his linking of the protesters to Moritz Levi. The letter also claimed that Grasso’s apology itself violated the university’s “institutional neutrality” policy.
“Many members of our community have family members who have been killed, whose houses have been destroyed, and whose lives have been transformed by Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza,” the letter reads. “To many, protesting against the war was a central part of their University experience, and one that was an expression of the values of free speech and humanism that our institution supports when it is at its best.”
The reactions to Peterson’s speech were “totally predictable,” Karla Goldman, a Judaic Studies professor at Michigan who researches the university’s early Jewish life, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Why throw a grenade?” Goldman said. “It’s not that what he said is terrible. I don’t find what he said terrible. But you could predict what the result was going to be. So my question would be, to what end?”
Goldman said she could understand why Peterson’s brief remarks had linked Moritz Levi to pro-Palestinian protesters.
“I get the trajectory of what he’s saying: People that higher education couldn’t see, eventually they were able to see,” she said.
Commencement ceremonies have been a frontier for tensions over Israel since Oct. 7, but it has typically been students, not faculty, raising the issue. In 2024, many college graduations featured pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including at Michigan. Last year, multiple schools disciplined students who made pro-Palestinian comments in their speeches in contravention of university policies. Some schools have done away with student speeches in an effort to stem disruptions.
The post U of Michigan apologizes after faculty chair praises pro-Palestinian students during commencement speech appeared first on The Forward.