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In Orthodox communities where women don’t read Torah, Purim offers a rare opportunity
(JTA) — When Alyza Lewin became a bat mitzvah in 1977, the fact that she had a ritual ceremony at all was still relatively revolutionary in Orthodox circles. But she took the rite of passage a step further, and did something that, for Orthodox Jews at the time, was considered the exclusive province of men.
She chanted the Scroll of Esther, known as the megillah, in front of a mixed-gender audience in suburban Washington, D.C. on the festival of Purim. Among the crowd were her grandfathers, who were both Orthodox rabbis. Lewin was the eldest of two daughters, and her father wanted to find a ritual she would be allowed to perform while remaining within the bounds of traditional Jewish law.
“My father, when it came time for the bat mitzvah, was trying to figure out what was something meaningful that a young woman could do,” she said. “So he decided: My Hebrew birthday is four days before Purim — he would teach me how to chant Megillat Esther.”
For many modern Orthodox women more than four decades later, women’s megillah readings have moved from the cutting edge to squarely within the norm. The increasing number of women’s readings is an indication of the growth of Orthodox feminism — and its concrete expression in Jewish ritual.
According to the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, at least 105 women-led megillah readings, for both mixed-gender and women-only audiences, are taking place worldwide this year. In 2019, according to JOFA, the number hit a peak of 139, up at a relatively steady pace from 63 in 2012, when the group began collecting data. The number of readings dipped last year due to COVID-19 precautions, but JOFA expects this year’s total to come close to the pre-pandemic high once congregations get around to notifying the organization of their events.
JOFA’s executive director, Daphne Lazar Price, said she had observed but did not quantify a related phenomenon where she’s seen “tremendous growth:” girls marking their bat mitzvahs with megillah readings, as Lewin did.
“Instead of a traditional Torah reading service or women’s tefillah [prayer] service or a partnership minyan service, we’ve seen a lot more… girls read, in part or the entire, Megillat Esther,” Price said.
Alyza Lewin’s personal megillah scroll cover is embroidered with an image of Mordecai being led on a horse by Haman on one side, and her name on the other side. (Photos courtesy of Alyza Lewin. Design by Jackie Hajdenberg)
Although traditional Jewish law, or halacha, obligates women to hear the megillah on par with men, many more traditionalist Orthodox communities still do not hold women’s megillah readings. Some Orthodox rabbis may believe that women need to hear the scroll chanted but should not themselves chant the scroll. Another objection stems from the idea that synagogues should gather the largest audience possible to hear the megillah, rather than fragment the crowd into smaller readings.
Still others worry that a women’s megillah reading will act as a sort of gateway to non-Orthodox practice more broadly. Gender egalitarianism is one of the principal dividing lines between Orthodoxy and more liberal Jewish movements, and some Orthodox rabbis say women who organize a megillah reading of their own may then venture into chanting Torah or leading public prayers, which women in the vast majority of Orthodox communities are not allowed to perform.
“The fear is, if we give a little, it’s a slippery slope and once we allow women’s megillah readings people intentionally will manipulate or maybe even accidentally just get confused,” said Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, an Israeli Orthodox rabbi formerly based in Baltimore, describing some rabbis’ concerns regarding women’s megillah readings in a lecture last month surveying a range of perspectives on the topic. “If women’s megillah readings are OK, then women’s Torah reading is OK, then women rabbis are OK and before you know it, I don’t know what.”
In recent years, a growing number of Orthodox women rabbinic leaders have weighed in on the question as well. Maharat Ruth Friedman, a spiritual leader at the Orthodox congregation Ohev Sholom: The National Synagogue in Washington, D.C., said women reading megillah may feel more acceptable to Orthodox communities that see women’s performance of other rituals as a step too far away from Orthodoxy.
“It is kind of the one semi-kosher or kosher thing that women in more [religiously] right-wing communities can do,” Friedman said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that the rabbis allow them to meet in the synagogue space, but at least that there is a contingent of women who will go to them.”
In some communities, women’s megillah readings might take place in private homes or in other spaces outside the synagogue. Some Orthodox rabbis permit women to read the megillah for other women, but prohibit it in front of men.
The idea of feminist megillah readings has become so mainstream that it was a storyline on “Shababnikim,” an Israeli comedy series about renegade haredi Orthodox yeshiva students. One of them is alarmed by his fiancee’s determination to read the megillah for a group of women and barges in to stop the reading. He later decides that despite his discomfort he should be more flexible in the future, within the constraints of Orthodox law, to make the woman he loves feel respected.
As women’s megillah readings have increased in popularity, they have reached the farthest parts of the globe, even reaching as far south as Antarctica. (Courtesy of Raquel Schreiber via JOFA)
At the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, a liberal Orthodox synagogue in New York City, women have been reading megillah for decades. Founding Rabbi Avi Weiss wrote a Jewish legal analysis explaining why women are permitted to read the scroll in 1998.
“I personally am someone who advocates, and in our synagogue community looks to expand, women’s roles and give more opportunities for women,” said the synagogue’s current senior rabbi, Steven Exler.
Lewin is also watching the practice expand at her synagogue, Washington, D.C.’s Kesher Israel Congregation, where women have read from the megillah for nearly three decades. This year, she’s reading the fewest chapters of the megillah she has ever read. She usually reads half of the scroll, including a difficult passage in the ninth chapter. But for this week’s women’s reading at her synagogue, a new volunteer signed up to chant the ninth chapter.
Still, despite her pioneering reading at age 12, and her decades of chanting, Lewin has encountered the Orthodox community’s ambivalence around women and megillah firsthand. For many years, she borrowed her father’s scroll when Purim came around. But about eight years ago, Lewin asked him for her own scroll as a gift, which can cost upwards of $1,800.
Lewin’s father traveled to Israel to find a scribe to commission the megillah. But he wasn’t comfortable telling the scribe the megillah would go to a woman, and instead said it was a gift for his son-in-law.
Years later, Lewin was at a wedding where she met the scribe who wrote her treasured megillah, and revealed to him that the scroll belonged to her.
“He was thrilled,” Lewin said. “I think it was his individual personality. There are some individuals who are very supportive of the increase in opportunity for women, that women are becoming much more learned in terms of Jewish law.”
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The post In Orthodox communities where women don’t read Torah, Purim offers a rare opportunity appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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New York’s Bruce Blakeman Vows to Protect Jews, Combat Anti-Israel Policies if Elected Governor
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Legislator Mazi Pilip join business and real estate leaders to invite New York City entrepreneurs, brokers, educational institutions, and residents who want to relocate to Nassau County following the election of Democratic Socialist Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani on Nov. 7, 2025, in Mineola, New York. Photo: Michael Nigro/Sipa USA Reuters Connect
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in New York, is outlining an aggressive law-and-order platform centered in part on combating antisemitism and defending Israel as he surges in the polls with the campaign season heating up.
In responses to a series of policy questions presented by The Algemeiner, Blakeman pointed to his record in Nassau County, home to a large Jewish population, as a model for how he would govern statewide. He argued that stricter enforcement and a tougher stance on protests have helped prevent unrest seen elsewhere in the region.
“In Nassau we have not permitted the lawless rioting that has threatened the safety and security of the Jewish community in New York City and on college campuses,” Blakeman said, adding that demonstrators who break the law must “face arrest” and that local policies banning face coverings during protests have helped deter violence.
“As the leader of Nassau County, home to 1.5 million people, of which almost 300,000 identify as Jewish, I have made protecting the Jewish community a priority,” Blakeman told The Algemeiner.
“These professional paid agitators know that in Nassau they face arrest if they break the law,” he said, adding that Nassau has “made it illegal for them to wear masks for them to hide their identities.”
Concealing one’s identity with face masks became a common feature of the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel demonstrations that erupted on college campuses across the US, as well as in the streets of New York, during the Gaza war.
Blakeman’s comments come amid heightened concern over antisemitic incidents in New York and nationally, an issue that has become increasingly central in state and local political debates.
Blakeman, who was first elected Nassau County executive in 2021 and won reelection last year, has repeatedly taken aim at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, accusing him of promoting anti-Israel positions and rhetoric he described as dangerous to Jewish communities.
When asked whether he would use the governor’s office to counter potential anti-Israel actions by New York City leadership, Blakeman pointed to his past support for anti-boycott measures targeting the Jewish state. As a former Hempstead councilman, he sponsored what he described as the nation’s first anti-BDS law in 2016, using the acronym for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against the Jewish state.
“As governor, I will push for the New York State Legislature to pass similar legislation statewide,” Blakeman said, criticizing Democrats — including incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul, who he is vying to unseat — for not advancing such measures into law.
“Currently, it is only an executive order because the left wing of the Democrat party will not allow a vote,” Blakeman added. “Kathy Hochul lacks the political courage to push for the law. That will change with me as governor.”
The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage as the first step toward its elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy the world’s only Jewish state.
Blakeman dismissed the possibility that Mamdani, who has described Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal and vowed to arrest him if he visits New York, could take legal action against Israeli officials, stating unequivocally that the mayor “will not arrest” Netanyahu.
Blakeman also weighed in on controversies involving academic and extensive business ties to Israel. He rejected calls by some activists to sever ties between New York City and the Cornell Tech campus, which was developed in partnership with Israel’s Technion.
“I believe that act would be illegal and it will not happen when I am governor,” the candidate said.
Blakeman, who previously worked as a lawyer, argued that any attempt to remove or isolate the campus would be unlawful and contrary to principles of academic freedom. “Israeli technology is good for business and good for New York,” Blakeman said, adding that the state should embrace innovation from Israel’s tech sector.
Similarly, Blakeman criticized efforts that, he said, push out companies with Israeli ties, referencing a drone manufacturer that recently departed the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He echoed comments from Democratic Assemblyman Kalman Yeger, who called such moves economically harmful.
“Boycotting Israel or companies that do business with Israel is illegal in New York,” Blakeman said, suggesting he would enforce those laws more aggressively as governor.
On the question of whether New York City could divest from Israel bonds, Blakeman argued that such authority does not rest with city leadership. He did not outline specific steps he would take but indicated opposition to any such move.
Blakeman drew a direct line between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, saying that denying Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state constitutes a “fundamentally antisemitic position.” He said that Mamdani, an avowed anti-Zionist who has accused the Jewish state of enacting “apartheid” and committing “genocide” against the Palestinians, of holding such views and said that rhetoric targeting Israel can endanger Jewish communities more broadly.
“Mamdani denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State. What he is saying is that other peoples have a right to a homeland but the Jewish people do not. That is a fundamentally antisemitic position,” he said.
“Mamdani’s continued hateful rhetoric against Israel endangers the Jewish community,” Blakeman continued.
He also criticized Democrats for what he described as support for Mamdani, a democratic socialist, framing the issue as a broader divide within the party over policy toward Israel.
“It is shocking to me that Democrats like the governor support an antisemitic figure like Mamdani,” he said, referring to Hochul’s endorsement of Mamdani during last year’s mayoral election.
Jewish New Yorkers and supporters of Israel more broadly have worried that Mamdani will weaponize his power as mayor to enact anti-Israel and antisemitic policies. Spectators argue that the election of a pro-Israel governor could serve as a useful bulwark against a city government with an increasingly hostile posture against Israel.
Blakeman’s comments to The Algemeiner highlight a growing fault line in New York politics, where debates over Israel, antisemitism, and public safety are increasingly intersecting with partisan divides. As tensions continue to rise, candidates across the political spectrum are staking out positions that could shape the state’s political landscape heading into the next election cycle.
Blakeman’s comments also come at a time when he has been surging in the polls just over seventh months out from the Nov. 3 election.
In just the past month, Hochul’s lead over Blakeman dropped 7 points, according to new Siena University poll released on Tuesday. The data showed Hochul holding a 13-point lead over Blakeman, 47 percent to 34 percent, but in February the margin was much wider, 51 to 31 percent.
According to Siena pollster Steven Greenberg, independents are mainly responsible for the narrowing gap.
“Interestingly, Hochul’s standing with New Yorkers is essentially the same as last month – a small plurality views her favorably, and a small majority approves of the job she’s doing as governor – as is Blakeman’s, yet the race between the two has tightened a little,” Greenberg said in a statement. “Three-quarters of Democrats continue to support Hochul, and more than three-quarters of Republicans continue to support Blakeman, but now independents favor Blakeman by seven points, after siding with Hochul by five points.”
Interestingly, New York City is one place where Blakeman made up ground.
“While Hochul maintains very narrow leads upstate and in the downstate suburbs, her lead in New York City fell from 46 points, 63 percent to 17 percent, last month to 29 points, 54 percent to 25 percent, today,” Greenberg added. “Is that movement or merely noise? Let’s see what happens next month after the budget and as the campaign unfolds.”
Days earlier, new internal polling released by Blakeman showed him within single digits of Hochul, trailing 52 percent to 43 percent in New York, a staunchly Democratic state.
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‘Jewish Blood Is Not Cheap’: Israel Passes Controversial Death Penalty Law for Palestinian Terrorists
Israeli National Security Minister and head of Jewish Power party Itamar Ben-Gvir gives a statement to members of the press, ahead of a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israeli lawmakers on Monday passed a contentious law allowing the death penalty for Palestinian terrorists from the West Bank, a move supporters said was needed to strengthen deterrence and deliver justice, but which critics condemned as immoral and at odds with Judaism.
The legislation, pushed by firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech — whose husband was killed in a terror attack in 2003 — would make capital punishment mandatory in certain terrorism cases. The bill eliminates the need for a unanimous verdict from the judicial panel and requires that any sentence be carried out by hanging within 90 days, marking one of the most far-reaching changes to Israel’s penal framework in decades.
Ben-Gvir hailed the measure as a “historic victory” for Israel, calling it a “moral and just” law that would end the cycle in which terrorists kill, are jailed, and later released through hostage and prisoner exchange deals or political pressure.
“Whoever takes a life, the state will take his life,” he said. “This law restores deterrence, restores justice, and sends a clear and bold message to our enemies: Jewish blood is not cheap.”
Son Har-Melech also said the law would mean “no more cycle of murder, imprisonment, and release in deals, but a clear eye. Whoever chooses to murder Jews because they are Jews forfeits their right to live.”
“This is a message of justice, deterrence, and national responsibility,” she added. “This is also true Jewish morality. One that does not settle for temporary salvation ensures that evil will not strike again.”
She added that she had vowed to make sure the grief she suffered as a result of her husband’s murder would not happen to others.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had previously expressed reservations about the bill, entered the chamber to back it during Monday evening’s final vote.
Some opposition lawmakers warned the law crossed both a moral and strategic red line, arguing it would do little to deter terrorism while further eroding Israel’s legal and ethical standing. Labor MK Gilad Kariv said the legislation violated international law and could leave Israeli soldiers and prison guards exposed to war crimes accusations against their will.
“How can you call it justice if someone can be sentenced to death without a unanimous ruling?” Kariv added. “Is that the reverence for life that Jewish tradition teaches us?”
Kariv’s party, together with several other opposition factions and human rights groups, said it would petition the High Court of Justice to strike down the law.
One of those groups, Rabbis for Human Rights, said, “A death penalty policy runs contrary to the spirit of Jewish law and to the principle of the sanctity of life at its core. It ignores warnings from senior security officials who cautioned that the law would not deter but rather escalate violence, and it harms the Jewish and democratic character of the state.”
Some of the harshest objections focused less on sympathy for terrorists than on whether the law was morally coherent, legally defensible, or even likely to work.
Avishai Greenzeig, a rightwing legal commentator, blasted the legislation as “one of the dumbest laws” he had seen, according to a report in the Hebrew-language Arutz 7 site, arguing its vague drafting was so poor that courts would likely avoid using it in practice.
“Anyone who applauds this law is selling hot air to the public,” he said.
Supporters of the law have pointed to the US, where the death penalty is still practiced in a number of states, but critics say the Israeli legislation departs from the legal norms that make it defensible abroad.
“It’s easy to defend the law in the United States where many states still uphold the death penalty,” former Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren told The Algemeiner.
“But by denying those convicted of the right to appeal and by distinguishing between Arab and Jewish terrorists, the Israeli law cannot be defended in America’s court of public opinion,” he added.
Former MK Einat Wilf, founder of the new Oz political party, who has long argued that Israel must respond to Palestinian violence and rejectionism with strategic clarity rather than symbolic gestures, said the law would leave Israel paying a price abroad without gaining anything meaningful in return.
“As with so many things this government does – it is all empty words where we gain nothing and only pay,” she told The Algemeiner.
The law would only bring Israel “international condemnations, confused allies, frustrated friends,” she added.
The law’s passage prompted several protests, including by the Reform Movement in Israel, which held a demonstration on Tuesday outside of the Knesset.
“We recognize, unequivocally, Israel’s right and obligation to defend its citizens from terror and violence. We mourn all those who have suffered devastating loss through the many terrorist attacks Israelis have suffered,” the movement said in a statement, describing the law as “dangerous.”
It “contradicts the Jewish tradition’s teachings about capital punishment that emphasize the rarity with which it should be applied,” the group said.
Palestinians in the West Bank also gathered to protest in several cities, including Ramallah, Tubas, Nablus, and Jenin in the north, as well as Hebron.
The Palestinian Authority called it a “dangerous escalation.”
“Israel has no sovereignty over Palestinian land,” the PA foreign ministry said on X. “This law once again reveals the nature of the Israeli colonial system, which seeks to legitimize extrajudicial killing under legislative cover.”
The law also drew swift international condemnation. The United Nations urged Israel to repeal what it called a “discriminatory” measure that “violated international law,” while the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom also criticized the bill.
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Jewish communities can help save trans lives — here’s how
In the 16 months since the 2024 election, the lives of hundreds of thousands of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people in the United States have been upended. A new survey shows that, during that time period, 9% of the country’s transgender population moved from one U.S. state to another over concerns for their personal safety. Andjust today, as we celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility, the Supreme Court released a decision that harms transgender people, as well as the entire LGBTQ+ community, by striking down a state law that protected LGBTQ+ youth and their families from so-called conversion therapy, a dangerous, disproven practice.
Jews have a religious obligation to protect transgender lives; a key tenet of our faith is the belief that to save a life is to save the whole world. Research shows that religious groups can play a particularly significant role in the lives of transgender youth. With the support of such groups, trans kids experience dramatically lower rates of depression and suicide. Conversely, when social support is stripped away, the risks rise.
That’s why more than 1,000 rabbis, cantors, and other spiritual leaders representing all major Jewish denominations — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Renewal — from 48 U.S. states and the District of Columbia recently signed an open letter publicly declaring that Jewish tradition compels us to support the full equality of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people.
The letter was spearheaded by Keshet, the leading national Jewish organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ equality, and the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism — the organizations for which we respectively work. For us, the need for Jews to make a strong statement of support for the trans community was urgent.
In recent years, almost every state in the U.S. has proposed or passed legislation to take away the rights of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, politicians in 42 state legislatures have introduced a staggering 740 laws targeting transgender people. At this horrifying rate, they’re on track to surpass last year’s 1,022 anti-trans bills, proposed in 49 states.
Only some of these bills will become law. But all of them aim to take away rights and erase transgender people from public spaces — by ending gender-affirming healthcare, restricting restroom use, forcibly outing students at school, banning books, and more. Kansas passed a particularly terrifying example of this sort of legislation in February, with a law that revoked the IDs of transgender people — passed in the dead of night, and put into effect the very next day.
Jewish communities are painfully aware of the dangers of policies and laws that try to legislate minority groups out of the public square. That clarity gives us a particular mandate to combat such efforts.
So many American Jews have ancestors whose lives were shaped by exclusionary laws, scapegoating, censorship and attempts to erase us from public life. So many of us who immigrated to this country have firsthand experience of that same torment. This strategy of disenfranchisement and persecution has appeared repeatedly throughout Jewish history, often preceding profound tragedy.
As Jewish leaders, we see echoes of those dangerous patterns today in rhetoric that portrays LGBTQ+ people as a threat to society. We know, from our own history, that these are not the actions of a functioning democracy.
Our congregants and community members have been asking us what they can do to support our trans youth in their circles. And LGBTQ+ Jews want to know how Jewish organizations are working to stand up for their existence, dignity and safety. We must answer both questions more vigorously and decisively.
Even as we work to protect and advance LGBTQ+ rights in the public square, we have the power — and the responsibility — to make our Jewish communities safe havens. We have a unique role to play.
There are things all of us can do to create Jewish communities of belonging and affirmation for our transgender, nonbinary and intersex community members:
- Commit to using the names and pronouns that LGBTQ+ members use for themselves.
- Push your Jewish community leaders to take proactive steps to turn your community into a safe and affirming space for all transgender and LGBTQ+ people.
- Establish gender-neutral restrooms. Then, create and post a policy that encourages people to use the restroom, locker room or other gendered facilities that align with their gender.
- Implement anti-harassment, anti-bullying and non-discrimination policies that affirm the dignity and safety of all community members.
The rights and lives of our neighbors are in our hands. As many of our political leaders fail to protect members of our community, we must lead by example to build a world of affirmation and belonging for all.
The post Jewish communities can help save trans lives — here’s how appeared first on The Forward.