The Silence Between Us – What we’re missing in the #MeToo/#GamAni Movement

January 30, 2020

Published recently in ejewishphilanthropy.com

By Rabbi Andy Kastner, ’10

At a recent committee meeting, the topic of pregnancy came up. It was shared that a community member was expecting another child. A few men in the room were the first (and only) to comment on this news.

“Wow,” one exclaimed, breaking the ice.

“My, she is certainly fertile,” quipped another.

And then a third, with more of a strategic assessment, noted with sincerity, “She’s doing the best thing right now for the Jewish people. Seriously, it’s what the Jewish people need most,” implying that ‘success’ in ensuring Jewish vitality is all about market share.

I felt myself mentally gulp. There was silence, and then we moved on with the agenda.

Continued

Cornell University Logo A circular logo over of transparent background. The circle is white with red outlining the letters and images and a red border before and after the lettering around the circumference of the circle. The block letters going around the circumference of the circle say "CORNELL UNIVERSITY" on the top half and the bottom half says "FOUNDED A.D. 1865". In the center of the circle is another circle with a shield touching 3 edges of the circle. The shield is split into 2 segments, the top third and the bottom 2 thirds. The bottom segment has the symbol of an open book facing the viewer with 8 horizontal bars each on the left and right pages of the book. The line dividing the book extends upwards and downwards past the edge of the book and forms a "T" separating the bottom segment from the top segment and the left part of this segment from the right part. The book symbol also has 3 small squares coming out of its left and right sides with space between them appearing like bookmarks or tags.The top segment has two smaller shields. The left shield has a horizontal box taking up a third of the shield and descending down from the box are 6 vertical lines. The right shield has a quadrilateral in the abstracted form of a ship with 5 other quadrilaterals appearing like sails. The ship is on a flat plane meant to look like water with 3 triangular shapes behind to look like mountains and a circle behind the mountains with rays bursting out to look like the sun.Rabbi Ari Weiss honored for Cornell Hillel leadership
A photograph of a key hanging in a door lock. The right half of the image is taken up by a brown wooden door which has a greenish tinge due to the light source coming from the left. The key is inside a metal modern turning door lock and is hanging at the center of the photograph. The key inside the lock is metal and straight with ridges on both sides of the key bit and the part that attaches the bit to the key-ring is bulky and made of black plastic. On the small metal loop key-ring are hanging to other keys pointing straight down, both are completely metal and have ridges only on one side of the bit, the front key is squarish at the top and the back key is circular at the top. At the top of the image is what might be a cylindrical door knob but it has been cut-off at the top. The left side of the image is blurry and seems to be a window directed outside to a garden or some other space with a large light source and many green vaguely leaf shaped objects.Open Doors