Author: Chochmat Nashim

June 29, 2022

Chochmat Nashim is distressed by the manner in which many in the Orthodox Jewish community have reacted to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. As an organization that stands up for the voices, images, rights, and representation of Jewish women, and as an organization committed to Halacha, we fully recognize the complexity of the topic of abortion in the public arena. Halacha does not permit abortion “on demand,” a phrase that for some in the so-called “pro-life” camp has come to suggest “for no reason” (women don’t have abortions “for no reason”).

At the same time, the recent Supreme Court decision puts the lives and wellbeing of Orthodox women, some of whose stories you can read below, in grave danger. The states that are taking full advantage of the new “carte blanche” to ban abortion will not allow Orthodox residents who are halachically allowed, or even required, to abort. We would encourage the Orthodox people and organizations that are cheering the overturning of Roe v. Wade to reckon with the loss of religious freedom for Orthodox Jews, when rabbis permit or require abortion and the secular state will not allow it.


We would like to pause and recognize the realities for women who terminate their pregnancies, which even the most empathetic and compassionate men will not experience, in their own words:

Taken from personal testimonies and Avital Chizik Goldschmidt in The Forward

 

  1. At our 20 week ultrasound, we found out that our baby had Trisomy 13. This included numerous deformities incompatible with life. I was 26 and I never thought I would have to contemplate an abortion. But I knew carrying a child that would die would undo me. We asked a posek, who said we should terminate — to save both mother and child from suffering. I told everyone I’d miscarried. I did everything right, and asked all the right authorities, but I (rightly) expected to be shamed for what I had done. The celebration of the undoing of Roe v. Wade reflects a lack of understanding of what we went through.”
  2. “I was raped by an acquaintance and was so scared. I didn’t want to tell anyone, not even my husband. I did it alone. I was not emotionally able to talk to anyone at the time — and “their rules” [that would have meant carrying to term] would have killed me.”
  3. “During my 20-week scan, the sonographer detected severe problems with the baby. It was agony. This baby was beyond wanted. But his prognosis was so bad that he would have no quality of life if he made it to birth. Continuing the pregnancy would have severely impacted our family. We spoke to our rabbi, who consulted with a gadol [great rabbi]. His message was: Not only was this [abortion] halachically permissible, given the prognosis of my baby, it was something I should do. To anyone who hasn’t been there, abortion is a theoretical issue. And no one ever thinks they will have to deal with it on a personal level. It’s all well and good to have opinions about abortion, but until you’re in the situation, it’s impossible to really know what you’re talking about. Halacha is compassionate and we should be, too.”
  4. “My daughter was 3 months old and her brother was just shy of 2 years. I had severe, undiagnosed post-partum depression and occasional thoughts of suicide when I learned, during a routine check-up, that I was pregnant. I could barely tend to my two babies at home, and ending it all seemed like an appealing alternative to life. I asked for a referral to an abortion provider. The doctor was a frum woman who didn’t recoil at the outrageous question from a young chassidish wife. ‘This must be the first time anyone asked this question in this office,’ I said to her. ‘You’d be surprised at how many women came before you,’ she told me simply.”
  5. “In my first pregnancy, I had a subchorionic hematoma and severe placental abruption. I kept hemorrhaging so badly that I was in the ER a dozen times needing transfusions. Most OBs told me my life was at risk and I should terminate the pregnancy. My rav agreed… as my life was clearly at risk. Baruch Hashem, it stabilized and I did not have to make that choice. But I came very very close. The way some trigger laws are written, I would NOT have had that choice. And it was a choice halacha recognized. Realize that all the rabbonim who are cheering this decision… they are essentially telling me my life does not matter an inch. And that is deeply hurtful.”


The public response in the Orthodox world toward the overturning of Roe v. Wade, particularly when it includes celebratory glee, indicates that the true facts of abortion in the world at large, and in the frum world specifically, are not widely known.  

Women at serious physical or mental risk are discounted because they are presumed to be the extremely rare exception to the healthy rule. In addition, many more pregnancies are not compatible with life than the recent public response acknowledges. Moreover, terrible events, such as the incest a 13-year-old girl experienced from her father, or the rape of a 15-year-old girl by her therapist, happen in the Orthodox community far more than anyone wants to acknowledge. Those who support bans with exceptions for incest or rape should note even in these cases, the process is not simple: state requirements may include reporting the crime, which means public shame and communal shunning for girls who should be eligible to end the pregnancies forced on them, without adding to their trauma and pain.

 

We call on those who support abortion bans and severe limitations to read the statistics on who actually receives abortions and at what point in pregnancy — and ask themselves if their stance reflects reality, the needs of the community, and Halacha. Judaism has always been a religion of nuance, with its appreciation of the “middle ground.” It is not the approach of those Catholics, for example, who treat each fetus as a living being, equal to the status of its mother. In Judaism, the question of abortion is a serious one for each woman who must grapple with it, given her own circumstances, likely in conjunction with her doctor, her rabbi, and, where relevant, her husband.

When Orthodox Jews support state bans and restrictions on abortion, they put secular law over the Torah, in ways that endanger the lives and wellbeing of Jewish women and girls, superseding the Jewish obligation to “live according to the mitzvot” (וחי בהם), with all the nuance and individuation of rabbinic authority.

The erasure of women, which began a scant 20 years ago has now taken over frum publications. Women and girls do not exist  and have been cut out visually from frum life. We see this as a travesty, a falsehood and a damaging trend plaguing our community.

Erasing women harms our financial, health and religious rights. It also portrays boys and men as incapable of normal, healthy relationships with women. This intense segregation and erasure leads to hypersexualization and in the worst cases, inability to function as a healthy marital couple.

Chochmat Nashim, with the help of over 200 volunteers around the world created The Jewish Life Photo Bank to positively represent Jewish life — with women and girls, at work, in religious life, as families and more! The bank is growing and we are planning more photoshoots.

Please use these images in your projects and share the bank with friends and coworkers. We can push back the trend of erasing women by removing the fear and showing the beauty of visible female representation.


The exposure of Chaim Walder, the formerly beloved author and counselor, as a serial sexual abuser and his subsequent suicide sent shockwaves through the Haredi community. But, it was the praise heaped upon him and the claims by leadership that slander had killed him that was too much for the Haredi street to bear.

Devastated at the defense of a predator, and blaming of the victims, a number of Haredi women decided to take action. Chochmat Nashim’s Hila Hassan Lefkowitz was one of them. Together with the other activists, Chochmat Nashim ran a fundraising campaign that funded a revolution.

Week 1 – All across the country from Tzfat to Dimona, concentrated in haredi cities where too many are still denying sexual abuse and denying victims care and justice, 320,000 flyers on awareness and the importance of reporting sexual abuse and caring for victims are being distributed by over 150 volunteers. A group effort by dedicated activists.

On one side, an image with a girl, her mouth covered by a male hand with a bracelet that says, “Slander doesn’t speak to me.”
On the other, messages and Daas Torah on the importance of listening to victims of sexual abuse and reporting abusers.

Week 2 – 750,000 fliers and posters were distributed. The first was a double sided page with words of rabbinic support for victims of abuse and in favor of speaking up. The second was geared towards children and addressed the topics of touch and secrets in age appropriate language.

The fliers achieved massive change:

  • victims felt able to speak out- they plastered the homes of their abusers with fliers and told their stories to one another
  • the abuse hotlines received hundreds of calls from victims and perpetrators seeking help
  • Parents who were victims themselves learned the words to talk to their children
  • Rabbis spoke out, many for the first time
  • Leadership understood that the time of silencing and blaming victims is over

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