Bringing Orthodox Jewish Women to the Leadership Table

thank you all for coming first order of business I understand that the room is going to be cooled down so in case anyone is too warm we're going to be getting relief in a moment okay a primary theme of this convention has been to give voice to the Orthodox women and to encourage our leadership in the community yesterday we focused upon Torah andila and today we're going to explore issues of leadership it's supposed I've been told that it's an historic moment that we now have women officers at a major Jewish organization a major Orthodox Jewish organization as is theou and for that I'm very pleased and I know that my fellow vice president is very pleased and honored as well so I'm going to be introducing I'm going to be introducing our moderator Dr Marian stals Loi who's a prime example of that kind of leadership both in the OU and in the general Community she is one of the foremost leaders in education in the Jewish Community Dr St Loi is currently the dean of Lander college for women and is the vice president of online education at turo College through an honors program that she recently created approximately four years ago she has enabled extremely talented young women to build skills and competency so that they can go out into the global economy and the the global Marketplace and succeed Marian has published two books in over 50 articles relating to the maturing Workforce diversity cross-cultural management and work life issues she's an honors graduate of Harvard University and was awarded her PhD in experimental psychology at NYU her husband is an ncsy alumnist and a faculty member at Columbia School of physician and surgeons and her children are of course members of OU shes so please welcome our moderator our new vice president Dr Marian stal Loi [Applause] thank thanks Bobby I appreciate that and and we are all of us uh new vice presidents uh we feel the burden and the excitement of that responsibility and we hope we will serve all of you very well in that capacity uh what I'd like to do by way of introduction to this panel on women in leadership uh and we're really talking about creating new opportunities and expanded opportunities for women in leadership positions both at the OU in your shs and in a variety of community organizations is to really lay the groundwork for that and lay the platform on which we can have a discussion this is going to be a part A two-part discussion part one is going to be with my incredible uh group of panelists they are you are all lucky to be here and anyone who's not here will have missed an amazing session uh but in addition we have part two which is we all know it's nice to think about things but we also want to look at trying to affect change so when we finish this panel at just a little bit before 12:15 I'd invite all of you and some of the other folks in the room next door to come downstairs and join with us to take strategy to practice and think about some of the things we can do again at the OU in our hometowns in our shes in our communities to try to enable women to achieve more in terms of a leadership perspective now I could start in terms of my remarks and setting this forward by talking about the models from Torah and terms of women's leadership and there are many obviously looking at the um chanot the for imahot and obviously some of them overlap with the chevan nvot but you look to women like d'vorah hanva and her magnificent Shira that was truly groundbreaking in terms of what she said and what she did looking at d'vorah as a women who was a leader unique to her time where d'vorah would sit on under that um that date tree and people would come to her and she was a strategic leader ultimately a military leader but really a woman who was unique in her position and obviously s and Esther who transformed their role and evolved and finally found their voices As Leaders within the Jewish Community to bring forth Jewish Destiny and to guarantee a Jewish future but today we also need more complex models that fit the technology and broader complexity of the 21st session 21st century I'm sorry and what I'd like to do is talk to you a little bit about what women are doing and what they would like to do one of the reasons why it's so important to focus on women is as Alan Fagan said yesterday in his remarks is number one it's the smart thing to do but it's the smart thing to do because otherwise we're using half of our talent pool what I'm finding when I talk to engineering firms and Technology firms like Google they are all trying to recruit more women to their ranks why because you can't develop good products if your developers only represent half your population and for us in our communities we can't develop the products that Advance the work we're doing the work that the OU and various other organizations you're involved in focus on and really get you excited about without having a full compliment of the people for whom you're designing programs and projects at the table in leadership positions and in fact if we look at what's going on and what women are doing I see in my own experience the Lander college for women my students want to succeed they want to have full seats at the table more than that they expect to they're either envisioning themselves as being parts of dual career couples or supporting someone for a number of years in the future who's going to sit and learn and that's probably true wherever your children are enrolled in school they're looking at similar Futures and in fact the research there's a famous study called Generations in gender that was done by the families and work institutes that looked at women in their 20s 30s and 40s and found that both men and women in those age groups are expecting to work full-time year round and Share work responsibility and family responsibilities more or less equally and it works better and differently in different families but that is the expectations so just to give you some examples and again I know my students best but they are typical of students at other schools so I can be speaking about students at turo but it's the same story at places like Stern or secular colleges when we think about what Young Orthodox women are doing today so number one it's getting accepted my students are getting accepted to all the top tier law schools and medical schools and expecting to work in those fields and they're becoming account mountains and going into digital multimedia and a variety of other things we have a student who started a business called the Jewish women's entrepreneurial Network and the idea is many women start businesses some of them are small businesses that people are running from their homes and some of them are financial service companies that are much broader and more complex but they all need support and mentoring and that's why she started a network for that um I have a student who did research at NYU in the Rheumatology department and changed the way lupus is being looked at not only at NYU medical school but across the country another student is enrolled in a course in entrepreneurship and biotechnology and then we have students who are planning to go into engineering if you haven't heard that's The Big Field for women biomed chemical mechanical and other fields as well as computer science because that's where the jobs are it's an impressive list of what students are doing today and what they want to do but our discussion is not just about students it's in it's involved with every woman in this room and every man in the room Who's involved with a woman as a spouse perhaps as a mother perhaps as a daughter and the question of what we need to do to help them achieve what they want to be able to achieve I don't think anyone in this room believes that women are less intelligent or less capable than men but sometimes what people think is that if you provide an opportunity for women at a senior leadership position it's going to conflict with their other responsibilities with their focus particularly in the from World on family on home on Jewish values but in fact what the data shows is that organizations that invest in women and give them the opportunities to get ahead and give them the ability to make the choice in fact have women who number one don't leave for family responsibilities but are engaged contributors and somehow as you'll hear from our panelists figure out a way to make it all work to fulfill their responsibilities as professionals to fulfill their responsibilities within the community and at home and thrive in all of those various R roles one of the questions and I had the privilege of sitting down with my panelists earlier is we raised a couple of questions which are how do we invite people to the table but when we're the women how do we also make sure that we expect to have a seat at the table that we invite ourselves at the table we in the Orthodox Jewish community need to face the fact that sadly we've lagged behind many other professional and other parts even of the Jewish community in terms of promoting women to leadership well wa leadership opportunities sorry today the OU and this weekend with really electing women to senior leadership position not only has shattered a glass ceiling that existed but has made a clear statement to everyone who's here and far beyond that that's not acceptable to us any longer and again Allan in his remarks last night articulated that position very very clearly and I think putting us in that light is going to refresh the OU tremendously bring more people to the table and bring more men and women it's not just about promoting women it's about changing how people look at us as an organization and as we have more women in leadership roles it's a statement to everyone and it's a gender neutral statement that's positive for everyone who we would like to get involved in the OU as an officer of the OU I'm very excited about this opportunity and I think that we need to take these messages of women in leadership home to transform what's going on in our communities in our shs and also in the local activities that you engage in with the OU the panel that I'm about to introduce is as I said the first part of our discussion and I have to tell you each of the women here is a trailblazer in her own field as you listen to our speakers I'd like to challenge you to think about what we can do to get more women in involved in leadership roles and then to keep those ideas so we can apply them in part two of our discussion when we go downstairs our three terrific speakers are here really to set the stage but more than that to inspire us I sat with awe during our discussion listening to what they've done listening to How they've accomplished things and believe me had they been men I would have been equ equally are inspired I wasn't impressed because it was women who were achieving this but because it was very successful thoughtful people achieving something finding gaps in the Orthodox community and stepping up and creating something again each of our women here has a generative role they impact our notion of what's possible for women to achieve by building new educational and communal communal structures to transform the lives of women with whom they work and I'd like to welcome our three speakers and I'll tell you their names and introduce them before each of them speaks I'm going to tell you a bit about their background but we have Dr Rona novic we have Miss Hani newberger and we have raban khah hen and now it's my privilege to first introduce Dr Rona novic who will be our first speaker and we will have time for questions and answers at the end Dr novic is the dean of The azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and administration at yiva University and she holds the rain and Stanley Silverstein chair in professional ethics and values she holds an appointment as associate clinical professor of child psychology at Northshore Long Island Jewish Medical Center Dr novic also serves as co-educational director of the Hidden Sparks program providing consultation to day schools and yeshivot she's recognized for her expertise in behavior management and child behavior therapy and has published scholarly articles on school applications of behavior management children in trauma and bully preventions in school she's the author of a book for parents helping your child make friends and editor of the book series kids don't come with instruction manuals and credits her expertise to both professional training and experience and also being a mother and a mother-in-law on a personal note when we had the opportunity to speak one of the things that Dr novic has done repeatedly is she seen an opportunity and I would like to just paraphase the paraphrase I'm sorry the familiar phrase IM what she said is if I'm not willing to step up to this position maybe other women will feel they can't either so her role as a Trailblazer has been to jump in when there's been an opportunity so it makes it easier for other women to move ahead and in fact she's been able to do that for many many women Dr novic okay we can sit right you can hear me okay okay um first I have to thank the U for inviting me and for giving me the opportunity to share the space with Incredible women and one of the things we remarked on is how important and uh nurturing it is for those of us who are women in these kinds of positions to meet other women to share our thoughts and our ideas and to share them with you um I started Ed my career and spent more decades than I'm willing to admit in the secular World although every uh hospital but one that I worked for had Jewish in its name they were secular institutions and so I had my professional hat and I had my Jewish hat and they did not uh mix or meld but what was interesting in that context is that gender in my field of child psychology gender didn't play much of a role what you did or didn't do in your career what leadership positions were open to you or available had much more to do with your skill set and your experience than it did with your gender and I had a series of uh leadership opportunities in that field uh and I had bosses who were male or who were female I moved to Jewish Education and all of a sudden things changed for the first time in my life I got to be one person with I could unify my professional and my jewishness in my career path but I also had to confront realities about roles of women that before were not part of my career issues questions or decisions um and that that has made for a very interesting experience for me I think I bring a different perspective I also think that um at times some of my students students graduate students at the azeli school of Jewish Education who are training either to be Jewish Educators or administrators and leaders in Jewish Education bring to me their experiences which are exclusively located in the Jewish world and I may have a very different perspective because of the years that I spent in uh in the secular world but what I've discovered is that one critical element I believe that any person needs to move into leadership is skills we need to know what leadership means and how to do it it's now the core of our curriculum in the doctoral program in Jewish Education but we were talking about amongst ourselves that is that too little too late and should we not be including curricula on leadership very early on in our Jewish Day schools certainly through my work in Bully prevention I work with middle school students on the concept of social responsibility on our on our responsibility to be social agents of change I don't think it's too early to start with young children and certainly with young women empowering them with the skills that will make them comfortable as Leaders I also think it's very very important that we expose children young adults and young professionals from very early on to the notion that there's more than one model of leadership that leadership is not just CEO leadership is not just the Rob leadership is not just the gabbi that there are multiple ways to lead there are multiple Pathways to leadership and that that opens doors sometimes it is extraordinarily helpful and valuable for people to see to have a vision of what that leadership looks like and and that's what was alluded to I when I was debating about uh accepting my most recent promotion I sat with my husband and we were you know doing our KES Bonos about what this would mean for me professionally for us as a family and I shared the fact that all through my professional career I had always had a a place in my office where young women would come and say you are the first Dr novic Rona I never before met a fir person female doing what you do you're my role model and part of my decision in moving forward in my career was about being able to yet again sit in an office where young women would sit across from me and say you are the first luckily I share the table with another Dean but it's not you know that common that there are uh women at in positions of leadership and higher education and it it's a wonderful opportunity to serve as that role model the last um thought I'm going to leave with is a somewhat provocative one but I'm really thrilled that this is room is not filled with only women I'm really thrilled that we're almost equally populated by gentlemen because I believe that part of what will make a difference in bringing women to the table has to do with men yes women we need to lean in yes yes girls we need to step forward and we need to find our passions and our model of leadership and what works for us but gentlemen we also benefit from an invitation it is also greatly greatly helped when the path is open to us and that there aren't roadblocks years ago when I first Tau taught a course on family and education I went around the table and and I asked everyone to do their own kind of family history their genogram about concepts of Education in their family and I was shocked by two disperate answers that came from women around the table it's co-ed class but it was striking these two answers from women one woman said this is in a graduate doctoral program there was no question in my mind no question in my family's mind that I was going to to go for advanced education didn't matter my gender it was irrelevant I come from an educated family it was assumed that I would get Master's doctorate medical degree I would have an advanced degree and within moments another woman at the table said it was unthought of and unheard of coming from my family and my background that a woman would go to any kind of education never mind and this is now a woman who leads an education program never mind that I would become the recipient of an advanced degree and become a leader in my field I want the world to be open to all of those women and regardless of their background for us to create a table in the Orthodox world where all of them see the possibility see the potential and we help them get there thank you our next Trailblazer is Mrs KH and newberger and what's interesting just in speaking to Mrs newberger is in all these pieces as you think about the parts of her life there's a very interesting tapestry and you could look at her bio in your programs if you think about her and what she's done she works currently for the NSA for the na National Security Administration and she's on the NSA senior senior leadership team you might have a stereotype of what she would be like she's also highly involved in the community and she works she founded an organization and in fact this shabis was not able to be here because they had a Shabbat tone and the organization is well known to many of you it's called sister a sister it helps women who have been uh who have experienced divorce there are 900 single mothers involved 420 people attended their chabas event and the purpose is to give practical advice and support but Han is also from B Park and so Han has been able to weave those various parts of her life into a tapestry that makes her unique unque and the leadership that she brings to each of the roles that she plays are the result of her experience and her background she does incredible things on a daily basis at work she's able to achieve amazing things in her communal commitment and also from the perspective of being a role model for all of us older and younger in the from community she brings that to the table as well and it's a real pleasure for me to introduce someone to you who's if you don't know her you should get to know her she's someone who is really leading the charge for all of us and she's going to focus more on I guess her communal responsibility and what she's been doing in terms of that but it's no less impressive what she's doing at the NSA to make a statement as a woman but even more than that as a from women to people who are planning the future that affects each of us in this country Mrs KH newberger good morning so it is truly an honor to be here it's truly an honor to be sitting um among such other really esteemed panelists I have to say as a from woman I as we sat this morning and just talked a bit I was struck by how rearly I sit with a group of other from female professionals so that alone is a a comment I think for for each of us why that happens so rarely perhaps that we are all thank God busy and don't necessarily make the time but it's uh was truly a wonderful thing to have that opportunity so it's wonderful to be here it is in fact I think perhaps very appropriate but also so interesting that we're having a conversation about um Orthodox women's leadership the shabas after the OU really led the charge in terms of bring bring a slate and electing a slate of women to its leadership so um I think from all of us our thanks and congratulations to that that has occurred thought I would perhaps address the topic since really looking chistol today particularly the the Orthodox branch of cherol is a very broad area I thought I would approach her perhaps not So Much from the traditional community that U typically serves but to a certain degree from the community um I come from the more traditional branch of the Orthodox Community where I think increasingly there are more and more women professionals and to perhaps talk about that perspective so first um I think each of us bring our perspectives very much are shaped by our experiences there's three sets of experiences that shape my perspectives on women's leadership the first very much as I said is my upbringing um within the traditional Branch where I also saw some of the most I'll use the yish word t or capable women I've ever met um were those women women who raised large families ran Community organizations all just kind of got it done in a quiet unassuming way that really inspires me very much each and every day to just not talk get it done so certainly that model of of women's leadership the second very much is within the National Security Community my husband reminded me this morning of a story i' experienced several years before when I worked in the Pentagon and I was staff um the Secretary of Defense so I was sitting at a meeting of staff and it was a discussion around sexual harassment in the military and as was traditional secetary defense was hosting a meeting with the senior civilians for each service the service secretary so the secretary of the army the Navy the Air Force Etc as well as the senior military officials so the chief of Naval operations Etc and as I looked around the room all were male and they were having a very thoughtful very heartfelt discussion around sexual harassment in the military but clearly we can each see why it wasn't a holistic or necessarily fully Rich discussion and as I sat there you know as kind of taking notes I was struck by how much more potentially effective the conversation and what their goals were would have been had there been women at the table simply to share perspectives so that's certainly and and watching that over the years um I work for the National Security Agency which what one might not expect is it's actually an organization that has become increasingly open to women on the senior leadership team today it's roughly about 40% women and across the organization and I think what women often bring there is the stereotypes of thinkers versus kind of bringing things across bringing people together I've certainly seen the role that women can play bringing diverse perspectives together towards a common end goal and then finally the third perspective is the perspective I've seen from both founding and be having the privilege of being among a network of women running sister to sister which really focused on a social need within our community that hadn't necessarily been recognized potentially because it mostly addressed women from divorced women mostly raising children alone um as Breadwinners pulling families together raising a generation and because in many cases in some cases divorce has unique impact on women they're often left with custody of children they're left to raise children which they're they feel privileged to do we saw how much a group of women focusing on what needed to be done and creating a table to address that with over 200 women volunteering to serve in some capacity the network of strength of both emotional Financial spiritual strength the network of empowerment that is created to address a social need how much much as a group of women we have been able to accomplish so those three perspectives the upbringing the professional background as well as the social addressing a need within the fir community that is often directly equipped to that is often directly impacts women and potentially did not necessarily get recognized as a result but still how much women could accomplish doing that so I think there's just two issues I wanted to potentially ra I wanted to raise and then just propose to perhaps practical suggestions for phase two that we could put on the table and the first is that and I think Dean St likey referred to it practically speaking I think there's a there's a perspective that within the more traditional Community women's women's have significant roles in their homes raising children and that potentially that is even a primary role I think as a result that has not allowed for a conversation that's recognized the reality which is that many women today are working and they're not necessarily from my perspective being equipped in our educational system throughout high school and then afterwards for some of the opportunities and some of the challenges they will face in those roles it's not always easy being a firw working woman in the workplace it's not always easy being a woman in the workplace being a leader in the workplace how much more so it's not always easy being a a firw workking woman or leader in the workplace first because sometimes the traditional models we grow up with of a woman's role of women's role in leadership and then potentially of how to just manage being a fir person I recall the first time I had a conversation about sukus rashash had come and go and I got very understanding nods about taking off Yumer certainly everybody understood and then with my luck it was a was a new job and of course the holiday fell during the weekdays and when I know was taking the time off I got this look of what is this holiday and how many more follow it and the opportunity to you know in my 12th grade education in my Seminary education nobody had prepared me for that conversation and I am confident that many men and many women before me had had that conversation and had best practices to share about how to handle it so let's prepare our women for that conversation similarly let's prepare them for sometimes the challenges they will face as mothers who take their roles as mothers seriously when the child's play is always in the middle of the day because poent the school hasn't necessarily recognized that 60 or 70% of the mothers in their in their par and body are working women how do we start that conversation to say we all want to be at the school play can you make it at 9:00 a.m. can you make it at 4:30 p.m. because we work an hour away and we can't come to the school play or we're coming with a heavy heart knowing that we've just taken four hours off of work so how to start that conversation in a way that is not a complaint but in a way that says we love our roles as wives mothers and professionals and as a community to achieve those roles with success we want to have the conversation about how we do that balance and then the second piece is over the last two decades I think there's been a beautiful increased role for Torah increased involvement by men and women we'll talk about men for a moment in sh life whether it's attending minion more frequently whether it's Dai that's now Sho based but men are spending more time in SHO I recall you know a r of a who talked about how his father who was also a RV answered some gave a a few times a year but how he instead is doing pastoral counseling is talking with families every day it's a whole different role similarly women's from my perspective spiritual and emotional needs have evolved and I think that the society's understanding of how it serves those spiritual and emotional needs has not necessarily progressed with it so I had the privilege of meeting raban henin this morning and the role she's played in building the yat program I think is revolutionary and I felt honored to really meet the person who has led that and and pioneered that I think in some branches of our communities the concept of a that concept is potentially a decade away so how do we meet the social and emotional needs of women across the full spectrum of Orthodoxy how do we provide women the training I see within sister to sister the set of needs we see across the almost thousand women we serve spans such a spectrum and in many cases women need other women to talk about some of those challenges because they're more comfortable discussing some of those needs with women we're not necessarily training or equipping female leaders in our community to address those needs in some cases they're emotional and spiritual in some cases they Hal needs in cases they address that in other communities it may be just equipping a woman to serve as a translator to the r for what those questions and those needs are so how do we do that so that women across the full spread of Orthodoxy have the support they need to address that so I'll close my remarks with just kind of recapping just the potentially two practical suggestions the first would be that we begin equipping our both girls in 12th grade and post high school education programs to actively be female from professionals having women who are female fir professionals spend time with them offer time as mentors offer time as practical guides to some of the challenges bringing in some of those best practices to deal with that and then the second piece to think about how we train and equip women leaders to serve the emotional and spiritual need of women in the community in the broadest leadership way so thank you it was wonderful to be here and now it's my privilege to introduce our third Trailblazer uh raban KH henin uh many of you had have heard from raban henin she was a guest with all of us during this Shabbat at the U convention so you've heard we know about the yaka and it is unbelievable as Miss newberger said it's truly impressive what she's been able to accomplish you can read her bio and get more information but what I'd like to do is speak a little bit about the power of a dream and what you can accomplish before that because of that uh ranit henin goes back a little more than 25 years ago and she saw a gap in terms of what was going on in the Jewish Community she looked at her own Jewish Education she looked at the school she wished she could have been able to attend and realized it didn't exist and so what she decided to do was create that school so that women women like her would have a place to go to in the future and that was the Genesis of nishmat which she founded and has been the dean of uh the RO Mida for the last 25 years nishmat is a place where women can come together and learn there are women who are just barely out of high school there are women in their 50s most women are in their 20s and may stay four five or six years because they want to be able to learn at the same level as men but in a place where they feel asically comfortable among women and so they come and they learn and they grow and they develop and I think we all owe a tremendous Deb of gratitude to raban nit henin not just for creating the yat Hala program which we all know affects us and as she mentioned there are going to be um and she probably mentioned over Shabbat she mentioned to us this this morning at the end of this year there will be over a hundred women who have gone through the program and we owe her a tremendous dead of gratitude because many women aren't comfortable asking men a variety of questions and she not only has changed who we go to to ask questions but she's changed the dialogue about how we think about those issues and I think that's tremendously important but in addition in terms of nishmat what she's been able to accomplish is to enable women to dream to enable each and every one of us to see what can be accomplished when we think the impossible and say more or less big deal I'm going to do it anyway and now it's my true pleasure to introduce roban nit [Applause] henin thank you thank you very much I hope that you're able to hear me I apologize for my heness yeah I think it's amplifying um okay okay um I just would like to um um rephrase something that was said in that very beautiful introduction which is for me it's never been about being able to learn what men are learning it's being able to learn at the uh highest possible level it's not about keeping up and in the same way I think what we're speaking about I don't see it as a women's issue I see it as an issue for the Jewish Community which has to do with enabling every member of the Jewish Community to realize themselves in the fullest way and to contribute to leadership in the fullest way I want start with a in beginning of there are two stories back to back which are mirror images of each other they both occur I presume on this Mitzvah visiting your rebi on so the first of the two stories goes like this there are two two young who went to visit rabi yahushua and rabi yahushua said to them tell me what's new in the B midash and the two of them tried to avoid answering him they said what could we possibly say to you we are your students we drink your water and he insisted no there is no such thing as a b midash without K without Innovation what did you do today and they finally told him and um uh he embellished what they had said the gar goes on to say the behead why didn't they answer him directly what's the big deal they ended up telling him it was the Shabbat of RAB elazar benar here's what RAB elazar benar taught why didn't they tell him directly so the gumar says well it's because of the story of rabi Yosi Ben duras what's the story rabi Yosi Ben dur M went to visit rabi elzar presumably also on and rabi elzar asked him what's new in the bit midrash and um blissfully naive he answered the question and he told Rabbi elzar Rabbi elzar became Furious and he said uh Yosi extend your hands and receive your eyes in other words he blinded his student he was infuriated and then a few moments later he said and go tell them don't pay attention to your kbone to your having debated the issue I have a cabala I have a tradition from my rebi RAB yanan Ben Zak who has a tradition from his rebi who has a tradition from his rebi from his rebi all the way back to sin that the same thing that you said in other words what you said was right but your process was wrong you should have relied on tradition you should not have debated the issue you shouldn't be um um you shouldn't be questioning you should be relying on tradition my friends I want to say that what's all always guided me is my belief that Jewish life is a dialogue between rabi elzar and RAB yosua that on the one hand you have the innovators like RAB Yuda excuse me RAB yosua who say there's no such thing as a b midash without Innovation on the other side you have rabie elzar who says it's tradition it's the m i don't want to hear anything that's new that's fresh and I think the capability to the capability to innovate has to do with being able to build those bridges between the innovators and the traditionalists and that's what I have tried to do now I'm coming here as an outsider I'm humbled by the achievements of the three women who are sitting here at this table I'm a part of the Torah World um I can perhaps inspire a bit with my own experience but I'm coming from Israel I am not planted here in the United States what um I'll tell you a little bit about my own path and where it has led me to because I think this has to do very much with the way this was introduced as having a dream and um feeling a sense of responsibility to go out and to actualize that dream I know that a lot of us have one Mitzvah or two mitv in life that we devote ourselves to there are 613 but most of us have our passions in one area or another so I have two one of them is tamut T the other one is T um and for many years I devoted myself as the wife of a rabbi to we lived in a small community in the North of Israel not so small uh we had 15,000 people but it seemed to me the mikah was being underutilized and I worked for years and eventually through education and also through changing conditions in the Mikvah I brought the use of the Mikvah up from Six Women a night to 26 women a night that was for me instructive because I was able to see that you see something going wrong you get up and you say some got to do something about this at the same time that was the beginning of an odyssey for me because I saw a great deal of suffering I saw women who were not asking questions who If Only They had an address for asking questions would they able to have their problem solved now my husband is a posy but at that time if three or four questions would come in two months we'd say wow that's a revolving door because women weren't asking questions of a man in this area and I know there are communities in which women ask communities in which women don't ask but I started out on this Odyssey of seeing how there were women who are not conceiving they're getting to the Mikvah too late there were women and men who were enduring prolonged and unnecessary marital Separation we are a religion that including Hally takes into consideration making people's lives good and pleasant and I S too much suffering I'm not going to take you through my life but along the way I realized that it was the merger of those two mitv that I'm devoted to that had an answer and I said to myself okay just get up and do it and um we began about me see our first graduating class was 1999 of Y it was very important to me to build those bridges perhaps I guess I'm an innovator I have greatest respect for the traditionalists those bridges are very important we did not go out waving banners we did not say we're here to hang out a shingle what we did was we enabled women to study we added a unit for two years on women's health we brought together an exceptional group of women imbued on the one hand with on the other hand with leadership abilities and excellence in learning since the time of their graduation um they have handled more than 200 50,000 H questions the way this started was also serendipitous the husband of one of the two graduates came to me a half year after the graduation and said listen we're getting a divorce I'm getting a divorce it's just a question am I divorcing my wife or am I divorcing you but I'm getting a divorce and I said what's the matter and he said listen there's no day there's no night in our home TOA doesn't have any time with the children women are pounding down our door with questions they're always calling right before SK which is when children need to eat and the women are calling and that was when we started our telephone hotline so one thing leads to the next but for me it has not been a question of looking at the table and saying I've got to get women at the table it's looking at people's needs looking especially especially at suffering looking at the Dignity of women's religious lives you can say and I did for decades for decades I was out there telling women you need to go to a raav with questions did it help I think it helped somewhat but once we educated y we've been bringing babies into the world we've caused couples not to have unnecessary marri separation there's been so much pleasantness and I think we've also created a role model for a path that can lead into leadership in in in in uh step with rabbis we had our first graduation of Y and a satellite program that nishat runs in the United States Harriet shim sitting here this wouldn't be without Harriet um in this program when we had the graduation there are between 40 and 50 RCA rabbis who signed on to our committee backing this graduation so I believe that you can build those bridges I think there needs to be a lot of humility in building the bridge but an absolute conviction that what needs to be needs to be now I want to say one more thing and I'll end with this that when I look at my own trajectory I say to myself sometimes with a degree of pain at what my days are filled with I know how I've made this happen I know that there's a change in Jewish life that's underway and that I'm part of facilitating which has to do with multi-year Torah learning for women you wouldn't send a man to medical school for 10 years so that he could be a neurosurgeon and a woman for one year and then say well it's interesting the women aren't coming out with the same skill set I have been ready to devote myself to a nasty word in Jewish life and I'd like to put that word out in front of you because I think this is a very important word for women to learn the nasty word is fundraising if you want to make something happen you've got to find partners and I think this is an area in which women have got to come into their own I'm not proud of how much time I spend fundraising I am proud of the individuals that I've been privileged to meet in the course of fundraising I would much rather be sitting at my table in the VAP mid and trying to figure out why are all the yonim supporting theam soir when theud is so much more logical that's what I'd like to be doing but if you don't get out there if you're not willing to take the time to go out there and to explain to people in order to make this happen we need Partners we need to reorder our priorities it's not going to happen so um I um sometimes feel I guess the way Henry Kissinger felt he used to describe how he would be traveling Eastward look out the plane window and he'd see himself traveling Westward on the plane at the same time I sometimes feel that way but it's a nasty word because it hasn't been said publicly and I think it needs to be said publicly that when we see needs that need to be met fundraising becomes a Kush Hashem and it's something it's it's uh something where I'm grateful ful for the opportunity to do so I would love to sit with theam s and theud a little bit more but spend less time on the plane but I never feel regret about a conversation I'm having I do regret the time in plane travel unless I'm seated next to the right person in which case I'm very happy to spend the time in plane travel but otherwise the plane travel is waste of time the conversations with lay Leaders with philanthropists with people who can make a difference are what builds Jewish life thank you okay we have about 10 minutes for questions and answers so questions let's start in the back because we always start in the front yes thank you very and just if you don't mind standing up to be sure everyone can hear thank you very much for wonderful Pres uh I'd like each of to discuss some of the needs for Lally appropriate and professionally meaningful roles for women in the synagogue okay I'm sorry meaningful and Hally appropriate and meaningful roles for women in the synagogue the synagogue is a is the central institution um in Jewish in Jewish life as such it tends to be a treasured institution and a somewhat conservative institution it's also a place where you have to hold the whole Community together I believe you can find those roles and I believe that the pace of change needs to be such that on the one hand we're not losing 50% of our population because the women are frustrated they're in the back row and on the other hand the whole Shool is comfortable I was recently in a Sho where the rabbi showed me with great pride the m the m was gorgeous it was it had a uh on it it was a magnificent M the only problem was that the was facing the wrong direction the women couldn't see it I have yet to walk into one sh where you have Mas har on a a plate in the women's section it's always in the men's section women don't have to say Mas I never see modan in the women's section I want to see shes paying attention to women you you can't tell a woman that the um you can't tell a woman don't bring bring children to sh if you want the woman to come to sh you've got to make sure you have appropriate child care in the sh and from that time women are going to come into the sh I know I'm talking about things which we all agree about but they're not being done in enough shs and they've got to be done now let's step forward what about women's voices being heard in sh we're within the framework of Hal within the framework of Hal you're going to have a m it's there it's since the days from it's since the days of is not going to be eliminated in Orthodox synagogues it's there as far as I'm concerned I'm always offended when I have to look at the men I have to like a I'm not there for a spectator sport as far as I'm concerned the action is vertical Theo getting up to where they should go and I'm not there to watch but I wish to say there are places in the synagogue that you can have women taking a role is there anything against women making announcements no is there anything against women giving D Torah no and I think the way to go is that within synagogue ritual you are going to have your fixed Orthodox synagogue but I think you've got to introduce new things is that's why worked if we called them rabbis it wouldn't have worked they they're and this is not about this is not about language this is about creating something new have women give shim within the synagogue and it will make the service much more meaningful for everybody who's sitting in that synagogue I think that each synagogue needs to decide for itself what EXA ly it's going to do in order to become more inclusive I think the emphasis needs to be upon prayer upon making prayer more meaningful and including women in prayer I have just one more thing to say which is what we do at nishmat we have calat Shabbat of women um which means um our students all together together in the B midash the men only come in for bar and it's an extraordinary experience we also have S for women it's extraordinary there is so much female energy which is wonderful 100% within the framework of H something which is new which hasn't been done and which to my mind is empowering okay let's take another question yes there's one element in success for professional women that hasn't been discussed today and that's having a supportive husband absolutely critical and I think education of sons is just as important I mean uh I was in the middle of my surgical internship in the 60s and uh every morning when I got home I would say I quit and every morning every night I would say I quit and every morning my husband pushed me out the door good so I'm telling you that without that it's impossible for professional women to be succeed excellent would either if you like to do either if you want to comment on it right I think applaud her husband sitting next to her right good I I would just comment that the the research in the early' 70s looking at increasing father's engagement in the home is is illustrative what they found was that as much as fathers would talk about wanting to become you know the new age engaged dads that when they walked in the door if their engagement wasn't supported by the women the women would hold on to their roles and there was no space for men to take over I think that we need we need very supportive people in our lives it's not just our husbands by the way it's our sons and daughters who need to support us and I think that support is gender blind you need it whether you're male or female you need it in today's HEC I very fast-paced worlds where we're all trying to keep you know the Ed Sullivan Show the plates where you're trying to keep those plates spinning we all need extra sets of hands if we're going to make it work and we need a lot of support yes thank you yes5 nom chose thank you thank you thank you very much uh let's do a question on this side yes can you just address the reaction of thank you okay so the question is women's response to women in leadership I'd like to get comments actually from all of our speakers on that Dr novic you do you want to begin um I I hear you and I think that there are those issues it may be that um being at Yushi University and being in a in a a situation where there's more male leadership than female leadership women are so happy to find Compadres we we have the ladies who lunch together we are each other's support network and we're really thrilled to have other female leadership um coming up through the ranks of our institution that's not to say that the research does not you know indicate that there are people out there many uh who still prefer working for a man and who experience discomfort at having female leadership oh I was gon to see how long I might even stop here let let's see how long so the perspective again you know often our perspectives come from our personal experiences I've only observed um and potentially that's because the women who are involved I've only observed an understanding and appreciation for women by women um in my social services roles I think professionally I will acknowledge your point all my mentors are male um I think it's a from my perspective as a you know it's a generational shift potentially an earlier generation of women felt they had to make very difficult career choices with regard to being both mothers and professionals and may feel a Next Generation who tries to balance both and become successful in both Arenas they may not necessarily have similar perspectives to share I think um so I I don't think I necessarily have um perspectives on having seen that phenomenon you raise I I would offer the point that learning to deal with difficult people ofo whatever gender is an important skill set and exactly and exactly the kind of skill set we could be equipping our girls and our boys in their high school and Leadership opportunities and training to deal with I don't know if you want to add anything or she did did you go ahead and this is our last question but we're going to go downstairs continue the discussion and our speakers will be there as well with actually shared byberg and I served with Dr I want to point that one thing that people should not have the wrong impression that um of course when we did make this decision because we was a lot of offic and was done with consult decided not this is 2004 I'm sure Fred would agree as well that that uh This was done because our said we could do what we did and they wereing and I think Manny's remark is a great closing statement here because that's what the OU represents and that's what we're trying to achieve today is we are all sitting at the same table helically and as we look at the opportunities for women we're saying this is important and the question is how do we make all of that work with who we are as people as individuals and as halakic Jews and what's beautiful is that we have been able to make strides we have been able to do all kinds of new things and create new opportunities for women with within that framework I'd like to thank all of our speakers uh I think they've been wonderful I'd like to thank you all for being here and we're going to con in Plaza 1 through 4 downstairs so please join us and the next session