Et tu, OU? And after you said you never erase women…

This is a post I’d hoped not to write. It was drafted before the war, but even then, I’d hoped not to need to post it. I ignored it for the past year, and I truly wish I had no reason to write it now.

But I can’t push it off any longer. I owe it to everyone who has followed me and my organization, Chochmat Nashim, over the past many years and contributed to the efforts against the erasure of women’s faces and voices in the Orthodox world. Despite having written so many posts about this worrying trend, this one is particularly difficult to write. Because while in some ways it is about a win, it is also a reflection of just how entrenched this practice has become.

I first wrote about the erasure and marginalization of women in Orthodoxy more than a decade ago. Since then, I have been told over and over again that the erasure of women is a “Haredi thing” and “it would never happen in the Modern Orthodox world!” And consistently, we, Chochmat Nashim, have responded that, unless we actively and regularly speak out against it as a community, it will absolutely come to us too. And so it has. And from a flagship mainstream Orthodox institution, no less.

Specifically, the Orthodox Union. 

Et tu, OU?! The OU, erasing women!? The organization whose Jewish Action magazine contains images of both men and women!? The organization that told me that they had no need to issue a statement against erasing women, since their actions — publishing images of women — speak louder than any statement!? That OU? Yes.

Here’s what has happened:

Two years ago, a woman wrote to tell Chochmat Nashim that she tried to place an advertisement for a Yom Iyun (a day of study) on the back page of the Orthodox Union’s Torah Tidbits. (Torah Tidbits is a weekly booklet, distributed to synagogues in Israel with a critical mass (however that is determined) of English speakers. It contains divrei Torah, words on the parsha, and many ads.) She said her request was denied because her ad included a picture of a woman and they did not show images of women on the back page.

Torah Tidbits is an old friend, a staple of Orthodox Anglo Israeli Jewry. For decades, it has been distributed to nearly all Orthodox Anglo shuls and many Anglo homes each week. From their site: “Torah Tidbits is the largest weekly English language Torah publication in Israel, reaching over 400,000 readers country-wide.” Was it possible that they were intentionally blocking images of women from the booklet’s covers?

The woman’s conversation had taken place over the phone, and we needed to be sure that excluding women from the back page was actually policy and not just a misunderstanding.

Chochmat Nashim therefore submitted an ad for the back page — including photographs of modestly dressed women. The ad was declined — we were told the page was booked for weeks (totally possible). When we asked for the next open date, however, we were first offered other pages and then stopped receiving responses to our emails. Eventually, I received a phone call from an executive inviting me to the office to discuss “things you and I understand” (Reader, I did not understand.)

We spoke (over WhatsApp, in the end) for more than 45 minutes. The executive explained that he had decided to remove women from the back page after feedback from a man who claimed that the women on the back cover distracted him from his prayers when he saw the publication in shul (the images of columnists on the front cover are tiny, and so presumably less distracting). The executive  wanted to bring “OU Torah” to as many communities as possible, and removing women from the back cover was a “sacrifice he was willing to make,” towards that goal.

I observed that the Orthodox Union is a mainstream Orthodox institution, indeed supported by women via their shopping! Moreover, the OU is meant to represent the women of the mainstream congregations — women like me — and that the OU had never before taken the position that women’s images should not be seen. It seemed, I said, that he was going against the values of the OU and sacrificing those of us in his base in his attempt to reach those who were not his base.

I explained that the erasure of women and girls is a demeaning and dangerous trend, one we need to stand against, rather than join and justify. When he insisted that not having women on the back page was not the same as erasing women, I noted that it was exactly the same, that his line was simply at a slightly different place in the sand. As he was not inclined to rethink his approach to the back cover, I requested that Torah Tidbits, at the least, keep all images of people off the back cover — a difficult approach in advertising, perhaps, but equitable (or equally inequitable) for men and women.

In that same conversation, I noted the dearth of women writers in Torah Tidbits: columns by men far outnumbered those by women. He responded that he wanted more women writers, but they had not found suitable candidates, as the writing would be held to a high standard, with no monetary compensation (I do not know if they pay any columnists). 

And so Chochmat Nashim began a long and detailed investigation into (some of) the publishing practices of Torah Tidbits.

Tracking both the appearance of women’s images on the front and back covers, as well as the number of divrei Torah authored by women per issue, we discovered that, over time, women’s visibility had declined, as had the percentage of women writers (one regular female columnist does not allow her image to be printed anywhere). 

Chochmat Nashim reached out to some of the most accomplished and suitable female Torah scholars who had written for our long-running “parsha initiative” (with the Orthodox Leadership Project/OLP), published on the Blogs of The Times of Israel, to ask if they would be willing to write for Torah Tidbits, and if so, to be in touch with the OU office. Seven wrote to the OU to offer their divrei Torah services, and each was told that Torah Tidbits was not looking for more writers.

Hoping to resolve this disparity “offline” and amicably, Chochmat Nashim turned to the NY office of the OU. An OU executive there was happy to speak with us, surprised by the statistics we supplied, displeased by them, and appreciative that we had reached out. He said they would look into it.

Soon afterwards, the parity we had suggested for the back cover (no images of people, rather than no women only) was implemented. Better, I received word that a new weekly dvar Torah by a woman would be added. A few weeks later, a new column by Rebbetzin Dr. Adina Shmidman, head of the OU Women’s Initiative, was added. An email from the OU hinted at more changes to come.

Text sent to us of a letter a reader sent to the OU

But, despite these positive trends, we continued to receive multiple messages asking about Torah Tidbit’s policy regarding women’s images and Torah. Posts in women’s Facebook groups asked if Torah Tidbits erases women. In further conversations in 2023, executives at the OU in NY explained to us that they were aiming for 30% of the columns to be written by women, but that, since they prefer writers from within the ranks of the OU (a largely male rabbinic organization), it is difficult to find appropriate female writers…

In the end, thanks to this work, there has been improvement, with images of women on the front cover and a policy of no people, male or female on the back (this is not necessarily positive, but it is at least consistent).

However, women continue to be underrepresented in divrei Torah, with the average being 78% men and 22% women — and seemingly only because we have pushed the issue. Which brings me to why I write this post.

The Table of Contents from a recent Torah Tidbits. Note the three women and teen column, in contrast to 14 adult men. (courtesy)

The above illustrates that when we speak out change can happen. But without us, it surely won’t.

Some of the data.

If we want Modern Orthodoxy to retain its values, if we want women to be represented properly and fairly, we need to hold our institutions to these standards. And Chochmat Nashim cannot do it alone. Your voices need to be heard; you need to bring your opinions to the attention of the leaders who set policy.

You who care about Judaism and Torah, as well as the health of the community, need to decide if this erasure and marginalization of women is part of the Judaism you want. Whether this messaging is what you want to hear (and see) from the institutions you support. Perhaps most importantly, is this the kind of Orthodox Judaism you want for the next generation?

Unless you speak up wherever you see this erasure and make your voices heard — in shul, among your friends, at your Shabbat table, and with your hard-earned cash — the erasure of women’s faces and voices will continue in our community. 

We are at a tipping point. An entire generation has grown up thinking that censoring images of women is normal — or at least justifiable. It is now all too common to see men-only shul directories, dinner invitations picturing only the husband of a couple being honored, and ads for all kinds of products that women buy bereft of the women and girls whose images should logically be there.

There is nothing to stop this trend but we the people. For your daughters and your sons, for your sisters and your brothers, for the women who came before you and those who will come after you — for the integrity of Torah itself, it is time to speak out against the phenomenon of erasing women in the Orthodox community.