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PHOTOS BY JULIE EDGAR

in
the

A Chorus Of
Women’s Voices

Women’s Convention in Detroit included a strong Jewish presence.

JULIE EDGAR CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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TOP LEFT-RIGHT: Carole Caplan of
Ann Arbor, Diane Orley of Bloomfield
Hills and Robyn Canvasser of West
Bloomfield. Joan Roth. Miriam Halprin
and Nina Robb of Bloomfield Township.
ABOVE: The Cobo Center atrium.

obyn Canvasser spent three days eagerly soaking up the advice
and the wisdom of women engaged in social and economic
justice issues ranging from clean water legislation to educa-
tion parity to gun control to reproductive
rights.
Her takeaway from the first Women’s
Convention, which brought more than
4,000 women to Cobo Center in Detroit
last weekend: People of color are sub-
jected to stressors every day that white
people either ignore or inadvertently
foster, and real political change starts in
one’s backyard.
“I found it invigorating,” says Canvasser,
53, of West Bloomfield. “It was empow-
ering to meet women from all over the
country who are just as interested as I am
in saving our democracy.”
The convention, an outgrowth of the
Women’s March in Washington last
January, was a roll-up-your-sleeves affair
in a shirtsleeves kind of city. The 170-plus panel discussions and
workshops focused on hyperlocal organizing to get-out-the-vote
strategies to running for local office to using social media to grow
networks of like-minded voters. The sense of purpose was palpable in
the packed conference rooms and halls of Cobo.
National Council of Jewish Women had a place at the table, as did
Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish advocacy organization, and Jews

for Racial & Economic Justice, whose director, Audrey Sasson, led a
workshop on anti-Semitism and white supremacy. Stosh Cotler of
Bend the Arc spoke about intersectionality — how each of us has a
diversity of identities that affects how we see and are seen.
Detroit was selected as the site of the convention because of its
history of growing grassroots activists — and because the issues
that are most acute in the nation are “starkly visible in Detroit and
its surrounding areas: economic inequality, environmental injustice,
de facto segregation, ICE raids, violent policing, and overall unequal
access and opportunity,” says Sophie Ellman-Golan, deputy director of
communications and outreach for Women’s March and an activist in
progressive Jewish causes.
The event started Friday morning with jolting speeches by the
convention’s national co-chairs, including Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian
Muslim who has raised hackles because of her anti-Zionist state-
ments on social media and her support of the Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions movement against Israel.
In fact, some Jewish women stayed away precisely because of
Sarsour’s involvement.
Debra Zivian of Farmington Hills did not attend the convention
because the organizers of the Women’s March in January — Sarsour
among them — excluded anti-abortion activists (who participated
but were not granted partnership status). And, she says that Sarsour,
as a feminist, should come out against the practice of genital mutila-
tion of young girls in the Muslim community.
“For them to hold a convention in Detroit where there’s such a large
Arab population and for her to be silent, I find that disturbing,” said
Zivian, 55. “My biggest problem with this group is that unless you

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November 2 • 2017

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