Jews in the D
18 | NOVEMBER 14 • 2019
Activism
Urged
NCJW speaker says
“things [women] have
taken for granted are
now on the table.”
BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER
T
here’
s good news and bad
news for women in the
current political climate,
said legal and political pundit
Dahlia Lithwick in her keynote
address to the National Council
of Jewish Women, Michigan at
their annual Women of Vision
luncheon Oct. 24 at Adat
Shalom Synagogue.
A graduate of Yale University
and Stanford Law School,
Lithwick has been covering
the U.S. Supreme Court for 20
years; she calls it “the best job
in journalism.
”
A senior editor and legal cor-
respondent for Slate, an online
magazine, Lithwick, 52, is also
a frequent contributor to NPR,
MSNBC and C-Span. Her
op-eds have appeared in the
New York Times, Washington
Post, Los Angeles Times and
more. She lives in Brooklyn,
N.Y., with her husband, artist
Aaron Fein, and two sons, 16
and 14.
Women’
s reproductive rights
are under attack in many states,
Lithwick said. The Supreme
Court agreed to hear a case,
June Medical Services LLC v.
Gee, that revisits what should
have been established prece-
dent, she said. The case is sim-
ilar to a Texas case decided in
2016, in which the court ruled
that limiting the availability of
abortion clinics was an undue
burden on women exercising
their legal rights. The Louisiana
law in the June Medical
Services case, if upheld, would
limit abortions to a single doc-
tor in the entire state. Other
state laws making their way
through the courts put severe
limits on abortion with no
exceptions for rape or incest.
Lithwick says she’
s concerned
that upcoming cases could limit
women’
s access not only to
abortion but to contraception.
“Things we’
ve taken for
granted are now on the table,
”
she said, with a court that
includes two justices who have
been “credibly accused of sexu-
al misconduct.
” This is an “exis-
tential moment” for women,
she said.
Other important cases on
the court’
s docket deal with
the rights of homosexual and
transsexual people, immigra-
tion, limitations on guns and
religious liberty.
Although women are much
more visible in law firms and
courts than a generation ago
— 50 percent of Lithwick’
s law
school classmates were women
— since the 2016 election,
women have been disappearing
from the legal power struc-
ture. Of the 42 U.S. attorneys
appointed since 2017, only one
was a woman. The 150 most
recent federal judicial appoin-
tees have been 80 percent male
(and 90 percent white).
But all is not gloom and
doom, she said. “We in this
room have an enormous
amount of power. As long as we
deploy it, we can make a dif-
ference.
” Women need to find
the “sweet spot” where activism
and the law interact.
To counteract anti-woman
legislation, women need to
engage in “civic visibility,
” she
said. Women need to see and
be seen by calling and visiting
their elected representatives,
writing op-eds and letters to the
editor, and getting out the vote.
“It’
s tedious work but it needs
to be done,
” she said.
At the start of the meet-
ing, attended by 330, NCJW
Michigan presented its
Josephine S. Weiner Award
for Community Service to
Lisa Lis, a full-time volunteer
who works with Gleaner’
s,
Henry Ford Hospital, the
Detroit Zoological Society and
Forgotten Harvest. She is a past
chair of the Jewish Women’
s
Foundation and past presi-
dent of the Jewish Federation’
s
Women’
s Philanthropy effort.
The group’
s Women of
Vision Award was presented
to Jackie Victor, co-founder of
Avalon International Bakery in
Detroit. The business, started in
1997, has grown to four retail
locations and 120 team mem-
bers. Victor is also a strong
supporter of Detroit’
s urban
agriculture movement and of
the Isaac Agree Downtown
Synagogue.
Women of Vision Award honoree
Jackie Victor, speaker Dahlia
Lithwick and Josephine S.
Weiner Award honoree Lisa Lis
Lecture on Henry Ford’
s
Anti-Semitism
Jewish Historical Society
of Michigan will hold a
free 45-minute lecture and
exhibition, “Reams of Hate:
The Legacy of Henry Ford’
s
Anti-Semitic Newspaper,
” at
7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 19,
at Congregation Beth Ahm,
given by JHSM Executive
Director Catherine Cangany,
Ph.D.
The evening represents
a collaboration between
JHSM, Beth Ahm, the
Anti-Defamation League
(ADL), the Rabbi Leo M.
Franklin Archives at Temple
Beth El and the Dearborn
Historical Museum (DHM).
Spearheaded by the ADL,
it developed in response to
the city of Dearborn’
s recent
reluctance to acknowledge the
Independent and its ongoing
power.
Before and after the lecture,
the public is invited to browse
two pop-up exhibitions on
the newspaper and the Jewish
community’
s fight against
it, curated and presented by
the Rabbi Leo M. Franklin
Archives at Temple Beth El
and the DHM.
This year marks the cen-
tennial of Henry Ford’
s
anti-Semitic newspaper, The
Dearborn Independent. In
its heyday in the 1920s, its
readership was second only
to the New York Daily News.
Its articles are still published
in a four-volume set, The
International Jew, which
serves as inspiration to mod-
ern-day extremist groups and
routinely receives five-star
reviews on Amazon.com.
Cangany will discuss Ford,
his newspaper, the Jewish
community’
s successful efforts
to shut it down and strategies
to fight against its ongoing
vitriol.
A light dessert reception
will follow the lecture. For
more information or to reg-
ister, visit michjewishhistory.
org/calendar.
COURTESY NCJW