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A smiling mother hugs her son and daughter, holding flowers they ve given her. (iStock)
The chatter in the Jewish world on women’s roles heated up with #MeToo and more recently with efforts to reinstate sidelined Jewish sociologist Steven M. Cohen, who was the subject of charges of sexual harassment by students and others in 2018. Cohen’s misbehavior toward women led to scrutiny of his work and inferences that it further reinforced gender stereotypes and inequities. Cohen has been widely known for his studies that link Jewish continuity with increasing the numbers of Jews.
This piece first appeared in the Forward and is reprinted with permission.
A senior leader of the Reform movement whose rabbinic privileges were briefly suspended two decades ago for “personal relationships” that violated ethical codes in fact sexually harassed or assaulted at least three women, including one who was a minor when the misconduct began, an independent investigation by Manhattan’s Central Synagogue has found.
Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, who was senior rabbi at Central from 1972 to 1985, resigned his position as president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2000 after the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis ruled that his relationships had broken its rules. But neither CCAR or HUC provided details of the misconduct at the time, leaving the impression that Zimmerman had simply had consensual affairs, and he went on to serve as vice president of the Birthright Israel program and rabbi of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons.
Professor Noam Pianko resigned from his post as president of the Association for Jewish Studies.
Eleven past presidents of a prominent Jewish studies organization published a letter this week expressing concerns about the recent resignation of the group’s immediate past president.
Noam Pianko, a historian who chairs the Jewish Studies department at the University of Washington, resigned from his position as president of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) on April 13 after acknowledging that he had taken part in a controversial, invitation-only gathering co-facilitated by Steven M. Cohen, a prominent sociologist accused of sexually harassing female colleagues.
The letter of concern initially published by the AJS executive committee on April 20 on the association’s website, only to be removed two days later in response to overwhelming pushback from AJS members expressed “sorrow and pain at the events surrounding the resignation of AJS president, Professor Noam Piank