Jofa Recent Media

High School Leadership Development Program On June 29, JOFA launched its first online High School Leadership Development Program. Over the course of this virtual three-week program, 26 young women from ...

By Elana FrankI have three rambunctious and adorable boys whom I love more than life itself. All were born via the miracle of in vitro fertilization (IVF), or, as my ...

By Daphne Lazar PricePublishing this issue of the JOFA Journal, which focuses on women’s health and reproductive issues, might seem out of touch amid a global pandemic, heightened racial tension, ...

By Rivka Cohen Growing up in a Modern Orthodox community, I did not encounter open or positive discourse about female sexuality. Besides the quick basics of reproduction covered in biology ...

America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to TodayBy Pamela S. NadellW.W. Norton, 2019, $28.95Pamela Nadell paints on a broad canvas—American Jewish women’s history—that has been employed before by ...

By David BigmanOver the past hundred years, as medical knowledge has advanced, it became clear that infertility was a problem among a small percentage of the halakhically observant population. Jewish ...

By Ruth Balinsky Friedman In March 2016, I decided to “go public” with my fertility journey. This decision was born mostly out of a lurking feeling of dishonesty. Ohev Sholom, ...

By Tricia Anbinder and Elana Frank A staggering one in eight couples will experience challenges in achieving and maintaining pregnancy. Some studies report that the number is closer to one ...

By Deborah Wenger Let me start by acknowledging my privilege. I am lucky to live in a temperate climate, where outdoor gatherings have not been out of the question for ...

By Barbara Trainin Blank Expectations don’t always tally with reality.COVID-19 may have closed mikva’ot for a time—or, at the very least, reduced their usage, as women feared becoming infected. In ...

By Stephanie L. Stillman My first encounter with the mikveh was at 27, when I met with my converting beit din for the last time. I had never seen the ...

By Devorah SilvermanThe COVID-19 pandemic was devastating. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, and millions experienced isolation and social recessions from which it will take years to recover. If ...

By Michelle Shain“Shabbat Morning Groups for Our Children Are Back … this Shabbat!” read the subject line of an email from my synagogue sent a few months ago, in May ...

By Meira E. Schneider-AtikWhen COVID-19 broke out, most mikva’ot closed, but many women’s mikva’ot remained open. I remember hearing some who were angry that women’s mikva’ot weren’t closing as well, ...

By Pam ScheiningerAs I sat down to write this article, I kept coming back to the thought, “What do I have to say about COVID that has not already been ...