Kol Isha - Advice for Affirmative Action

[Yoel Epstein <yoel...>]

I'm not very good at doing anything, but I give good advice.  And here is my
advice on this issue:

1.  Forget about Orthodox institutions.  They have odd ideas, and their
right to be retrograde and discriminatory is protected by law.  E.g., in the
United States religious institutions are specifically exempted from clauses
in the Civil Rights act that outlaw discrimination based on sex.

2.  Focus on secular Jewish institutions - JCCs, wedding halls that refuse
to employ female vocalists, even for nonreligious weddings, and so on.
Whether these institutions are legally obligated by the Civil Rights Act
(are they religious institutions or not) is an interesting question, one
that no doubt some legal eagle reading this list can answer.  But, whatever
their legal obligations, they are subject to political pressures from both
sides - not just the Orthodox.

3.  Make a list - specific, with names dates, places.  Not just blanket
allegations ("Additionally, I have had
calls to book a band for weddings, bar mitsves, that I could not work
because they didn't want a female vocalist, so I called other friends to
play the job.")  Make a list that looks like this:

Dec 5, 1998: X band cancelled at Alberta JCC after JCC was approached by
Rabbi Zalman Kishke of Congregation Or leGoyim

March 4. 1999: Orthodox demonstrators picket the San Francisco Fish Market
because of bla bla bla

If you all say there are so many cases of this, to make a list of 40 or 50
of them shouldn't be that much of a problem.  One of you should volunteer to
compile the list, and collect the data offlist (no, not me! I only give
advice.)

4. Prepare a brief, stating the halakhic, human rights and social issues
involved.  Present this brief to the Reform, Conservative and
Reconstructionist rabbinical authorities, and ask for a psak halakha, or the
equivalent.

5.  Do a mailing of the brief to secular Jewish institutions which have
discriminated in the past.  Follow up. Campaign.  Don't just kvetch.


____________________________________________
joel epstein
moshav magshimim 56910
israel
972-3-9333316
972-52-333316
972-3-7255889 (fax)
yoel (at) netvision(dot)net(dot)il
____________________________________________


---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+