Celebrating Jewish feminist pioneers

Here is a Jewish Journal essay:

“Mrs. America” explicitly celebrates the Jewish pioneers of second-wave feminism, dedicating episodes to Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan. As it frames the fight over the Equal Rights Amendment around a bigger culture war between “family values” — often a pseudonym for Christian dogma — it highlights how a group of outspoken Jews was the perfect foil. ...

In real life, Steinem used Jewish tradition to promote sisterhood. ...

One of the most heartfelt and undeniably Jewish moments in “Mrs. America” is when Friedan offers to make homemade chicken soup for stressed-out Bella Abzug (played by Margot Martindale), who is unapologetically Jewish on- and off-screen. ...

“Mrs. America” honors Abzug’s strong and complicated Jewish identity. On the show, she experiences anti-Semitism and is acutely aware of it. “Mrs. Carter thought you were pushy and loud,” the assistant to the president tells her in Episode 7. “You know that’s code for Jewish,” Abzug fires back. ...

Although “Mrs. America” bills itself as a series about Phyllis Schlafly, it’s truly a love letter to the Jewish women who stood against her and for other women. ... The heroes in “Mrs. America” and its creators remain loyal to “pushy and loud” — aka Jewish — women, despite everything.

I wonder how many people notice this. "Chicken soup" is also code for Jewish.

Opposing the ERA were Protestants, Evangelicals, Catholics, Mormons, and even Orthodox Jews, and they were often portrayed as being guided by some religious beliefs. But those are different religions.

Jewish women were promoting the ERA and other feminist causes, and they were guided by their Jewish identifications and beliefs.

As the essay notes, Jews oppose family values. I recently pointed out that a Jewish NY Times columnist wrote that the nuclear family was a big mistake.

Exactly why Jews are opposed to family values is a little harder to understand. Jews have families too, of course. But the above essay attacks family values as "Christian dogma", which is a derogatory phrase in a Jewish journal.

Watch Mrs. America, and decide for yourself. What is really the issue that energizes the (mostly Jewish) feminists? Getting a law guaranteeing equal pay for equal work does not satisfy them. They have a hard time explaining why they want ERA so badly. It appears that they want to destroy the American family, but they don't want to say it.