Justice Ginsburg and Rabbi Holtzblatt on the Heroic Women of Passover

April 6, 2015

Writing about the Jewish festival of Passover, with its focus on the story of the Exodus, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt remind us of the important role that women played in that story. The actions of these women in Exodus show they did not hesitate to stand up to power, refusing to bend to unjust rules and practices.

In an essay for Global Voices, the blog of the American Jewish World Service, Justice Ginsburg and Rabbi Holtzblatt write:

“The Book of Exodus, much like the Book of Genesis, opens in pervasive darkness. Genesis describes the earth as ‘unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep.’  In Exodus, darkness attends the accession of a new Pharaoh who feared the Israelites and so enslaved them. God alone lights the way out of the darkness in Genesis. But in Exodus, God has many partners, first among them, five brave women.”

The stories of these courageous women are also part of the Christian scriptures and tradition; they offer encouragement to all feminists of faith.

Read and be inspired by the Ginsburg and Holtzblatt essay,“The Heroic and Visionary Women of Passover.”

 

Letha Dawson Scanzoni is an independent scholar, writer, and editor, and is the author or coauthor of nine books. In 1978, she and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott wrote Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, one of the earliest books urging evangelical Christians to rethink their views on homosexuality (updated edition, 1994, HarperOne). More recently, Letha coauthored (with social psychologist David G. Myers) What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage (HarperOne, 2005 and 2006). Another of Letha’s most well-known books is All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, coauthored with Nancy A. Hardesty (Word Books, 1974; revised edition, Abingdon, 1986; updated and expanded edition, Eerdmans, 1992). Letha served as editor of Christian Feminism Today in both its former print edition (EEWC Update) and its website for 19 years until her retirement in December 2013.

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