“Our Jewish Values Compel Us”: Towards a Jewish History of Women's Health Activism in America

ABSTRACT

In the 2020s, Jewish activists, organizations, and congregations are making headlines for their support of reproductive rights and preserving abortion access in the United States. What many of these stories do not reveal is the deeper historical context: American Jewish women have been active in many women's health movements in the 20th and 21st centuries. From fighting for birth control access in the early decades of the twentieth century and extensive participation in the multifaceted feminist women's health movement of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s to recent reproductive and abortion justice campaigns, American Jewish women have long brought Jewish identity, texts, and traditions to women's health activism. While perspectives, strategies, and rhetoric change, American Jewish women's commitment to women's health as a site of political action remains. This article aims to (1) introduce students and scholars of religious studies to the work of Jewish activists in the feminist women's health movement and (2) trace the multiple avenues through which historians and Jewish Studies scholars have approached and studied this history. The work of feminist women's health activists of 50 years ago continues to speak to core questions about how personal experiences and faith traditions can motivate, shape, and sustain health activism. In our Dobbs decision world, understanding the Jewish history of the women's health movement can provide much‐needed context to today's headlines and underscore the necessity of deepening our historical understanding of the many ways women's health activism and religion intersect.