Our Mission
NCJW confronts today’s most urgent social and economic challenges facing women, children, and families. Powered by the Jewish imperative to ensure dignity for all, we impact policy, advocate for justice, and support the community. Your voice has never been more essential and our voices together make a meaningful difference in the world.
Latest News
Author Michelle Cameron to Keynote Our Paid-Up Membership Meeting
NCJW, West Morris member Michelle Cameron, a novelist and poet, is the award-winning author of a new novel—her third one—titled Beyond the Ghetto Gates (She Writes Press). Beyond the Ghetto Gates recently won the Silver Medal for Historical Fiction at the Independent Book Publishers Awards. Michelle will be our special guest speaker at the Paid-Up Membership Meeting on Thursday evening, November 12, at 7 p.m. via Zoom. Please note this revised date for our Paid-Up Membership Meeting. We will be joining with members of the Morristown Jewish Center Sisterhood for this online gathering.
Welcome NJ Rabbis for Repro
Thank you all so very much for signing onto NCJW’s pledge to speak out for reproductive freedom!
Reproductive Rights Initiatives
National NCJW is conducting a campaign to support women’s reproductive rights as a part of an overall effort to bolster all women’s health services. Our section has joined with the Essex County Section to write to all rabbis in New Jersey who have signed the pledge from National in support of reproductive rights, and we will be available if any local rabbis want to talk with us about it.
Getting Ready for School, Despite the Pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic didn’t stop our Section from making back-to-school shopping special for the families served by Homeless Solutions (HSI). There is often a lot of anxiety that comes with the first day of school. Imagine the additional stress if you were homeless. We started our Back 2 School Store four years ago, under the leadership of Kim Kramer, Kay Salzman, Karen Secular and Melanie Levitan. All our volunteers and supporters of the program remember how exciting it is for children to shop for new clothes, a new backpack and especially new sneakers! We wanted the children at HSI to experience that same joy while lessening the financial burden on their families.
Voting in a Pandemic
Covid-19 has challenged and disrupted life as we know it. It has affected us all, but how it has affected us differs widely across the nation. It has magnified many of the inequities in our society, inequities that had hovered at the periphery of our vision, and are now in plain sight. The pandemic is a crisis in our public heath system and it is compounded by a crisis in the economy and the public outcry against systemic racism. Adding to the national anxiety level that all this has caused is the current political brawling and an incendiary mix, of misinformation, outright lies, conspiracy theories, and disarray in the US Postal Service. It is then not surprising that our path to the ballot box has become a minefield and a daily topic of conversation.
‘Jewish Medical Ethics’ Topic of October Clergy Learning Series
Rabbi Shalom Lubin, spiritual leader of Congregation Shaya Ahavat Torah in Parsippany and leader of Chabad of Southeast Morris County, will be the inaugural presenter for our NCJW, West Morris 2020–2021 Clergy Learning Series. His talks, on “Jewish Medical Ethics,” are scheduled for Thursdays, October 15, 22 and 29, all at 1 p.m., and will be done via Zoom. The series is coordinated by Our Jewish World co-chairs Ilene Dorf Manahan and Melanie Levitan.
Cantor Fine to Spotlight Israel’s Musical Heritage in November
Cantor Perry Fine, “The Voice” of Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston, will lead a two-session Zoomed NCJW-West Morris Our Jewish World program on Thursdays, November 12 and 19, at 1 p.m.