From the moment I heard Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, issue her challenge at the Union for Reform Judaism Biennial last November for us to join her at the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C., I knew I would be going.
I made a commitment to myself not only to march, but also to try to get as many women as I could to march with me.
I encouraged the Midwest Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (MFTS), which is comprised of the sisterhoods in Reform congregations in Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and northwest Indiana, to plan a weekend of activities around the march.
The call was successful. More than 75 women from MFTS made the trip to Washington, including many from Milwaukee and Madison.
But it was not only women from the Reform movement who traveled from Milwaukee for the march. Others came as well, including members of the National Council of Jewish Women and Hadassah.
When I arrived at Reagan National Airport in Washington, the buzz was everywhere. I could feel excitement and anticipation surging through the baggage claim area.
Women of all backgrounds and ages were coming together to fight for the rights of our daughters and granddaughters. Many said that they clearly remembered the days when abortion was illegal and they were returning to Washington to march “once again.”
Friday evening, 42 women from MFTS gathered for Kabbalat Shabbat services. Following our Shabbat dinner, Rabbi Karyn Kedar, senior rabbi of B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Glenview, Ill., led an enlightening discussion on abortion using passages from the Torah, Mishnah, codes and responsa.
Two major themes
On Saturday, while some of the women explored Washington, the majority of us went with Kedar to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. This added another dimension to our trip and furthered our resolve to protect the rights of others and to make our voices heard.
Saturday evening, nearly 1,000 Reform Jews, including about 40 of us from Wisconsin, gathered at the Jefferson Memorial for a moving Havdalah service.
As I stood with other members of Congregation Shalom — Debbie Gartenberg and her daughter Tess, Gail Spitzer, Elizabeth Neubauer, Nancy Barnett, and Martha Pincus — with candles lit and our voices in unison, I thought how fortunate we all are to live in a country that gives us the freedom to speak for our beliefs and how important it is that we are exercising that freedom.
Sunday morning, the Reform movement held a pre-March breakfast and rally. We heard from numerous congressional speakers, including Sen. Janice Schakowsky (from Illinois), who challenged us to “March as though your lives depended on it — because they do.”
The program concluded with words of prayer coordinated by the Women’s Rabbinic Network.
Then the more than 600 of us who attended the breakfast marched as a group to the National Mall, where we were joined by others from the Reform movement who had arrived that morning by bus and by train. I heard that more than 5,000 Reform Jews came to Washington for the march.
The march was amazing. Hundreds of thousands of marchers of enormous diversity — mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters, men and women, young and old — had responded to the call to protect women’s freedom to choose, access to abortion and birth control, the right to benefit from lifesaving research and the right to medial privacy.
I was impressed to learn that more than one-third of those marching were under 35. There had been concern about whether we were going to be able to galvanize the younger generation, but the call to get people of all ages to Washington to “talk with your feet” was a tremendous success.
I found myself being carried along by a sea of women, men, and children in colorful t-shirts and carrying placards as I walked past the White House and down Pennsylvania Ave. back to the National Mall.
Key words were “choice,” “justice,” “access,” “health,” “abortion,” “global” and “family planning.” Two major themes seemed to be “Abortion has to stay” and “Bush has to go.”
Messages on some of the signs I saw included: “It’s your choice, not theirs,” “Stop the War on Choice,” “Give Bush a Pink Slip,” “Reproductive Justice for All,” “One Voice to Save Choice,” “Who decides?” and “Stand up for Choice.” I even saw a sign being carried by a group of students that read, “Cheeseheads for Choice.”
All of the women I spoke with after the march agreed that it was an exhilarating experience. We all felt that we were making history. I couldn’t help thinking that marching with people to speak up for what we believe represents democracy at its best.
Now that we are all safely home after what is being called the largest march in American history, our work is only beginning. We must now all pledge our efforts toward fulfilling the promise of the moment experienced by all of us in Washington.
With the number of state laws restricting abortion, the cuts in funding for family planning and sex education, and the fragility of the 5-4 majority that abortion rights has in the Supreme Court, we cannot afford to be complacent.
Milwaukeean Susan Pittelman is a vice president of the Women of Reform Judaism and executive vice president of the Midwest Federation of Temple Sisterhoods.
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