Posted on 07/11/2023 9:26:18 PM PDT by Morgana
RNS) — U.S. Jews gathered in online forums across the country before sundown on Friday (June 23) to light a candle marking the one-year anniversary of the end of Roe v. Wade, and mourning those who have died because abortions were not available to them.
The Zoom meetings were called a yahrzeit, an ancient Jewish tradition marking the anniversary of a death of a loved one. A yahrzeit typically consists of lighting a special 24-hour candle and saying the Kaddish prayer.
The candles lit Friday are expected to burn into Saturday, June 24, the day last year that the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion up to about 24 weeks of pregnancy in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling.
About 250 people participated in the Yahrzeit of Roe Virtual Candle Lighting, sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women. The 25-minute Zoom conference call was restrained. A candle was lit, a litany read, a prayer recited and a song was sung.
Most Jews, and especially liberal Jews, believe their faith permits and even requires an abortion when the life of the pregnant person is at stake.
“We knew that this was a time that we needed to mark Jewishly,” said Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, scholar in residence at the National Council of Jewish Women. “And we knew it was a time that demanded ritual because this is a big moment, and it felt that this was the correct moment for honoring and mourning everyone whose lives have been taken because of these horrific government policies.” A yahrzeit memorial candle. Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class James E. Foehl/U.S. Navy/Creative Commons
A yahrzeit memorial candle. Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class James E. Foehl/U.S. Navy/Creative Commons
Some 20 states have enacted laws banning or restricting abortion in the wake of Roe’s fall. At least 61 clinics, Planned Parenthood facilities and doctors’ offices stopped offering abortions in the last year, according to The New York Times.
In 2020, the National Council of Jewish Women created “Rabbis for Repro,” a coalition of some 2,500 U.S. rabbis and cantors committed to fighting for reproductive health rights, especially abortion. It has spawned other grassroots coalitions including a new “Jews for Repro NY” campaign. This week it celebrated passage of legislation in New York state that provides legal protection for New York doctors to prescribe and send abortion pills to patients in states that have outlawed abortion.
But on the Zoom conference call Friday, many were in a much more somber mood.
Asked what they needed to deepen their commitment to the fight for abortion rights, participants typed into the chat function: “patience,” “stamina,” “community,” “allies,” and “righteous anger.”
Nearly two-thirds of Americans support legal abortion, including majorities of religious Americans, according to a recent PRRI poll. Among the religious groups most supportive of abortion rights are Unitarian Universalists, religiously unaffiliated Americans and Jews.
Several religious groups have filed nearly a dozen challenges to abortion restrictions now making their way through state and federal courts, insisting abortion bans violate their religious freedom. They hope they can persuade courts to grant religious exemptions to abortion bans, if not strike them down altogether.
The online conferences made a point of mourning for people who died giving birth, either because they couldn’t terminate their medically risky pregnancies promptly or couldn’t travel out of state to get the care they needed.
“Forced birth takes lives, and it takes lives disproportionately of Black women, Indigenous women, those who are struggling to get by,” said Ruttenberg. “We’re never going to know everyone’s name, we’re never going to know everybody’s identity. But we need to honor them.” The yahrzeit candle, she said, was one way their memory can “illuminate our lives today.”
These are obviously Reformed Jewish people. The Orthodox Jewish people are like us.
US Jews . . . the same ones who put democrats into office.
they are Fake Jews, Khazarians
they run the Globe and Elite Bankers
So, 6 million Jews were killed in the WWII Nazi Holocaust.
65 million Americans were killed by abortion since 1973.
120 millions killed by socialists and communist since 1917.
6 (?? maybe) died by “forced births” in the one year since Roe v Wade was reversed.
Now, what is greater tragedy in the eyes of these “Jews”?
Liberals of all religions relish in the murder of children in the womb, and if they fail there they seek to destroy them thru gay/tranny indoctrination in their school years.
Their religion is Satan, all of them.
RE: That is no more a valid Buddhist view than it is a valid Jewish view.
Agree. There is no valid excuse for murder in any of the legitimate religions. Notice I didn’t bring up Islam.
Murder of a pre-born baby is not condoned in the Torah or anywhere in the Tanakh, or any Buddhist scripture, to my knowledge.
Which part of, “Thou shalt not murder”, do they not understand?
JINOs
I can't speak to the groups, whom I suspect are young, indoctrinated, mind-twisted people who were raised to reject traditions by using those traditions in their opposite ways.
Yahrzeit candles are memorial candles that are lit on the anniversary of the passing of a loved one. During life, we celebrate the birthday with candles, and after passing our loved one commemorate our lives with remembrance candles. I light yahrzeit candles on the anniversaries of the passing of my grandparents, and so on.
These abortion activists are desecrating the meaning of yahrzeit candles by using them to protest the ending of Roe v. Wade.
-PJ
Thanks! Everything gets twisted by those who seek to justify their own unjustifiable behavior. It was telling that it said the Japanese who participate in that ritual are sad and all cry as a community.
Must be a reason they are sad and crying. If only there were a way to avoid the cause for that. :)
My thoughts exactly.
Yes, they are.
Who died? Nobody but jewish babies across state lines.
This is a manufactured article designed to generate anti semitism… that simple. Practicing Jews are not mourning the fall of Roe. There are a bunch of evil people who are trying to build that narrative. They are losing we are winning, but don’t think for a second that they will give up. You might be working for the folks who want to destroy the country posting this… or.. maybe your question is in good faith. Regardless the article you posted is designed to create a fissure between people who have much in common. Hope that helps.
That title SHOULD be a Babylon Bee satire.
Lunatics.
Give us some names of those who have died from lack of an abortion.
Liberal jews spit in Jesus’s face PING!!
The first problem is “Rabbi” Ruttenberg—is a woman. According to Jewish law, women cannot be rabbis. So anything this woman says in the name of Judaism is to be regarded with extreme suspicion. When you are ignoring Jewish law to the extent of calling yourself a rabbi when you’re not, you can imagine the extent of her playing fast and loose with other points of Jewish law. I can guarantee that 99.9% of the Jews who participated in this mourning and lighting a yahrzeit (memorial) candle were Conservative and Reform Jews, who basically make up their own version of Judaism as they go along. While Judaism does permit abortion, it is not a mass permission. Each case must be decided by a rabbi on an individual basis. The main reason to permit it would be if continuing the pregnancy would endanger the mother’s life. I don’t get this libtard-generated term “forced births”. In this day and age of birth control and knowledge of reproduction, it should be possible to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I believe that most unwanted pregnancies are probably the result of sleeping around and not caring about any consequences.
I’m not sure where the support of abortion falls in the Jewish faith. It certainly isn’t in the Bible.
Damn, maybe they should hold a vigil for the Jews that died during the liberation of Nazi Germany.
#ing a-holes
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