Karla Goldman Examines the Culture of Silence in Reform Judaism

Professor Karla Goldman’s op-ed in Lilth asks what can be expected from Reform Judaism in the wake of reports of sexual discrimination released by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC) in Cincinnati. Goldman shares her own personal history as the first tenure-track woman faculty member on the HUC’s Cincinnati campus, and describes her lawsuit against HUC for wrongful dismissal based on gender bias. 

“As a historian of women in Reform Judaism, I have studied Reform’s very real commitment to women’s advancement within Judaism together with its century-long pattern of combining strong rhetoric on female equality with a reality of subordination and exclusion,” writes Goldman. “I knew this culture and its silencing all too well.”

https://lilith.org/articles/after-the-fall-retelling-the-story-of-reform-judaism/