My Blog

I didn’t write the following, but signed the petitions:

<b> Tell Congress: "Stop Denying Emergency Contraception to our Servicewomen!" </b>

Last year nearly 3,000 military women reported sexual assault while on active duty in the United States Armed Forces. Part of the recommended regimen for treating survivors of assault is to inform them about and offer them emergency contraception, yet it is only sporadically available to servicewomen at their base pharmacies and medical facilities in the U.S. and overseas.

This is simply unacceptable. Women in the military deserve more from their country. Until this sexual violence ends, we must at least ensure that they can prevent any pregnancy resulting from these criminal acts. With over 350,000 women serving in our nation’s armed services, it is reprehensible that this administration will not allow them complete access to emergency contraception. You can help: take action to support the Compassionate Care for Servicewomen Act. here

<a href="http://www.capwiz.com/now/issues/alert/?alertid=10162416&type=CO">Click here  to take action</a> 

<b>Contact your legislator – Support the Family Leave Insurance Act (S1681)</b>

No one should be forced to choose between the family they love and the job they need. The Family Leave Insurance Act of 2007 (S1681), a bi-partisan bill recently introduced in the U.S. Senate, provides up to eight weeks of paid leave to workers who need to take time off for a family or medical leave. It is an important step in the right direction for workers who cannot afford to take the unpaid leave guaranteed by the Family and Medical Leave Act.

We need your help to ensure that Americans have both the time and the resources to take a leave from work to care for themselves or their families. Contact your federal legislators today to urge them to support the Family Leave Insurance Act of 2007. 

Click here for more information and to send an email: <a href="http://capwiz.com/we/issues/alert/?alertid=10158291&type=CO.">Click here  to take action</a>

<b>Attend a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearing on media ownership September 20, 2007</b>

NOW members and friends have been active in responding to the concentration of media ownership among a small group of companies.  We’ve helped offset Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to change media regulations to allow fewer companies to own more media properties.  NOW has long recognized that we cannot achieve equality for women without diversity in media ownership and management, program content that is responsive to and respectful of women, and access for all to a broad range of information.

The FCC has announced that it will hold an official hearing on the topic in Chicago on Thursday, September 20th, 2007.  The time, place, and panelists for the event have not yet been announced.  Chicago NOW members are encouraged to spread the word and participate in this rare opportunity.  To learn more or get involved, look for updates in future Chicago NOW Action Alerts, or visit www.stopbigmedia.com or www.chicagomediaaction.org .

<b>source: Chicago chapter of NOW</b>

Maimonides, a revered Jewish scholar, listed health care first on his list of the ten most important communal services that a city had to offer to its residents (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De’ot IV: 23). Almost all self-governing Jewish communities throughout history set up systems to ensure that all their citizens had access to health care. Doctors were required to reduce their rates for poor patients, and when that was not sufficient, communal subsidies were established (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 249:16; Responsa Ramat Rahel of Rabbi Eliezer Waldernberg, sections 24-25.)

Source:

Religious

Action

Center

Some of the most stressed out people in the

United States

this month are Conservative and Reform Rabbis. While most of us spend our last Sundays of summer enjoying the sun, they are busy preparing their High Holiday sermons trying to find words to inspire Jews (and some non Jewish spouses) who only seek this spiritual guidance one to two days a year.

Their mission is difficult. Before the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the Rabbi was most likely the wisest person in his small community. Today Rabbis have to intellectually, emotionally and spiritually stimulate attorneys, teachers, scientists, writers, politicians, CEOs, and physicians in a 20 to 30 minute speech that relates to their 21^st century lives and incorporates the values of a books of laws and ethics that are a couple of thousand years old.

Sometimes the Rabbi does a great job and his/her words are remembered for years to come and requests are made for the sermons to be published online. Other times, Mrs. Cohen’s 40 day bout with insomnia is cured in three minutes and Tammy’s right contact pops out because she rolls her eyes when she hears about how she should get more involved at her synagogue. Less frequently, the Rabbi gives a controversial sermon that causes an uproar and either he/she leaves the synagogue or the congregants may even start their own synagogue.

The High Holiday speech that I want

America

’s Rabbis to deliver might lead to angry congregants, cancelled memberships, new synagogues. But it doesn’t have to. If it’s done right, perhaps the results could lead to real progress in this area without needing to bring out the guillotine.

The title: Why Universal Healthcare is a Jewish Value

No scratch that. I already see people walking out angry.

The title: Is Universal Healthcare a Jewish Value?

Much better.

Yes, you are correct. I did just see Michael Moore’s “Sicko.” The film makes the compelling argument if every country in the Western world provides universal health care, why doesn’t the

United States

?

Moore

provided anecdote, after anecdote, after anecdote, of poor or middle class people unable to afford adequate health care leading to their great physical, psychological, and economic suffering or even death.

You cannot help but leave that movie feeling embarrassed by our health care system and how we treat our poorest people.

The difficulty is how do you dismantle a system in which so many people make so much money off of? As a capitalist country, and given the years and years of school that doctors complete, how can we limit the salaries of our greatest resource?

I don’t have the answers to these questions. What I want is for the Rabbis of America to mandate their congregants to works towards fixing

America

’s health care system. There are numerous Jewish sources that support universal healthcare. The speech should write itself. The difficulty will be writing it in a way that motivates congregants, and especially Jewish physicians and policy makers, to work for change. The following responses, “you’ll have to wait for hours in line, you’ll have to wait for months for surgery, you receive substandard treatment,” are refuted by Moore, but also are irrelevant when so many poor and working and middle class people experience the above problems because they do not have insurance or their insurance companies have denied them funding for treatment.

If the

United States

ever offers Universal Health Care, it will be because of the private sector, not the Congress. Rabbis must ask their medically insured congregants and physician members, “What are you going to do to help fix this broken system?” They must explain why Universal Healthcare is a Jewish Value and that as leaders in the community they must commit to reforming it before the "book is closed and sealed. "