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Hadassah adopts policy positions on Jew-hatred, reproductive rights, wartime sexual violence

The women’s group seeks to “lead the charge on the issues that matter most to us,” said Carol Ann Schwartz, its national president.

Hamas Sexual Violence Against Women
Demonstrators protest against Hamas’s sexual violence during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, outside U.N. headquarters in New York City, Dec. 4, 2023. Photo by Yakov Binyamin/Flash90.

Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, has adopted three new policy positions inspired by Hamas, anti-Israel activists and the 2022 Supreme Court decision reversing Roe v. Wade.

The group announced on Monday that attendees of its midyear meeting in Las Vegas had affirmed three policy statements titled “Denouncing Efforts to Exclude Jews and Zionists,” “Safeguarding the Whole Spectrum of Reproductive Health Care” and “Ending the Silence on Gender-Based Violence.”

Carol Ann Schwartz, the group’s national president, called its leaders and members “passionate advocates, driving action around the world.”

She said, “We are proud to continue to update our policy positions so that we can lead the charge on the issues that matter most to us, like protecting reproductive health care, cultivating pride in Zionism and demanding justice for victims of sexual violence.”

The measures condemned the practice of public entities releasing anti-Israel resolutions; denounced restrictions on women’s reproductive rights stemming from the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022; and called on international bodies to work to fight the use of rape as a weapon of war.

“These movements don’t stop with a boycott. We know where this is going, and that’s why we are going to get out ahead of it,” an attorney at the center told JNS.
On May 9, vandals spray-painted antisemitic symbols and Bible references on the Waukesha County memorial, which includes a steel beam from the World Trade Center.
“I’m not sure we should make the deal if they don’t sign,” the U.S. president said at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “I think they owe that to us.”
The protest was “a powerful show of solidarity,” Jayne Zirkle of the Lawfare Project told JNS. “To condemn people for attending such an event is to condemn the very principles of freedom our nation was founded on.”
“If publicly-funded institutions cannot host such events without folding to pressure, serious questions arise about that funding,” a Jewish House of Lords member said.
The attacks followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement on Tuesday that the IDF is deepening its operations in Lebanon.