altMemo

Rachel Freier—A trailblazer

This past week Rachel Freier became the first Hasidic Jewish woman to hold elected office in America. An attorney, an activist and a devout Hasidic Jew, Freier took the bench as a civil court judge in Brooklyn one week ago, and in doing so forged a path never before taken…

Read More

The Invisible Work That Drags Women Down

Last May Ellen Seidman, a wife and mother of three, wrote a poem for her blog, Love That Max about the role she plays in her family. The poem centers on the job she has to think about everything that, she says, “enables our family to basically exist.” I am the person who notices we are running…

Read More

The taboo of talking about periods

Talking openly about menstruation is like uttering Voldemort’s name—eye’s get big, voices drop to a whisper and phrases such as, “you know what” get used in place of the name. With all of this in mind, and using the energy stirred up by a viral hashtag from 2015, a group of…

Read More

Chefs’ ‘Soup For Syria’ helps to raise funds for refugees

After watching a news program about the plight of Syrian refugees while sitting in her apartment in the suburbs of Beirut, cookbook writer and photographer Barbara Massaad was inspired to visit a refugee camp. “I just wanted to go and see what was happening,” she told NPR. “So I went and started taking photographs…

Read More

Women in Aleppo Choose Suicide Over Rape

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops swept into eastern Aleppo on Monday, recapturing nearly all of the rebel held areas. With the help of Russian forces and Shiite militias under Iranian command, the regime launched a relentless assault has resulted in wanton slaughter. As the 100,000 people packed into roughly five square…

Read More

Talking to voters as a Muslimah journalist

The emotional aftereffects of this campaign cycle will be felt for a long time to come. Asma Khalid from NPR opened up about her experience as a journalist during the election, meeting GOP voters, following canvassers and interviewing people in churches and diners across the US. From being prodded about the…

Read More

Serena Williams writes: ‘We must continue to dream big’

Tennis Star Serena Williams used her place in Porter magazine’s Incredible Women of 2016 issue to, once again, talk about the barriers of race and gender both she and other women have faced as they work to accomplish their dreams. “I learned not to be afraid. I learned how important it is to…

Read More

Stunning portrait series combats Islamophobia

Photographer Mark Bennington’s new series entitled “America 2.0,” features the photos and stories of Muslim young adults in living New York City. According to a talk Bennington had with The Huffington Post, Bennington said, “these young people [in the photographs] are a crucial contingent of the next generation of American…

Read More