In Brief: Women, Children and Voting

by Rebecca Honig Friedman

Jewish student skips graduation to observe Shabbat. “Li Morse has chosen not to attend her graduation at Mott Haven High School because the ceremony falls on a Saturday, which conflicts with the Sabbath,” reports WPIX.com. The school did offer Morse an alternative, however: “to march down the aisle of the school library by herself on Friday to receive a diploma from school Principal Walton.” Lo and behold, Li found this alternative lacking and, instead, will “receive her diploma from School Chancellor Joel Klein in a private ceremony on Thursday.”

National Council of Jewish Women and other Jewish groups praised the Supreme Court’s upholding of “a key provision” of the Voting Rights Act, “which requires certain states and districts with a history of discrimination at the polls to get approval … from the federal government before making any changes in their election practices or procedures.”

Fitness clubs are offering women-only workout spaces in response to requests by Orthodox Jewish and devout Muslim women.

Mikvahcalendar.com offers women observing family purity laws a hi-tech way to keep track of their menstrual cycles. And it was designed by an Orthodox woman with a Master’s from MIT:

Founder and co-creator Rebetzen Rivkah Bloom, who holds a masters degree in computer science from MIT, says she was inspired by women approaching her for help with the mathematics of the laws of purity. “Women needed help with the family purity calculations and because women today are internet and computer savvy they asked me to develop a program to help them do it on their own,” said Bloom.

Somehow, women have been successfully practicing the laws of niddah for centuries without the help of an MIT education or the internet, but hey, whatever works.
For women on the go, there is also a Mikvah App for the iPhone.

Swine flu shuts down Jewish summer camps. A Union for Reform Judaism camp in California canceled some sessions “after large numbers of staff and volunteers began to exhibit flulike symptoms,” and another URJ camp in Waco, TX is treating its 600 campers and staff with Tamiflu “to prevent the spread of the disease after one confirmed and four suspected swine flu cases.” Another Jewish camp, Camp Sabra in Missouri, “decided Monday to close for a week” after an unspecified number of campers and staff became ill.