Leslie Sachs, Executive Director of Women of the Wall will speak about their efforts in Israel. The event will be held at KKBE Social Hall. It will be sponsored by NCJW Charleston Section and KKBE Sisterhood. It is open to the community. It is free of charge.
Leslie Sachs, a leading activist in the movements for religious pluralism and advancement of women, will be awarded NCJW’s 2014 Jewel Bellush Israeli Feminist Award. The annual award was established by NCJW member Barbara Dobkin to salute Israeli feminists. Sachs is currently a leader and professional staff person for Project Kesher and Women of the Wall. Project Kesher Israel is a grassroots organization focused on training women who have moved to Israel from the former Soviet Union in leadership, self-sufficiency, mentoring, networking and activism on such issues as Jewish holiday celebrations, women’s health, and domestic violence prevention. Under Sachs’ leadership, Kesher has grown from one grassroots group of women to more than 15 groups in 12 Israeli cities, touching the lives of thousands of women.

In recent years, Lesley Sach’s arrests at the Western Wall in the name of women’s equal rights and religious freedom have made international headlines. Under her direction, Women of the Wall grew from a small prayer group of a couple dozen women into an international movement with hundreds of thousands of supporters and worldwide attention persistence led to the groundbreaking Jerusalem district court decision that maintained women’s right to pray freely at the public holy space at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Sachs founded one of the first Israeli feminist organizations, Isha L’Isha (Woman to Woman) in Haifa, 25 years ago, and she has provided key leadership for a long list of other advances for women in Israel.