As the #MeToo movement continues to build momentum worldwide, the Jewish Women’s Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago (JWF) publicly commits to a yearlong effort to harness its lessons and implications to foster positive change in the Jewish community.

Since 1997, JWF has awarded over $3.7 million in grants to 160 projects in Chicago, Israel, and around the world to foster a safe, healthy, and inclusive world for Jewish women and girls.

JWF’s first step in responding to #MeToo was to invite Loribeth Weinstein, CEO of Jewish Women International (JWI)-a Jewish organization working to empower women and girls-to address its advocacy committee in April
at JUF.

“Lori Weinstein is a key national leader in this area who has been instrumental in organizing a Jewish response to the #MeToo Movement,” said JWF Advocacy Chair Susan Rifas. “Whether it’s sexual assault, abuse, trafficking, or the gender pay gap and lack of female leadership in the workplace, all of these issues are related to the #MeToo Movement and they are all topics of concern to us at JWF.”

For Weinstein, who has been working on issues of violence against women for more than 30 years, ongoing and substantive conversations must precede solutions.

“The questions for consideration include: How did this go on for so long and what are we doing to address it culturally and systemically? The #MeToo movement launched eight months ago in response to the eruption of sexual harassment charges, and so much has happened in that short period of time. I have long understood the importance of first having deep, thoughtful, and ongoing conversations before taking concrete next steps,” she said.

One powerful side effect of the movement is the way it is turning social mores upside down.

“For so many of us, this was a moment where we stopped and thought about all the things we had lived through, put up with, and experienced,” said Weinstein. “We knew it was wrong, but we had no one to go to. It just seemed the cost of doing business as a professional woman.”

Zeroing in on the Jewish community, Weinstein said the movement has “given us a chance to take a hard look at our organizations.”

“We must have a pipeline [in Jewish organizations] that allows women to speak out and register complaints, and have those complaints listened to,” she said.

As part of her work in this area, Weinstein advocates for ongoing, in-person sexual harassment training without leadership present.

“I don’t believe there is one size that fits all,” she said. “Every organization has its own unique culture and your training has to be specific to that culture and reflective of your people, your culture, and your mission.”

In Chicago, the Jewish United Fund recently held anti-harassment training for all of its employees. “We take the notion of building a safe workplace environment and culture very seriously and have no tolerance for harassment of any kind,” said Jim Rosenberg, JUF’s chief of staff, who helped create the anti-harassment training. “We all need to own the issues and work together to fix them.”

In working to shift the culture, Weinstein not only urges likeminded women to join the conversation, but asks men to be part of the change as well.

So far, a host of Jewish organizations and foundations have begun the long process of self-reflection and examination. The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation recently formed a coalition of Jewish organizational leaders who are addressing many issues that have emerged since #MeToo. The Foundation for Jewish Camp has launched an initiative to prevent abuse and misconduct at camps, and organizations like the Jewish Funders Network have been offering webinars on topics like “Sexual Harassment Revelations: What Jewish Funders Need to Know and Do Now.”

“This is our moment to think creatively to make change and to work together,” said Weinstein.

For its part, the advocacy committee of JWF has begun identifying areas of change.

“Through our dialogue with Lori Weinstein, we were empowered to look at which tools we can leverage to begin to create a real cultural shift that can be sustained over time,” said Nancy Kohn, chair of the steering committee.

These include supporting systemic change to create safe work environments; sensitivity training that is appropriate for different generations in the workplace and includes role-playing; and a determined effort to achieve greater parity between men and women in positions of power and authority, according to Kohn.

The Jewish Women’s Foundation is an independent project of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. For more information, visitwww.juf.org/jwf.

Abigail Pickus is a freelance writer living in Evanston.