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This haggadah is brought to you by Cohort 3 of the Research Training Internship (RTI), which consists of 10 female identifying Jewish teens from the Chicagoland area. RTI was initially inspired by the New York based Jewish feminist and social justice group Ma’yan. After their initial success in New York, Ma’yan partnered with the Jewish United Fund and the Beck Research Initiative for Women, Gender & Community at DePaul University to bring the program to Chicago. Through intensive political education, open...

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This is a cultural problem. A fundamentally cultural problem. What is built into the system? The assumption that you must have done something. You knew him. You must have led him on. There are laws all over the country that in fact contributed to this no on that there's no need to respect a woman's autonomy because it's just not that important...It is never, never, never her fault. She could be drop - dead drunk. She could walk across the campus...

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Rape is "the most underreported violent crime in America” (National Victim Center). Although many programs are created with the intent of educating students about rape and rape prevention, these programs are more heavily aimed at teaching people how to avoid rape, rather than teaching not to rape. Although the intent may be to prevent sexual assault by instituting programs that teach women avoidance, in reality these programs are simply reinforcing benevolent sexism and permitting a culture of victim-blaming, which only serves...

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When the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, they suffered unimaginably, oppressed by systematic enslavement and brutality. And yet, when Moses arrived bearing the means to their salvation, the rst real hope that was accessible to them for as long as anyone could remember, their rst instincts were incredulousness and rejection. Even after the slaves were liberated, many of them ached for the predictability and relative stability of slavery (knowing where their food was coming from, understanding their role in the world,...

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A simple piece of Matzah serves to remind us of the immense suffering of ancient slavery. Now we take into account a second item, bitter chocolate, to remind us of modern suffering. One might question how chocolate is representative of hardship, for its purpose is to satisfy one’s pleasures, to be eaten in times of love and craving. Simply put, it is expected to be sweet, but when it is not, the unwanted chocolate is automatically dismissed and rejected. The expectations...

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Feminism – Feminism strives to end the discrimination, exploitation, and oppression of people due to their gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and other di erences and supports people in being free to determine their own lives for themselves. It supports us in questioning what we’ve been taught about forcing people into traditional roles and valuing some groups less than others. Feminism identifies discrimination, exploitation, and oppression — and not men (contrary to a wildly incorrect popular belief) — as the problem....

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Oseh Shalom Bim-romav Hu Yaaseh Shalom Aleinu Ve-al Kol Yisrael Ve-Imru Amen With the third cup of wine we remember God’s promise to redeem the Israelites with an outstretched arm. With this cup we turn our thoughts to those who offered a helping hand. We raise this glass of juice to those who use their privileges, status, power, and resources to stand against our culture of permissiveness around sexual violence. Fill your third cup of juice, and recite the acrostic below...

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Make a sandwich with the matzah, maror, and charoset, and eat.  As we make our sandwich of maror, charoset, and matzah, let us reflect upon the words of Rabbi Hillel, the namesake of the aforementioned sandwich. “That which is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole Law. The rest is commentary. Now go and learn.” Essentially, this is the “Golden Rule,” Rabbi Hillel preached empathy. What if every single person thought about how their actions would...

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Rachtzah - the act of cleansing one’s hands while reciting a blessing -- requires a willingness to acknowledge what needs cleaning or updating in one’s life. Rape culture impacts everyone in our society - perpetrators, victims, and all of us, of all genders. Rachtzah enables us to confront rape culture through the act of cleaning and blessing ourselves from the impurities of gender norms, toxic masculinity, catcalling, hyper-sexualization, and a culture that permits and normalizes this conduct. Whether we wash hands...

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“God purposely leads the Hebrews to the seashore, where pharaoh will have reason to say, "The wilderness has shut them in!", i.e., nature itself is on the side of the powerful, and the prevailing hierarchy, where slaves remain slaves, is ordained by the gods. The point of the splitting of the Red Sea is that the elements that seem most immutable and unstoppable--the all-powerful despot, the annihilating army and the impassable ocean-- are precisely the ones we should see as the...

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The formal telling of the story of Passover is framed as a discussion with lots of questions and answers. The tradition is that the youngest person asks the questions because it re ects the centrality of involving everyone in the Seder. The rabbis who created the set format for the Seder gave us the Four Questions to help break the ice in case no one had their own questions. Asking questions is a core tradition in Jewish life. We would like...

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Rape culture isn’t new. One of the most prominent examples of a culture of permissiveness around sexual violence is in the Torah: the Rape of Dinah. Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, went out one day in search for the daughters of the land of Shechem. While she was walking, the prince of Shechem saw her, took and lay with her by force. He later asked his father to take the girl as his wife. When Jacob was told of...

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“God purposely leads the Hebrews to the seashore, where pharaoh will have reason to say, "The wilderness has shut them in!", i.e., nature itself is on the side of the powerful, and the prevailing hierarchy, where slaves remain slaves, is ordained by the gods. The point of the splitting of the Red Sea is that the elements that seem most immutable and unstoppable--the all-powerful despot, the annihilating army and the impassable ocean-- are precisely the ones we should see as the...

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Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, went out one day in search for the daughters of the land of Shechem. While she was walking, the prince of Shechem saw her, took and lay with her by force. When Jacob, Dinah’s father, was told of his daughter being raped he kept silent. But when Jacob’s sons heard the news of what happened to their sister they were distressed and outraged. The story goes on to explain that the king of Shcechem...