JEWS, WOMEN & JEWISH WOMEN
Esther’s House Association for Jewish Culture and Feminist Values is a cultural organization. Its mission is to highlight and reinforce Jewish female values that are most intensely captured through culture. It also aims to draw the attention of the wider public to the specific problems faced by Jewish women: as Jews in women’s society and as women within the Jewish community.
Based in Budapest, we interpret our Jewishness broadly: as a religion, a people, a tradition, a community of destiny, a culture, or a way of life. Similarly, our feminism allows for broad boundaries of self-definition. In this sense, a feminist is a woman or man who accepts social gender differences: that women’s experiences of self-expression may differ from those of men; therefore, they consider this unique female culture worthy of study and equivalent to the male culture that is considered “universal.”
As Jewish feminists, we consider equal opportunity, social justice, and solidarity to be fundamental values, and we seek to promote and gain acceptance for them as widely as possible. The educational and public awareness functions of our association, as well as its scientific and artistic activities, serve to achieve these goals.
Our activities include:
- Book publishing
- Book presentations
- Exhibitions
- Monthly book club
- Collecting women’s personal narratives
Research topics:
- Women and the Holocaust;
- The history of Hungarian Zionist women;
- Antisemitism and hate speech in social media
Our partners are:
- JCC Budapest Bálint House
- International Council of Jewish Women
- Bet Debora
- International Committee of Buchenwald and Dora (ICBD)
