Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg joins host Rafa Kidvai to explore the connection between abortion and her Jewish values. Rabbi Ruttenberg shares her perspective on the role of faith in empowering individuals to control their own reproductive health.
Visit Repro Legal Defense Fund to learn more. Follow Rabbi Ruttenberg on Twitter @TheRaDR.
If you have questions about your legal rights or access to abortion, go to the Repro Legal Helpline or call 844-868-2812. If you are being criminalized for something that happened during a pregnancy, go to reprolegaldefensefund.org.
Rafa Kidvai: This is No Body Criminalized, how the state controls our bodies, families, and communities. I'm Rafa Kidvai, director of the Repro Legal Defense Fund at If/When/How. On our podcast we talk with experts, activists, and advocates whose daily work intersects with reproductive justice and the state's targeting of marginalized communities. SisterSong, a Reproductive justice collective led by women of color, defines reproductive justice as the human rights to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. You will hear us restate this shared commitment throughout our interviews because regardless of the issues guests focus on, that is ultimately the world we all intend to create.
Our guest today is Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. Danya is a scholar and residents at the National Council of Jewish Women where she helps activate the Jewish community in work for abortion justice. We talk with her about her journey to becoming a rabbi, her work with Rabbis For Repro, an organization bringing together rabbis to support reproductive freedom and rights and how she believes the Jewish faith has deepened her belief in abortion access for all.
Hi, Danya, thank you so much for joining us and lending us your insight. How are you?
Danya Ruttenberg: I'm okay. Thank you so much for letting me come play.
Kidvai: I would love to start with the basics. Tell us about your journey towards becoming the rabbi that's fighting for reproductive justice.
Ruttenberg: After college I went to San Francisco because I could and it was the late '90s and it was fun, and was working, writing and decided I needed a synagogue because Judaism was officially interesting enough to merit that. I was culturally identity Jewish but who went to synagogue a couple times a year. Now it was like, "Oh, this is interesting. There's something going on here", and I fell backwards into the place where this extraordinary rabbi named Rabbi Allen Lou, may his memory be for a blessing, he's the one who really helped me understand that all of these stories in this old, old book are not about a dude in the sky who's going to give you a lump of coal if you don't do everything right, but that there were 2000 years of more nuanced theology than that and experiences that I'd been trying to find a name for in my life.
Then there was understanding that I could both embrace the history with the scholarship eye, not pretend that archeology doesn't exist and also see the stories in these ancient books as stories telling me about how I can grow into a person who is more in touch with the sacred and who is ultimately growing to be more of service to a world in need of healing and there's a spiritual practice to support that. Plugging into the bigness feels great, but the whole point is that you get that we're all interconnected and that means we have to make sure that everybody is okay. That's the religious truth of it. Anyway, that led me to rabbinical school. I've always been writing about feminism. I've always been working on gender justice related issues, so after doing some other work in the Jewish social justice world, when the opportunity to be in this place fighting for abortion justice and reproductive justice generally, and women and children and families being safe and free overall, it was a no-brainer.
Kidvai: To jump right into it, for those who aren't familiar with the faith, what does Judaism say about abortion and are abortion bans against your religion?
Ruttenberg: In Judaism, abortion is permitted and if the life of the pregnant person is endangered, it's required according to Jewish law. It's considered a mitzvah, a commandment, and for us the fetus is not considered to have the full status of personhood until birth basically. Initially, first 40 days, it's considered "mere water" and I know Islam has a similar first 40 day mark, and then from 40 days until labor, it's considered part of the pregnant person's body. We have texts that are 2000 years old, older than that, that make it really clear.
Kidvai: Thanks for making it really clear for us. In a world where the American narrative about religion and abortion has really been talked about through a conservative Christian lens, I would love to know how your understanding of Judaism informs your stance on abortion.
Ruttenberg: I was for abortion justice before I became a religious Jew, and the deeper I go into my texts, the more I respect the thoughtfulness with which some of our commentators ... I don't agree with all of them. You have thousands of years of dudes writing books and they are not equally thoughtful about the pregnant person's situation, we can put it that way, but some of these men writing in the 17th century went to such great pains to name that woe is a perfectly valid reason. If someone is feeling woe, that's it. If you're feeling suffering, that is enough. That emotional pain is equal to physical pain, that mental health needs are physical health needs. I mean, these are all ... I don't know that they've changed my stance on abortion so much as deepened. We always place the experience of the pregnant person first and their emotional life matters. You don't need a reason. Nobody needs to have a reason.
Kidvai: And all reasons are good reasons
Ruttenberg: Abortion on demand without apology means without apology. There's a 17th century dude who was in Algeria who was told there are a bunch of women who are self-managing their own abortions, medication, probably herbs. "Dude, is that okay?" And he kind of walks through the sources and walks away and he's like, "It's fine." There's no, "Check with your husband first." It's just like, "This is your world, this is your body. Go take care of yourself."
Kidvai: Absolutely. But you want abortion access for all people. Abortion access has been dwindling across the country. There's many restrictive laws and people that are pushing them have a really particular understanding of Christianity to really push an anti-abortion agenda. How do you feel about these restrictions now being applied to Jewish people who want abortions?
Ruttenberg: First of all, this is a violation of our first amendment rights. It's a violation of everybody's right under the establishment clause because you cannot make policy based on one person's or one community's subjective ideas about religion and when life begins, and as I just noted, Judaism's ideas about personhood are very different, as are Islams and if you're an atheist, if you're agnostic and it's also a violation of the free exercise clause because there are plenty of times when Judaism doesn't just permit but even requires abortion and the state of Texas will say no. That's another First amendment violation. Then it makes me furious because it's such junk readings of these texts. They're textual justifications for these bans are such garbage.
Kidvai: Wasn't there that synagogue in Florida that sued over its 15-week abortion ban on the basis of the law violating the right to religious freedom? Do you feel like other folks should be employing this strategy?
Ruttenberg: There actually are a number of other suits now. In Kentucky, there are three Jewish women who are suing the abortion ban over IVF and embryos. This argument is starting to take hold and in Indiana there's also another Jewish case moving forward and it's possible that we can get this to move. Hopefully in one of these places we can start to get this line of thinking and this understanding to move because it's a fact. It's everybody's first amendment violation.
Kidvai: Do you feel that faith plays an important role in the fight for reproductive justice?
Ruttenberg: Yes, especially because it has been used as such a weapon on the right. From the very early days, the Southern Baptist Convention started switching its position on abortion when it began to be convenient to take up anti-abortion work as their new fight. If you actually look at the various resolutions and you map the ones from your early '70s through the mid '80s, it's fascinating. It's about showing up not despite one's faith, but showing up for abortion justice because of one's faith. I think our culture needs to see that there isn't a choice between your church and your support of abortion justice, that there isn't a choice between your synagogue and your support of abortion justice.
These are the most statistically pro-abortion religious community in America and most of us don't know what our texts really say. Well, they didn't until they started organizing the rabbis, but we need to come from an empowered place and there are a lot of us, and it's not about imposing our ideas on anybody, but it's about saying this matters to us from our place of faith.
Kidvai: There's also a history here of clergy supporting the pro-abortion movement. Does it feel like you're following the footsteps of people that already laid some groundwork for you and showed you this was one of the ways that we needed to organize?
Ruttenberg: There's a long history of clergy activism, of us saying if we are here saying that we're going to be here serving the divine and we're not showing up when people are in danger, what are we even doing with our lives? Right? Because the whole point, the whole point, is to take care of each other down here. My job right now right here is to make the world better. That's it. That is the work. If I as a religious leader can't show up and show people that this is the work, then I just feel like my ordination is worth nothing.
Kidvai: Danya, I wanted to ask you, obviously white supremacy is at the root of the kinds of Christian fascism we are seeing in the anti-abortion movement. How does white supremacy relate to the experience of the Jewish community?
Ruttenberg: I mean, to understand the business with white supremacy and Judaism, you'd have to go back a thousand years when Jews were not allowed to own land in Europe and we were the theological problem that was the thorn in Christianity's side. If we could just convert everything, we'd prove out Christianity perfectly and this game of anything going down becomes blame the Jews, not me. Guy in power starts to get unpopular. He's like, "Oh no, it's the Jews," and then everybody gets mad at the Jews and stops being mad at the guy in power, and that is still the game. I mean, that was the game that Hitler played, and we are the answer to every conspiracy theory. We are behind the scenes. It is insidious. You cannot see us. We are the deep state, we are hidden. It is whispered, it is implied, it is not named.
The East Coast types, the bankers, the Hollywood media types that are in charge of everything. Nevermind that the only reason Jews got involved at the ground floor of Hollywood was because there were no other industries. We were locked out of everything and we're like, "Okay, this looks new. I guess we can work here," and it got good and people then resented us. For white supremacists, the idea that people of color could free themselves doesn't work. That flies in the face of all of their racism. For example, the civil rights movement was very confusing to them. How could these people have succeeded? The answer is somebody must have been behind the scenes making this happen behind civil rights, behind feminism, behind gay rights, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. At the same time, Jews for the first time ever were able to assimilate into dominant culture in the second half of the 20th century.
We were still the racialized other in the first half, there was still systemic antisemitism in the first half. Jews and Black Americans had great solidarity in the first half of the 20th century, and then with the GI Bill, we weren't redlined, so we were able to make some sort of moves into assimilation. Then with the civil rights bill, no discrimination based on creed, white Jews managed to get absorbed into whiteness in a whole different way, and so it's complex. The way out, the only way I think, is for white Jews to own the privilege that they do have in American society, which is there and real and I have, and for everybody else to really educate themselves on what antisemitism is and to recognize it and to be willing and able to own it, and then we can all do the solidarity work that we're meant to do.
Kidvai: You talking about how this is ultimately about making a safe world where people feel cared for makes me think about you talking about rest and Sabbath keeping as a radical act. How do you encourage people to embrace the idea that rest is radical?
Ruttenberg: Capitalism tells us that value is what we do, what we make, what we produce, what we offer, our labor, and that we're never allowed to stop. So deciding to stop and to say, "I am more than this. I am not this cog for you," is already a radical act. It's a reclaiming of the self that I think is profound and necessary.
Kidvai: Do you think rest is a repro justice issue?
Ruttenberg: Absolutely. If we are fighting for a world in which everyone, A, has autonomy and B, can raise children that they want in a safe and healthy environment, then rest is necessary for both of those, both claiming the self and saying, "I am going to pause. I am making this choice," and teaching our children that they have to give this to themselves, that they have to care for themselves, that they need to attend to the things that fill them up and bring them wholeness. It's a skill that people need for their lives truly.
Kidvai: Totally. So much unlearning to do there and relearning. Okay, tell us about Repro Shabbat.
Ruttenberg: Repro Shabbat is an annual event and it's a time for the whole Jewish community to come together and have everybody making space to talk about abortion justice and reproductive justice more broadly and to learn what our tradition says about abortion, but also to make space for people to tell their abortion stories in synagogue, to hear other people's stories, to look at amazing Jewish repro justice art that we have this year, to have deep conversations about their own experiences with their own reproductive lives, which everyone has a reproductive life, even if their life includes the choice not to reproduce. Anybody with a body has something to say, and it's a time for us to remember why this is so important and to learn more about why this is so important, but who's really impacted and how we can better center those who are most impacted and follow their lead and get energized to take bigger actions.
Kidvai: I would love to know what the phrase no body criminalized means to you, since that's the name of our podcast.
Ruttenberg: Everybody needs to be safe, whatever their documentation status, whatever their gender. Why does the state need to know what gender people are? Certainly whatever happens in their life around abortion. In my tradition, it is the fetus is part of their body until birth, let people be the captains of their own body. It means a revolution in thinking about what criminalization is and why we criminalize. I mean, abolition is a reproductive justice issue and the whole concept of criminalization and what it is and what falls under that category and what doesn't and why and who benefits is deeply part of it. The history of bodies being controlled by the state is a lot about race, it's a lot about economics. A world in which no body is criminalized is a world with so much more liberation in it.
Kidvai: That was really beautiful. I love hearing your words. You do such a good job of relaying messages of hope to folks around you and I would love to hear why you think hope is important.
Ruttenberg: First of all, Mariame Kaba is right in that hope is a discipline. It is something that you can choose and it can be hard when things feel dark and they have ever been dark before and we have found our way towards light, we have found ways to keep each other as safe as possible and we have found ways to come together and to push together. Our way forward is together. The only option for us is solidarity across communities and understanding how deeply interlocked all of the issues on our plates are. This is not about fighting. "Oh, we can't talk about mass incarceration. We're busy talking about reproductive justice." That old game the left used to do. It's all one thing. We're all together, different parts of the knot, trying to untangle and I believe we can do it, and I think it's going to be hard in the middle before we get there, but I think we can. I think the more we are determined to choose hope, the more people we can help and save even during the hard parts.
Kidvai: Thank you, Danya. Thank you for being here. It was really, really lovely to speak with you.
Ruttenberg: Thank you for having me. It's always so wonderful to talk to you.
Kidvai: As we wrap up with Danya, we've discovered some key takeaways, how her Jewish faith fostered her compassionate stance and personal autonomy, the universal call to care for each other and the revolutionary impact of rest and Sabbath. By setting aside time to nourish our spirits and reevaluate our priorities, we can cultivate a deeper connection with ourselves, our communities, and the world around us.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is a scholar and residence at the National Council of Jewish Women, an author of On Repentance and Repair, Making Amends in an Unapologetic World. You can find her on Twitter @TheRaDA. I'm Rafa Kidvai, the host of the podcast and director of the Repro Legal Defense fund at If/When/How. The Repro Legal Defense Fund funds bail and strong defenses for anyone criminalized for something that happens during pregnancy. Learn more at reprolegaldefensfund.org. If you have questions about your legal rights, go to reprolegalhelpline.org or call 844-868-2812. No body criminalized is produced by LWC Studios for the Repro Legal Defense Fund at If/When/How. Sage Carson and Jen Girdish are the media and marketing team at If/When/How. Pamela Kirkland is the show's producer. Paulina Velasco is the managing producer at LWC Studios. Kojin Tashiro is lead producer and mixed this episode. Remember, keep your community safe and don't talk to cops.
CITATION:
Kidvai, Rafa, host. “Reproductive Freedom and Faith.” No Body Criminalized, Repro Legal Defense Fund at If/When/How. May 1, 2023. Reprolegaldefensefund.org.