Celebrating 80 years ...

It is only fitting that in the week that the 100th International Women’s Day fell this year, we recall an article that ran in the March 7, 1975, issue of the Jewish Western Bulletin. It covered a New York seminar on the role of Jewish women that was arranged as part of the observance of United Nations International Women’s Year. Attendees heard Milton Himmelfarb, social scientist and director of the American Jewish Committee, share the finding that “birth-control practices among Jewish women, rather than intermarriage, are the cause of the decrease in the Jewish population in the United States today.” Perhaps surprisingly, the event was sponsored by the Women’s League of the Conservative movement, and there was no context provided, i.e. no mention of birth-control use in the developed world overall or other potential contributors to the decline in population.