Our Story
In 2006, the “Me Too” movement was founded by a survivor and activist, Tarana Burke. In 2017, #MeToo went viral, and a global movement around sexual violence emerged.
It was in the context of Jewish women coming forward privately and publicly, sharing their stories of gender-based abuse, harassment, and discrimination by colleagues and leaders in Jewish workplaces and communal spaces, that SRE Network (then SafetyRespectEquity Coalition) was launched in 2018.
With support from Jewish foundations across the United States, our early investments focused on documenting their testimonies, developing robust organizational policies for Jewish institutions, supporting respectful workplace training, improving hiring and advancement practices, and furthering gender equity in the rabbinate.
Since that time, SRE Network has invested over $2.8M in efforts to advance gender equity in Jewish spaces, published groundbreaking research, and our Standards for Safe, Respectful, Equitable Workplaces, adopted by our 125 member organizations, provides a roadmap toward making lasting change.
On Gender
Our Jewish nonprofit workforce is overwhelmingly female. According to research by Leading Edge, while 70% percent of Jewish nonprofit employees identify as women, 70% of the executive-level roles are held by men.
How we understand and talk about gender in our work continues to evolve.
We view gender as a critical societal and cultural construct that impacts what is expected, allowed, and valued in individuals and impacts the responsibilities assigned, the access to and control over resources, and decision-making opportunities. We actively support individuals of all gender identities and expressions to ensure we have safe, respectful, equitable workplaces and communal spaces. And we seek to effectively engage cisgender, trans, non-binary, and queer individuals through our workplaces and communal entities to further gender justice work.
We know that words matter, and we want to continue to evolve with you. If you have feedback on the language we use around gender or other issues, we want to hear it. Please get in touch to continue the conversation.
Facts
