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(13) Esty Shushan: Choosing the feminism that's right for you

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

Release Date: 01/21/2025

(28) Following Your North Star, with Joanne Greenaway and Dr. Erica Brown show art (28) Following Your North Star, with Joanne Greenaway and Dr. Erica Brown

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

***1st Anniversary Edition!*** It’s our birthday! For this special anniversary edition the tables have been turned on me! Joanne Greenaway is Chief Executive of LSJS. Experienced International Arbitration lawyer and formerly Director of Get cases for the London Beth Din, she is part of Ohr Torah Stone’s International Halakha Scholars Program and a Sacks Scholar. One year ago, she launched THIS podcast to inspire women to find what they uniquely bring to the world and create roles for themselves to do so - by showcasing other women in Jewish leadership who’ve done just that. Dr. Erica...

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(27) A voice for the hostages with Dr. Haya Langerman show art (27) A voice for the hostages with Dr. Haya Langerman

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit  to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. This week I am delighted to be joined by Dr. Haya Langerman. Haya is a medical advisor with a doctorate in diabetes who has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 30 years. For the last 21 months she has been on the frontlines of support for hostage families and fighting for their return (after 669 days now), as a lead volunteer for the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. We discuss what prompted Haya to drop everything and take up this work when the war started, her...

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(26) Exposing and destigmatising sexual abuse, with Shana Aaronson of Magen show art (26) Exposing and destigmatising sexual abuse, with Shana Aaronson of Magen

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. This week I am delighted to be joined by Shana Aaronson, Executive Director of , where she first began as Social Services Coordinator, supporting families where children had been physically and sexually abused. Magen is dedicated to creating safer Jewish communities in Israel and around the world by developing and implementing programs that foster transparency, prioritizing the well-being of victims, holding perpetrators accountable, and eliminating the stigma surrounding...

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(25) Scaling the heights of halachic scholarship, with Rabbanit Chamutal Shoval show art (25) Scaling the heights of halachic scholarship, with Rabbanit Chamutal Shoval

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit  to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. I’m delighted to welcome Rabbanit Chamutal Shoval, Director of the Susi Bradfield Women’s Institute of Halachic Leadership at Midreshet Lindenbaum, and a graduate of its rigorous five‑year program as a Morat Hora’a and Manhiga Ruchanit - empowering women with halachic authority and spiritual leadership and enabling female halachic leaders to claim their place in discourse, advisory roles, synagogues, schools, and more, both in Israel and abroad. She spent...

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(24) Fighting breast cancer through humour, with Gila Pfeffer show art (24) Fighting breast cancer through humour, with Gila Pfeffer

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. Gila Pfeffer is an award winning author, breast cancer prevention advocate and mum of four. Her recent book, , was the 2024 winner of the Gilda Women’s Book award and had me laughing hysterically and sobbing in equal measure. She describes it as “about losing both my parents to cancer, trying not to get cancer myself, then getting it anyway”. We answer questions like: why would you choose humour as a vessel for discussing breast cancer and loss? How do you navigate...

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(23) Finding common ground through feminine traits, with Sharon Rosen show art (23) Finding common ground through feminine traits, with Sharon Rosen

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. Today I’m honoured to welcome Sharon Rosen, a leader in interfaith peace building in Israel and around the world. Sharon served as Search for Common Ground’s Global Director of Religious Engagement from 2017 until recently. She also co-founded and directed Education for Life, an NGO that provides tools for the development and wellbeing of children within state educational systems. She was also a faculty member at the Jerusalem Center for Near East Studies, teaching...

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(22) Can women do that? Nicole Duke, Kashrut Supervisor & Burial Advisor show art (22) Can women do that? Nicole Duke, Kashrut Supervisor & Burial Advisor

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. Rabbanit Nicole Duke is not an obvious leader, but her guidance behind the scenes at crucial times and life cycle events helps countless people through both difficult and wonderful times. First she is a shomeret, a kashrut supervisor enabling kosher functions to take place. She is also responsible for the chevra kadisha - the organisation dedicated to caring for the deceased and preparing them for burial - at the main Orthodox cemetery in London, and she single-handedly runs...

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(21) Sara Wolkenfeld @ Sefaria: Opening up access to Torah in the digital age show art (21) Sara Wolkenfeld @ Sefaria: Opening up access to Torah in the digital age

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. I learn every day with my chavruta in Israel using Sefaria sources. So I’m delighted to be interviewing Rabbanit Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld, Chief Learning Officer at Sefaria, the online database and interface for Jewish texts. Sara is passionate about Talmud education and about expanding Jewish textual knowledge and its accessibility for all. She writes and teaches widely about Jewish texts and Jewish law, and her current projects focus on applying Talmudic ideas to...

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(20) Szonja Komoroczy: Breathing life into Hungary’s enigmatic Jewish community show art (20) Szonja Komoroczy: Breathing life into Hungary’s enigmatic Jewish community

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.  What’s it like to be part of the Jewish community in Hungary? Home to the second largest synagogue in the world yet a hidden Jewish population that no-one can count, how does it function and what will its future be? Jewish educator, historian and tour guide Szonja Komoroczy is Vice Rector at the Jewish University of Budapest and has lectured and published extensively in English, Hungarian, Hebrew, and Yiddish. As an educator, her passion is to tell the story...

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(19) Pesach: The power of openness to change, with Tanya White show art (19) Pesach: The power of openness to change, with Tanya White

Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. Dr Tanya White is a much loved teacher at LSJS and Matan, and a lecturer in Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University. Tanya lives in Israel with her husband and four girls, and she writes, teaches and lectures on Tanach and Jewish Philosophy. She has a very unique style that is both inspiring and intellectually stimulating and our students here at lsjs.ac.uk love her. I always learn so much from her approach and her take on ideas – really profound and really personal and...

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More Episodes

Esty is a Chareidi Mizrachi social activist, entrepreneur and trailblazer. We met when she
was in London screening Woman of Valour, a documentary film about her life and activism,
and I was blown away by her bravery and her achievements.

In 2012, she launched No Voice, No Vote, a social media-based protest movement calling
on ultra orthodox Chareidi women not to vote for parties that barred women from their ranks,
and on the back of that she founded Nivcharot, which raises awareness on women’s rights in
Chareidi society. She’s a pioneer establishing all sorts of online forums promoting an honest
exchange of views on subjects like divorce, birth control, sexual harassment, abuse and
arranged marriages, all of which are to some extent still taboo in the Chareidi world.

Esty has a new podcast in Israel called Chareidit Meduberet (Spoken Chareidi) where she
interviews people who share this fresh approach and voice to discuss challenging issues in a
new, open way.

We speak about change management, using a pseudonym to write about politics as a
Chareidi woman, and shifting practises away from that, the potential dangers of the future of Israeli politics, how not to feed the monster of social media, and struggling with the F word -
feminism.

Click here to learn about Esty's film, Akara.