LIZ ABZUG SPOKE WITH PASSION ON WOMEN, POWER AND POLITICS

Liz Abzug, daughter of the late Bella Abzug, first Jewish Congresswoman and women’s rights advocate, addressed about 200 enrapt members and friends of the National Council of Jewish Women Bergen County Section at its first General Meeting of the season on Thursday, September 24.

After showing a video, Bella In Her Own Words, Ms. Abzug opened with generous recognition and praise of the scope of work of NCJW and how important it is for us to share it with women of the younger generation – our daughters, granddaughters, and others, so they can grow and develop the mission forward into the future, using the ways of the younger generation.

She spoke about the life, times and challenges that faced her famous mother and about the ways in which she is continuing her legacy by inspiring and training the young women of today to become the leaders of tomorrow. As founder and CEO of The Bella Abzug Leadership Institute, Liz has worked with young women and girls since 2005, inspiring, mentoring and training them to become leaders in creating positive social and economic change.  A group of Liz’s student “Femininjas” was there to join in the dialog with their personal experiences, perspectives and issues of concern, such as college date-rape and bullying.

Liz told the meeting how her mother, Bella Abzug, the daughter of Russian immigrants, born Bella Savitsky on July 24, 1920, grew up in the Bronx, New York, where her father, Liz’s grandfather, ran a butcher shop, which he called “Live and Let Live”. After graduating from Columbia University’s law school, Bella Abzug worked as a lawyer, starting in labor law, and then moved on to tackling civil rights cases. While working for the American Civil Liberties Union, she took on the Willie McGee case, an African American man who was convicted of raping a white woman in Mississippi. He was sentenced to death for this crime, but many were not convinced of his guilt. The book “To Kill A Mockingbird” was based on this case. Abzug faced numerous threats from white supremists for her involvement in the case. Despite the personal risk, she managed to get his death sentence delayed through appealing his conviction. All of her efforts failed, however, and McGee was executed in 1951.

Bella fought to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which, to this day, without the ratification of all states, still remains unfinished business. To quote Liz: “Shame on us.” We must continue the fight to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment. Back in the 1970s, the amendment came within three states’ ratification of being adopted into the Constitution. Phyllis Schlafly and her pals managed to sink it. Liz told us to watch for a new movie by Meryl Streep about British Suffragettes coming out in October.

Here are some Bella Abzug quotes that Liz gave us:

“Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.”

“Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.”

“They used to give us a day–it was called International Women’s Day. In 1975 they gave us a year, the Year of the Woman. Then from 1975 to 1985 they gave us a decade, the Decade of the Woman. I said at the time, who knows, if we behave they may let us into the whole thing. Well, we didn’t behave and here we are.”

Among the very many issues that Ms. Abzug touched on were women’s health and reproductive rights, gun violence prevention, domestic violence, immigration reform, equal pay for equal work, campaign reform, social justice in Israel and much, much more. When asked by a member of the audience if she would consider running for office again (she had run for NY City Council but lost) she frankly replied that she would like to consider running for Congress, but that obtaining the financing to run these days doesn’t seem to be an option.

“We were honored that Liz Abzug was the speaker at our September General Meeting,” said Marilyn Sirulnick, NCJW’s General Meeting Program Coordinator. “She spoke with conviction, with emphasis on her dedication to motivating young women to become leaders of the 21st century and how important it is that women continue the struggle for equal rights.”

Click to enlarge image.

Marilyn Sirulnick, NCJW Program Coordinator (left), Liz Abzug (middle), and five of Liz’s “Femininjas”