Bet Shalom is an egalitarian community where men and women take part equally in the kehilah, as well as in the liturgical, social, educational and cultural activities.

Women have always had a very important role in Judaism. From a historical point of view, women have been those who have passed on our tradition: family values, customs, and ethical observance of the mitzvoth, as well as the repairing of the world (Tikkum Olam). Our communitarian commitment and our ideals as progressive Jews impel us to preserve this legacy and also to provide to the women in our community the opportunity to build strong and rewarding relationships, to educate, to grow in the communitarian leadership, and to fully contribute in all the aspects of today’s Jewish life.

To make this possible, Bet Shalom works on the following issues:

• Promotion of the active involvement of women in the community management and in all religious, social and cultural activities that we do, offering them resources, education, training and means so that they can efficiently develop their leadership.
• We support the presence of women in the government bodies of international Jewish organizations, and we work so they can have positions of responsibility there.
• We educate: All the educational and formative activities in the kehilah are egalitarian and non-exclusive or discriminatory regarding gender (liturgy, texts selection, gender-neutral language…)
• We are visible: women actively participate, organize and/or conduct all acts organized by Bet Shalom or those in which we participate as a community, domestic or open to civil society. 
• We teach and show Catalan and Spanish civil society little known aspects about women in the reform movement, such as the female rabbinate or the egalitarian involvement in all aspects of the community life.
• We cooperate with women’s groups and collectives, such as Women of the Wall in Israel, that fight for the defence of women’s rights, religious or civil,  and we act reporting any kind of discrimination based on gender or any kind of abuse (physical or psychological) that takes place in the Jewish communities or in our society.

 

In Bet Shalom, men and women contribute to the regeneration of Jewish life vindicating the women’s legacy in our tradition, putting under consideration traditional patterns of women and Jewish family, opening new roads from the gender perspective in the interpretation of fundamental Jewish texts and defending the egalitarian, dignity and justice values.