The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) is an international organization representing thousands of women committed to the Jewish law and to the belief that increased participation by women—private and public—will enrich the entire Orthodox community. JOFA seeks to create a climate of justice and equality for women and girls, strengthening their leadership in the sectors of family life, the synagogue, houses of learning, and in all Jewish communal institutions. JOFA grew from a small group that met around a founding member’s kitchen table to become a professionally staffed, international alliance. It was founded in 1997 in response to the first of what has become five international conferences, each attended by over 1,500 participants.  At the time this grant was given, JOFA had over 5,000 members and had already garnered significant support from noted scholars, leaders, activists and philanthropic grantors in the Jewish and feminist worlds.

JOFA’s projects and activities include a speaker’s bureau, a Web site, resources for a widely-observed Sabbath honoring women’s contributions, film festivals, an interactive CD-ROM that teaches the cantillations for reading the scroll of Esther and a mission to Israel in which girls’ schools and women’s shelters are visited by the Agunah Advocacy Project and the Gender and Orthodoxy Curriculum Project.