Maccabeats Release Video to Help JWI End Get Abuse
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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Meredith Jacobs, VP Communications
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Washington, D.C. – The Maccabeats, perhaps the most well-known Jewish a cappella group, has released a new video Sign that Form, in partnership with Jewish Women International (JWI), to encourage Jewish couples to sign the halachic pre-nuptial agreement before their wedding. The song, set to Train’s Play that Song/Heart and Soul, is part of the Get Smart Project, a JWI initiative. “We're excited to use our platform to both spread the word and stress the urgency of the halachic prenup, one of the most promising - but woefully under-used - solutions to the epidemic of get-refusal,” Maccabeats Music Director Julian Horowitz said.
The video can be found via this link.
The Get Smart Project, funded by the Aviv Foundation, is a unique national initiative educating Orthodox teens and raising community awareness about healthy relationships and the halachic prenuptial agreement. “Of course this is about ending Get abuse,” JWI CEO Lori Weinstein said. “But at its heart, Get Smart Project is about more. It’s about sending a message that both partners are equal. No one person in a marriage holds power over the other.”
Knowing that Orthodox couples marry earlier than those in the other denominations, JWI is bringing the Get Smart Project curriculum to Orthodox high schools around the country. “Teens are already talking about their futures—about dating and marriage. We want to make sure they have an understanding of what is healthy and have the tools to talk to their future spouses about what they want in a relationship and partnership. Signing the halachic prenuptial is the start of a healthy marriage,” Deborah Rosenbloom, JWI’s VP of programming and new initiatives said.
JWI has been nationally recognized for its work in the Orthodox community, most recently for its Boy to Mentsch project, promoting positive masculinity to Orthodox fathers and sons.
JWI, the leading Jewish organization working to end violence against women and girls, is working closely with Rabbi Jeremy Stern of ORA (Organization for the Resolution of Agunot); Rabbi Michael Bleicher of Project S.A.R.A.H. (Stop Abusive Relationships at Home) in Clifton-Passacic, NJ; and Rabbi David Rosenberg of JCARES (Jewish Community Abuse Resources, Education & Solutions) in Chicago, IL; who are serving as the project’s rabbinic advisory council.
For more information about the project and to download materials from the public awareness campaign, go to GetSmartProject.org.
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Jewish Women International (JWI) is the leading Jewish organization working to end violence against women and girls domestically and internationally. JWI is a Steering Committee member of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women and convenes the Interfaith Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and the Clergy Task Force to End Domestic Abuse in the Jewish Community, and is a member of the Gun Violence Table. JWI’s advocacy efforts focus on the passage of legislation that supports women and girls, ensures their economic security, and protects their right to live free of violence.