Shalom October 2016.Indd

Jewish Peace Letter Vol. 45 No. 7 Published by the Jewish Peace Fellowship October 2016 Capt. Kimberly Hampton, in her OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter, was the first female US pilot shot down and killed in combat, January 2, 2004. Claire Schaeffer-Duffy Feminists Debate Draft Registration for Women Patrick Henry Rescuers of Jews in France: A research agenda and Stefan Merken • The Missing Election Issue Richard H. Schwartz • Who Stole My Religion? Murray Polner • Our Future? Richard Middleton-Kaplan • Peace Writing ISSN: 0197-9115 From Where I Sit Stefan Merken 2016: The Missing Election Issue friend here in Seattle works for a national Just knowing that there are others out there who believe in and ecological organization that researches candidates’ practice nonviolence gives me some solace — and hope. stands on energy conservation, reducing our nation- The JPF has been in existence since 1941. At that time, Aal carbon footprint, and climate issues. Some of my time is our main mission was to support young Jewish men serv- spent on understanding how candidates stand on the issue of ing time in federal prisons as Conscientious Objectors, many war. It seems that far too many politicians show less and less of whom who had been forsaken by those at home. Happily, concern for staying out of wars and are unfazed at continu- jailing men who refuse to kill has ended — at least for now, ing the failed policy of the US as the world’s policeman. since there is no draft. To appease our hawks’ appetites for wars, America’s politi- So the question is: What now, JPF? What humane and cal system offers very little hope in ending conflicts peacefully. nonviolent issues shall we concentrate on? Even well-meaning candidates are reluctant to explore the op- Your concerns matter to us. Please give it some thought. tion of creating a world without war for fear of not being elected. You can find our mission and vision statement on the JPF’s At times like this I turn to friends from the Jewish Peace Fellow- Web site (www.jewishpeacefellowship.org). Write to us. ship. There I can find a like mind and an understanding heart. Our High Holidays are around the corner. We wish you and yours a healthy and happy New Year. May the sweetness Stefan Merken is chair of the Jewish Peace Fellowship. of the year shine upon you. Y Yes! Here is my tax-deductible contribution to the Jewish Peace Fellowship! $25 / $36 / $50 / $100 / $250 / $500 / $1000 / Other $ ____ Enclosed is my check, payable to “Jewish Peace Fellowship” Phone: ______________________________________________ (Please provide your name and address below so that we may properly credit your contribution.) E-mail address: _____________________________________________ Name _____________________________________ Below, please clearly print the names and addresses, including e-mail, Address ___________________________________ of friends you think might be interested in supporting the aims of the Jewish Peace Fellowship. City / State / Zip ___________________________ Mail this slip and your contribution to: Jewish Peace Fellowship Y Box 271 Y Nyack, NY 10960-0271 2 • Shalom: Jewish Peace Letter October 2016 Jewish Peace Fellowship Equal Opportunity ? Claire Schaeffer-Duffy Feminists Weigh In: Draft registration for women? ecent legislative efforts to extend draft registration to young women have raised an old conundrum for some femi- Rnists: Does pursuit of gender equality include support for universal conscription? While not all feminists are antimilitarists, opposition to war and militarism has been a strong current within the women’s movement. Prominent suffragists like Quaker Alice Paul, and Barbara Deming, a feminist activist and thinker of the 1960s and ’70s, were ardent paci- fists. Moreover, feminist critique has often re- garded the military as a hierarchical, male-dom- inated institution promoting destructive forms of power. In late April, the House Armed Services Committee voted for an amendment to the national defense bill that would extend draft reg- September 2015: Vermont Army National Guard soldiers listen to an inte- istration — already a requirement for men — to gration of women in the Canadian Forces brief presented by the 2nd Ca- women ages eighteen-to-twenty-six. The amend- nadian Division at Camp Ethan Allen Training Sites, Jericho, Vermont. ment was later dropped, but in mid-June, the Canadian Forces integrated women in combat arms occupations in 1989. Senate approved a similar provision in its ver- $25 / $36 / $50 / $100 / $250 / $500 / $1000 / Other $ ____ sion of the bill. the amendment, twenty-four-year-old Julie Mastrine, an ac- Among the amendment’s staunchest defenders was tivist and media professional, authored an online petition Armed Services Committee member Representative Jackie calling on Congress not to force women to register and in- Speier (D–California). stead dump the draft entirely. “If we want equality in this country, if we want women to Mastrine, a self-described feminist libertarian, argues be treated precisely like men are treated and that they should that draft registration violates individual choice. “I can’t not be discriminated against, then we should support a uni- imagine a more tragic loss of liberty than forcing a citizen, versal conscription,” Speier told the political Web site The whether male or female, to fight in a war with which they Hill in April. may disagree. Equality is a moot point if personal choice and Not all feminists agree with Speier’s path to equality. bodily autonomy must first be eliminated to achieve it,” Mas- Days after the House Armed Services Committee approved trine said in a statement. In an online editorial for Playboy, Lucy Steigerwald, a Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, a freelance writer, lives contributing editor to Antiwar.com, acknowledged that ex- and works at the Sts. Francis and Therese Catholic Worker cluding women from draft registration was “unfair” and of Worcester, Massachusetts. “sexist.” She added: “But the solution to the decrepit notion www.jewishpeacefellowship.org October 2016 Shalom: Jewish Peace Letter • 3 that the young of the country are communal property is not So why the switch? Enloe thinks it had more to do to remove the sexism, it’s to remove the draft.” with NOW’s then-recent defeat in getting the Equal Rights Like Mastrine, Steigerwald supports equal access to the Amendment passed than it did zeal for military service. The military for women, but opposes conscription. She does not amendment, which pacifist Alice Paul originally penned in believe, as some have argued, that the return of the draft would make the US more cautious about engaging in conflicts. “You don’t stop the runaway truck of US foreign policy by throwing a man in front of it, and you definitely don’t stop it by throwing a man and a woman, just to make things equal,” Steigerwald wrote. The linking of women’s equality to universal conscription dates back to the early 1980s. Draft registration had ended in 1975 with the conclusion of the Vietnam War. In 1980, a ner- vous President Jimmy Carter, alarmed over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, reinstated registration to demonstrate US war readiness. Carter actually wanted universal draft registration, but Congress limited the mandate to men. The male-only system was quickly chal- lenged as sex discrimination. In 1981, a group of men brought a case before the Supreme Court of the United States that argued being Capt. Kimberly Hampton, photographed in her OH-58 Kiowa Warrior singled out for compulsory registration vio- helicopter, was the first female US pilot shot down and killed in combat, lated their right to equal protection. A number January 2, 2004. of women’s groups, including the National Or- ganization for Women (NOW), filed briefs contending that 1923, simply states, “Equality under the law shall not be de- exclusion from the draft violated the constitutional rights of nied or abridged by the United States or by any State on ac- women. count of sex.” After Congress passed it in 1972, NOW led the “Compulsory universal military service is central to unsuccessful fight for its ratification at the state level during the concept of citizenship in a democracy,” the NOW brief the 1970s and early 1980s. asserted. It predicted “devastating long-term psychological Eleanor Smeal, at the time president of NOW, “had just and political repercussions” would result if women were ex- gone through a terrible defeat,” Enloe noted. “When the next cluded from “the compulsory involvement in the communi- thing comes up, you tend to see it through the lens of what ty’s survival that is perceived as entitling people to lead it and you were defeated by. The people in the Washington office to derive from it the full rights and privileges of citizenship.” were terribly affected by the anti-ERA battle.” A similar brief filed by twelve other women’s organiza- Speaking in defense of the NOW brief back in 1981, tions, including the League of Women Voters, argued that Smeal told The New York Times that wherever she lobbied exempting women from draft registration echoed “the ste- for the Equal Rights Amendment, male legislators frequently reotypic notions about women’s proper place in society that said to her, “When you women fight in a war, then we’ll talk in the past promoted ‘protective’ labor laws and the exclusion about equal rights.” of women from juries.” That “argument of entitlement,” Smeal said, helped per- NOW had previously opposed the draft, and its appar- suade her that exclusion from the draft hurt the interests of ent about-face infuriated members at the grassroots level, ac- women. Ever since ancient Egypt, “the secondary class has cording to Cynthia Enloe, a research professor of political not been given the right to serve in the military,” she told the science and women’s studies at Clark University in Worces- newspaper.

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