Marcia ha- lo marsha means Marcia who doesn’t allow. I am not sure when I first heard it said about Marcia Freedman, but it was way before I met Marcia, who was a strong petit woman. We were like Mutt and Jeff when we walked together. I’m still not sure why this was applied to Marcia but she was a strong woman and such titles get attached to strong women. Let’s leave it at that. It was the late sixties. I was involved with planning a conference in Jerusalem with members of the American Jewish Committee. Harriet Kurlander, an AJC woman professional was assigned to work with us. Suffice it is to say that the conference was quite successful and most of us became the Jewish activists of the next decade. Many of those who attended have died since, one of the most important was Marcia Freedman an American living in Haifa. The conference brought together the future American Jews and Israelis who became the activists of the Israeli and American Jewish feminist movement. Marcia became the backbone of the Israeli feminist movement and went on to become a member of the Israeli parliament. It was first time I met Marcia Freedman and the first time I met Heather Booth. It was a historical moment for American and Israeli Jewish feminism. The rest is history.
Lilly Rivlin
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