COVID-19 - Hunter College High School Alumnae/i Association

A WOMAN'S LIFE IS A HUMAN LIFE

My Mother, Our Neighbor, and the Journey from Reproductive RIghts to Reproductive Justice

Written by Felicia Kornbluh ’84. In discussion with Allison Pugh ’84. Wednesday, March 22 7:00-8:00pm ET Virtual Program. Click to register. Join us on Wednesday, March 22 from 7:00-8:00pm ET as the HCHSAA celebrates Women's History Month in March. We invite you to attend a virtual discussion of Felicia Kornbluh's compelling new book that illustrates the modern fight for reproductive rights. As the U.S. reckons with a post-Roe v. Wade reality, her book comes at a particularly important time in our nation’s history. In A WOMAN’S LIFE IS A HUMAN LIFE: My Mother, Our Neighbor and the Journey from Reproductive Rights to Reproductive Justice (Grove Press 2023), Kornbluh details how sterilization abuse after World War Two limited reproductive rights just as much as criminal abortion laws limited them. She is the first to capture the history of the movement against sterilization abuse and its growth into today’s demands for Reproductive Justice. Kornbluh has a personal connection with the history she chronicles in A WOMAN’S LIFE IS A HUMAN LIFE. Her mother, the late Beatrice Kornbluh Braun, a labor lawyer of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s generation, wrote the first draft of the most liberal pre-Roe abortion law in the country. This was New York’s law, enacted in 1970, which made abortion legal through the 24th week of a pregnancy and for the first time opened access to all, no matter their state or country of residency. Kornbluh also focuses on another remarkable woman: Puerto Rican pediatrician and public health leader Helen Rodríguez-Trías, who lived in the apartment across the hall from Kornbluh and her mother for nearly a decade. Dr. Rodríguez-Trías led the movement against sterilization abuse, a nearly forgotten branch of the reproductive rights movement that won its own astounding victories in New York and nationally. Rich with firsthand accounts and previously unseen sources, A WOMAN’S LIFE IS A HUMAN LIFE tells the story of illegal abortion and the fight against it at the same time that it chronicles the history of sterilization abuse, which happened disproportionately to women of color, young women, and poor people. Kornbluh invites readers to see the fight against sterilization abuse as inseparable from the fight for safe, legal, affordable abortion care – and to understand how vital it is to fight for the right to bear and raise children, as well as the right to avoid childbearing if that is your choice. Anyone who cares about the fate of reproductive rights today can look to Kornbluh’s dynamic, surprising, and highly readable book for insight and hope. Make sure to take part in this important discussion. Sign up today for the Zoom registration link!

About the Author

Felicia Kornbluh is a Professor of History with a secondary appointment in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, and an affiliated faculty member in Jewish Studies, at the University of Vermont. She is the author of The Battle for Welfare Rights: Politics and Poverty in Modern America and coauthor, with Gwendolyn Mink, of Ensuring Poverty: Welfare Reform in Feminist Perspective. She has held fellowships from Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Affairs, the Schlesinger Library at Harvard-Radcliffe, the American Historical Association, and Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill University, the American Bar Foundation, and both New York University and UC-Berkeley Law Schools. She is a former board member of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and current board vice president of the Planned Parenthood of Vermont Action Fund. She writes frequently for the scholarly and non-scholarly press, including for The New York Review of Books, The American Prospect, The Forward, Time.com, and the “made by history” columns of The Washington Post.

Our Moderator

Allison Pugh is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality at the University of Virginia. She is currently writing a book for Princeton University Press on the standardization of work that relies on relationship. Her research and teaching focus on how economic trends – from job insecurity to automation to commodification – shape the way people forge connections and find meaning and dignity at home and at work. Books include Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture (California 2009) and The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity (Oxford 2015). Pugh has been a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Berggruen Institute, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a visiting scholar in Germany, France and Australia. A former journalist, she also writes for a wider audience in such venues as The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The New Republic.

Join us to hear survivors' stories first hand. Moderated by Lisa GOLDIN Rabinowicz '59, the panelists are Susanne KLEJMAN Bennet '55, Joan L. KENT Finkelstein '54, Eve KANNER Kugler Jan. '49, and Edith TENNENBAUM Shapiro '52, M.D.

We will hear a short discussion by the panelists, and then we will break into smaller groups to spend some time with one of the survivors to get more details on her stories. Then we will switch, so everyone will have a chance to spend time with two survivors. Come and hear these stories first hand, and keep remembering.

To participate in the event, please sign up for our Zoom meeting here, or view the discussion on Facebook Live by going here.

	Moderator: Lisa GOLDIN Rabinowicz '59 Lisa has an Honors Degree in Linguistics and Anthropology, Univ of London, work on masters of Mass Communications. Bachelor of Science, University of Florida. She worked in TV news, and now performs and participates in playreading. She was born in Uzbekistan after her parents escaped from a shtetyl in Bela Rus Poland. After World War II, she was taken to DP-Displaced Persons- in Germany. She arrived in America on the last passenger voyage of USN ship, Ernie Pyle, a wonderful future and voyage for her small surviving family. She is a very grateful immigrant to the USA.
	Susanne KLEJMAN Bennet '55 I was born in 1938 in Warsaw, the year before the Germans invaded Poland. In 1940 my family was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. Three generations of my family, from a baby of 4 months through grandparents in their 60s were murdered in the Ghetto and in the gas chambers of the Treblinka extermination camp. I and my parents, separated during part of the war, survived to eventually come to the United States in 1950 and begin a new life.
	Joan L. KENT Finkelstein '54, Ph.D. I arrived in NYC as a four-year-old in February 1941 completing an epic ten-month journey from Warsaw, Poland, with a 40-day voyage aboard an American ship from India. With a close family of storytellers and a large treasure trove of letters, photographs, and documents (including false papers) retrieved by my parents from their nine steamer trunks, I reconstructed and discovered how they decided and then were actually able to leave Nazi-occupied Poland. Traveling through Italy and the Middle East, we obtained immigration visas for America, and finally reached American soil before their rapid expiration. Beyond the narrative of events, my story also underlines those elements of luck, luck again, resilience, and determination that underlie the survival of all of us who can now tell them.
	strong>Eve KANNER Kugler Jan. '49 I was born in Halle an der Saale, [East] Germany. If you have trouble locating it, look for Magdeburg or Leipzig. My family, parents, older sister Ruth, younger sister Lea and I went on waiting list for visas to Palestine in 1935 and were still waiting on Kristallnacht, Nov. 9-10, 1938 when Nazis created havoc in our apartment, arrested my father and sent him to Buchenwald. The windows of his department store were smashed and our synagogue was torched. Based on a forged visa for France my father was released from Buchenwald after six weeks. Mother and children escaped to France in June 1939. With outbreak of World War II, France interned my father; my mother placed us in a Jewish children’s home near Paris where she became a cook. When France surrendered, we were evacuated to a children’s home near Limoges controlled by Vichi France. In 1941 Ruth and I joined a small Kindertransport to NY where we became foster children. With the roundup of Jews in 1942 the Resistance hid Lea. My parents survived in French concentration camps. The family was reunited in New York in 1947 after I became a Hunter student.
	Edith TENNENBAUM Shapiro '52, M.D. I was born in Zloczow in the province Galicja in Poland. Since the end of WWII, the city has been renamed Zolochev and is now in the Ukraine. In 1939, eighty years ago, when I was 4 years old, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact that led to their invading Poland from East and West simultaneously. We were invaded by the Russians. My family was on the enemy list because my grandfather owned a factory and both my parents were lawyers. We lost our home and many possessions, grandfather lost the factory, and we lived under the threat of deportation to Siberia that lead to my grandparents escaping to another city, separating the family. Father was allowed to work in the factory which played a significant role in our survival under the subsequent German occupation. The pact unravelled in two years, Germans drove out the Russians and invaded Zloczow. The German occupation was marked by successive akzions, pogroms when Jews were hunted, allegedly for deportation to work camps but it became clear that these were death camps. A ghetto was formed. Eventually Zloczow was declared Judenrein, free from Jews. We had hidden in the factory and in bunkers and cellars during the pogroms. At some point it became known that while some adults did work in the camps, children were murdered. People began to try to hide the children. A young couple agreed to take me but not my sister who they said looked more Jewish. I ran away to my parents. I was around 7-8 years old at the time. After that the family, except for my paternal grandparents, succeeded in staying together. After more episodes, more plans that went awry we ended up in hiding with Polish and Ukrainian acquaintances. My paternal grandparents perished, grandmother from typhus. Grandfather committed suicide on the way to a camp. I learned after the war that my parents were supplied with cyanide for use if we were "caught". Ending on a happier note, the young couple who offered to shelter me turned out to be Jews who were "passing".

Do not miss this event, this Monday! Note the time change! March 15, 2021, 7:30-8:30pm ET: 2021 Comedy Discussion How do we manage living through a pandemic? Look to those individuals who can make fun of any situation! Spend an evening with Hunter-bred comedians who will discuss how they and their colleagues have fared in the midst of COVID-19. Join us for this unique event and hear how they have tried to create some levity in these trying times. Sure to have some laughs as well! Moderated by Steve Hofstetter '97, the panelists are Charlie Bardey '13, Sachi Ezura '04, Claire Friedman '03, and Sophie Zucker '11. To participate in the event, please sign up for our Zoom meeting here, or view the discussion on Facebook Live by going here. For more information, go to here.

	Moderator: Steve Hofstetter '97 Hofstetter, who has a whopping 150 million views on YouTube, is also the host of Finding Babe Ruth on FS1. His book (Ginger Kid) is a top 5 pick on Amazon and debuted at number one in its category. Hofstetter was the host and executive producer of season one of Laughs (FOX) and he has been on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and E! True Hollywood Story, Comics Unleashed, Comedy All-Stars, Quite Frankly, White Boyz in the Hood, Countdown, and more. He just filmed his 4th movie, and he has had two top 20 comedy albums (including one that hit number 1 on iTunes comedy charts). He is a former columnist for Sports Illustrated and the NHL, and has also written for Maxim and the New York Times, among others.
	Charlie Bardey '13 Charlie Bardey is a writer, comedian, and educator born and based in New York City. A graduate of Hunter College High School and Yale University, Charlie currently works as an educator, writer, and comedian. As a stand-up, Charlie has performed in venues like Caroline's, Union Hall, and the Bell House, and at colleges like Wesleyan University and American University. He has been profiled by Vulture Magazine, and his tweets (@chunkbardey) have been featured in BuzzFeed, Playboy, a local newspaper called The Patch. He can be seen on the BuzzFeed series "Did You See This?" on the Comedy Central webseries "Ayo And Rachel Are Single", and in AMC's upcoming satirical video game "Airplane Mode."
	Sachi Ezura '04 Sachi Ezura currently works as Senior Producer at The Greene Space, a live event space for NY Public Radio. She also consults in development for Irony Point, the production company behind I Think You Should Leave, Astronomy Club and The Break with Michelle Wolf. She has produced on Refinery29’s After After Party, BET’s The Rundown w/ Robin Thede, and MTV’s Girl Code. She was Executive Producer of Development and Talent at Seriously.TV, a digital comedy channel specializing in the intersection of comedy, politics, and social justice. She worked as Director of Original Programming at IFC, where, in addition to working on Documentary Now!, Portlandia, and Comedy Bang! Bang!, she oversaw IFC's digital platform, Comedy Crib. As Manager of Development at MTV2, she oversaw casting for MTV’s hit comedy series Guy Code and Girl Code. She also co-wrote the Girl Code book and has been published in The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts and The New York Post. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, daughter and two cats, one of which she likes.
	Claire Friedman '03 Claire Friedman is an Emmy-nominated writer who won a Peabody award for her work on Saturday Night Live. She most recently served as a writer on Showtime’s Desus & Mero and frequently writes comedy pieces for the New Yorker. Before becoming a television writer, Claire worked in development at FX Networks and served as the Executive-in-Charge of the Lip Sync Battle franchise for Paramount Network. From 2007-2012, she worked as an Investment Banker at Goldman Sachs, where she helped to fund entertainment and media companies. Claire was born and raised in New York City. She attended Harvard Business School and Harvard College, where she was an editor on the Harvard Lampoon.
	Sophie Zucker '11 Sophie Zucker is a comedian. She stars as Abby on Apple TV's Dickinson, opposite Hailee Steinfeld. She is also a writer on the show. Sophie has performed original work at Joe's Pub, Union Hall, The Duplex, Littlefield, Brooklyn Comedy Collective, Second City, UCB, Lyric Hyperion, and Annoyance NY and trained at most of those places, too. Other favorite TV/Film credits include The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; the Mindy Kaling feature Late Night, and Comedy Central's The Other Two. She performs monthly with her all-female comedy collective Ladies Who Ranch at Union Hall. This year, she wrote and starred in Mistressbate, a pop musical about a masturbation scandal set at an all-girls private school. Right now, she's shooting Season 3 of Dickinson, on which she also served as an Executive Story Editor, and developing two shows with Phoebe Robinson's production company Tiny Reparations and Cowboy Bear Ninja, respectively. Sophie grew up in New York and attended Hunter College High School (2011). She went on to graduate from Oberlin College in 2015 with a BA in Religion and Creative Writing. She is down to hang out.