The Institute for Women’s Policy Research is a public policy research organization whose focus includes poverty and welfare, democracy and society and education. For media inquiries, contact Jennifer Clark.

The WomanSpirit Center of Bellevue, Wash., is an interfaith community of women that offers retreats, workshops and activities, many of which include unusual forms of prayer, such as hiking, beachcombing, journaling, centering prayer and meditation.

Melvin Konner is a professor of anthropology, human biology and Jewish studies at Emory University, and author of Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews, about the history of Jewish culture.

Karla Goldman is a historian in residence at the Jewish Women’s Archive in Brookline, Mass. She is an expert on how women have shaped American Judaism.

Norma Baumel Joseph is an associate professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal. She writes about the experience of women in Orthodox Judaism.

Tamar Ross is a professor of Jewish philosophy at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. She writes about Orthodoxy and feminism.

Read an essay by Michael Kress, editor in chief of MyJewishLearning.com, about the factions and tensions within the Orthodox movement.

Read an October 28, 2009, story on CNN.com about President Obama signing a bill that makes it a crime to assault someone based on their sexuality or gender.