Daphne Lazar Price One of 10 selected for Elluminate’s Collective

A Silver Spring woman is one of 10 Jewish entrepreneurial female executives and leaders selected to participate in philanthropic network Elluminate’s sixth cohort of its Collective. The Collective aims to promote, empower and advance Jewish women’s leadership in the nonprofit sector.

Daphne Lazar Price, executive director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, is committed to expanding women’s rights and opportunities within the framework of halacha (Jewish law) and to building a vibrant and more equitable Orthodox Jewish community: “It is vital that women have a seat at the table, wherever decisions are made,” she wrote in an email.

The 10 female Jewish leaders are nonprofit CEOs who lead organizations working to solve some of society’s most pressing problems. These include combating anti-Semitism, protecting access to abortion, ensuring gender equality, and ending the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children.

The women who participate in The Collective will participate in a “robust, two-year curriculum led by renowned social activist Ruth Messinger, receive grant funding for their organizations,” and become members of the Global Jewish Women’s Leadership Network, according to an Elluminate press release.

“By creating a Global Jewish Women’s Leadership Network, we can accelerate social change for equality and justice and help build support for women leaders. We need to see women at all levels of the decision-making tables, and these women already have power and influence and are on the rise,” Elluminate CEO Melanie Roth Gorelick said in the press release.

The selection process for cohort participants took seven months, as there were more than 100 applicants. Criteria included feminist leadership, a connection to Jewish values, and work in four areas: ending poverty; creating an equitable and inclusive Jewish community; advancing women’s equality and leadership; and advocating for gender justice, reproductive rights, and women’s safety, the press release said.

Lazar Price joined JOFA as executive director in February 2019 after years of experience in the Jewish nonprofit sector. Through JOFA, she advocates for better practices in Jewish divorce, saying Jewish law can be “weaponized against women.”

“At the national and global levels, we have raised awareness and spoken out against the erasure of sexual violence perpetrated against women and children on October 7,” said Lazar Price. “And when it comes to access to health care, we advocate for abortion rights and access at the state and federal level.”

Lazar Price believes feminist work is important because it can be lonely at times as an Orthodox Jewish woman, especially given the recent rise in anti-Semitism worldwide.

“Not only are our voices ignored by Jewish people on the right and left, but too often we’re not even given a seat at the table,” said Lazar Price. “That’s why it’s so timely and important to be a part of Elluminate’s Collective, in a cohort with so many incredible Jewish women leaders who are committed to supporting women and the women who support women.”

She said that getting a spot in The Collective was a very competitive process and she feels honored to be a part of it.

“The fact that there are 90 or so other women in high positions who were in the mix tells me that we need to invest more in their leadership as well,” Lazar Price said. “There’s an old saying that goes, ‘a rising tide lifts all boats.’ I feel privileged to be surrounded by so many strong Jewish women leaders who have played a positive role in my personal and professional life and to be able to pass that on.”

She is also an associate professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Lazar Price was Director of Development at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, where she was responsible for program and strategic planning, management, alumni engagement, and development.

Lazar Price helped foster ties between Muslim and Jewish communities as former North American director of the Muslim Leadership Initiative at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. She was most recently vice president at West End Strategy Team.

She said she hopes to see more women take on leadership roles.

“We need more people standing up for and with women,” Lazar Price said. “So I also want to add the blessing ‘know yirbu:’ ‘Let there be more.’ Let there be more women brave enough to lead. Let there be more women leaders brave enough to enter spaces that can be so deeply uncomfortable. Together, we can build and ensure vibrant and equitable spaces for women everywhere.”

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