Jewish ethics and our sacred texts guide us to understand paid family and medical leave as a human right and Jewish moral imperative, not a negotiable employment benefit. 

Adopting paid leave will have far-reaching positive impacts including supporting the financial security and career advancement of female-identified employees, as well as removing the gendered stereotypes of caregiving roles at home and work more broadly. Ensuring access to, and destigmatizing utilization of, paid family leave will have lasting benefits for the Jewish community and our greater society. 

Therefore, the Women’s Rabbinic Network ’s (WRN) Paid Family Leave Policy Standard sets a minimum floor for all congregational and organizational employers to provide no less than twelve (12) weeks of family leave at 100% pay to all employees regardless of gender, job role, length of employment, or type of family leave needed. 

To receive a copy of WRN’s Family and Medical Leave Policy Standards for the Jewish Community please enter your name and email address in the form below. Once you click submit a window will open on this page with the document for you to read. You will also have the option to download it. 

Policy is the essential first step, but to truly shift deeply embedded stereotypes and outdated beliefs, education and culture-change efforts around paid leave are needed. To aid in these efforts, this 24-page document also includes greater context for the need for paid leave, a lexicon of terms, a FAQs section, and template language for use in policy handbooks and employment contracts. These resources will help define the larger conversation and begin to build a shared language and set of expectations that will help ensure a common and supportive leave experience for all employees and employers.