About the Annual Week of Dinah Initiative
Communities and Organizations
for Safety and Sexual Violence Prevention
What is the Week of Dinah
The Week of Dinah is an annual initiative held around Parashat Vayishlach and the story of the rape of the biblical Dinah. It seeks to turn the annual reading of Parashat Vayishlach into an ongoing opportunity for learning, conversation, and action to prevent sexual violence and promote safety in all the spheres of our lives.
Throughout the week, classes, sermons, training sessions, cultural events, prayer, and community activities take place in Israel and the Diaspora, alongside efforts to make knowledge and professional tools accessible.
Why Now?
There is a constant need to stand alongside survivors; a constant need to give voice, space, and trust to those who have survived harassment, assault, and sexual exploitation; and a constant need to remember that sexual violence does not exist on the margins. It touches our lives as individuals, families, and communities, as well as other circles around us.
Collective action and taking shared responsibility as a community for addressing sexual violence set in motion a process of repair and lay the foundations for broader change in the future, both near and far.
The Week of Dinah Activities
Local Gathering
Learning, Prayer, and Support
Synagogue
Shabbat D’var Torah or Sermon
Organization or Community
Class, Lecture, Gathering, or Workshop
Partnership and Support
Promotion, Digital Outreach, and Financial Support for the Initiative
Individual Participation
Sign Up for Updates and Join Events During The Week of Dinah
Content Creation
Article, D’var Torah, Midrash, Poem, or Prayer
What Makes the Week of Dinah Different?
The Week of Dinah seeks to turn the yearly reading of the story of Dinah’s rape into a moment of attention marked on the Hebrew calendar, an annual occasion for communities to deepen their learning about how to prevent harm, recognize dangerous power dynamics, listen to survivors, and act responsibly.
The innovation lies not in any single event, but in creating a shared annual tradition. Each year, around the same Torah portion, the biblical text meets the realities of organizational and community life anew, prompting us to reconsider the responsibilities of leaders, institutions, families, and individuals.
Expressing our shock at Dinah’s rape is deeply important. But using Dinah’s story as an opportunity to take responsibility seriously and lead sustained action each year, both within individual communities and organizations and by coming together once a year as a collective, is an even broader and more important goal for changing the reality we live in.
Why a Full Week?
Shabbat Parashat Vayishlach gives Dinah’s story a place in the synagogue and in the Torah reading, but meaningful change cannot be reduced to a single Dvar Torah or special class. Six days of programming allow time for learning, training, creative work, prayer, and professional discussion, while giving people opportunities to participate in a range of activities throughout the week.
The rich program in Israel and the Diaspora makes it possible to address these issues in a range of settings and at a range of times, increasing the likelihood that Dinah Week will reach a broad audience and respond to the diverse needs of people within our communities.
Create clear language around safety, boundaries, and power dynamics.
Ensure that survivors are heard, while reducing silencing and victim-blaming.
Equip leaders, staff, and the general public with tools for prevention, identification, and response.
Encourage age-appropriate engagement with safety and harm prevention in formal and informal educational settings.
Help communities and organizations translate learning into policy and action throughout the year.
Build shared responsibility across movements, organizations, communities, educational institutions, and countries.
What Does The Week of Dinah Aim to Change?
Ways to Participate in The Week of Dinah
Sign up · Organize · Teach · Learn · Create · Attend · Donate
Throughout the week, there will be classes and lectures, workshops, a day of learning, and a community gathering.
On Shabbat, sermons and Divrei Torah on the theme will be delivered in synagogues across different communities, alongside the weekly Torah reading, Parashat Vayishlach.
Join Us:
November 22–28, 2026
12–18 Kislev 5787
Survivors of Sexual Violence
The General Public
Those Seeking Change, Repair, and Healing
Community Members
Rabbinical Leaders Across Jewish Movements
Leaders of Communities and Organizations
Who Is The Week of Dinah For?
The Week of Dinah in Previous Years
As part of the Week of Dinah initiative, we have created a digital resource center where we direct readers to writing on the subject that can help those who wish to learn and teach, give Divrei Torah and sermons, and create and lead rituals.
This year too, we invite you to send us essays, poems, and prayers that speak directly to Dinah, sexual violence, and treatment and prevention.
gluya@gluya.org
The Shevet Dinah Collective initiative is undertaken with the recognition that this subject can be an ongoing trigger.
The content deals with sexual violence and may evoke emotional and physical responses.
Please listen to your heart and body when engaging with this topic, and participate in a way and at a pace that feels right for you.
Dinah Resource Center
A diverse and accessible collection of materials for reading, learning, and deeper study, as well as for preparing a class, Dvar Torah, or gathering.
The Shevet Dinah Coalition seeks to restore Dinah to our shared story, together with the story of sexual violence, silence, and the silencing of sexual violence. Our hope is to raise awareness and to build a collective culture with greater responsibility, less silencing, a greater ability to recognize and respond to sexual violence, and more support and professional referrals for survivors.
We have come together and will continue to draw strength from the support that has taken shape, and continues to take shape, through the very choice to speak out, to echo our commitment, and to act with responsibility.
Organizations Leading The Week of Dinah initiative
(List Updated as Organizations Join)
ארגוני הובלת שבוע דינה:
כל השותפים בשבוע דינה:
Would Your Community or Organization Like to Join Us?
If you would like to join Shevet Dinah and take part in our annual initiative centered on Parashat Vayishlach, please contact us: gluya@gluya.org
During The Week of Dinah and on Shabbat Vayishlach, we will stand together and say to survivors:
We stand with you!
As communities, we too bear responsibility.
Our goal is to stand in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault, support them, amplify their voices, and resist silencing. Speaking with moral clarity and affirming our commitment to survivors help foster sexual safety and prevent further harm. By speaking out, we commit ourselves, now and in the future, to responding when harm occurs and refusing to enable silencing.
Together, as diverse organizations and communities representing the breadth of Jewish life in Israel and throughout the Diaspora, we will stand with survivors of sexual assault and foster a culture of safety and prevention.
Together, we will stand in solidarity, affirm our belief in survivors, respond with care and compassion, and call for repair and healing.
