Gwyn Lurie

I first met Kelly and Katy Mooney a few years back at an event for WEV (Women’s Economic Ventures). I was impressed that two sisters, with very different professional backgrounds, had combined their collective years of work experience – Kelly as a successful tech entrepreneur and Katy as a lawyer turned career coach – to build a company called “Equipt Women,” which gives women the tools they need to find greater professional success and meaning.

With the #metoo movement born out of sexual harassment and sexual assault charges made against a slew of well-known media heavyweights, the California legislature passed Assembly Bill 218, known as the California Child Victims Act. This bill significantly extended the statute of limitations for filing civil lawsuits related to childhood sexual assault, allowing individuals to bring claims up to 40 years of age, or five years after discovery of the injury, whichever is later.

I’ve had many rabbis in my life – people who have given me spiritual counsel, friends, family members, and yes, clergy, who have been there with me and for me in life’s big and small moments – people whose wisdom I depend on when mine is hard to find. Rabbi Steve Cohen is the senior congregational rabbi at Congregation B’nai B’rith in Santa Barbara. Before that he was the Rabbi and Executive Director at UCSB’s Hillel Foundation. He’s also one of my own most cherished rabbis.