Podcasts

May 24, 2010 by admin

Podcasts: Exclusive Lectures! Three Scholars on Jewish American Women in History

On April 12, 2010, Lilith Magazine and the American Jewish Historical Society held an exclusive event at the Society’s archives, bringing in three noted scholars to teach about American Jewish women’s history. Now, Lilith brings these amazing talks to you! Listen to Dr. Annie Polland, Prof. Hasia Diner and Prof. Deborah Dash Moore as they bring three generations of Jewish American history to life.

Dr. Annie Polland unveils 19th-century Jewish American history as encapsulated in the stories behind two sets of candle sticks. Don’t miss Prof. Hasia Diner telling the unknown history of Jewish women in colonial times. And enjoy Prof. Deborah Dash Moore teaching about the value of documents as she weaves a mosaic of Jewish women in the 20th century based on the prompts of actual archival items in the possession of the American Jewish Historical Society.

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Thanks to all of these writers, thinkers and artists for making the event such a smashing success:

Ilene Beckerman, Frances Brandt, Leela Corman, Naomi Danis, Deborah Dash Moore, Suzi Dessel, Hasia Diner, Susan Dworkin, Lynne Feldman, Harriet Finck, Johanna Hurwitz, Rachel Kadish, Deborah Kass, Lauren Katzowitz Shenfield, Evan Kingsley, Irena Klepfisz, Laura Kruger, Elizabeth Langer, Cynthia Leder, Nechama Liss-Levinson, Anat Litwin, Susan Malbin, Faye Moskowitz, Marian Nash, Annie Polland, Lilly Rivlin, Flash Rosenberg, Joan Roth, Diane Samuels, Susan Weidman Schneider, Leslie Sewell, Myra Shapiro, Ronda Small, Amy Stone, Betsy Teutsch, Sylvie Weil, Melanie Weiss, Henriette Wenkart, Toni Young, and Yona Zeldis McDonough.

Nothing New Under the Sun

May 11, 2010 by admin

Introducing Nothing New Under the Sun

Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing all that new in the news. Many of the subjects Lilith has tackled–in more than 30 years of reporting on Jewish women’s issues–continue to appear and reappear in the headlines long after you heard it here first.

So…tapping into these “firsts,” we’re bringing you this new column on The Lilith Blog: Nothing New Under the Sun, where you’ll get to see current news stories paired with some of Lilith’s original reporting on the same topic.

Breaking news often reminds us of articles in Lilith’s archival treasure-trove, and we’re excited to share these connections with you. We hope you share them with us, too! Send us your nominations for stories you see now in the headlines (or blog feeds) that you first read about in Lilith. We’ll use your suggestions and include your name.

To kick off this column, here’s a headline that just appeared in The New York Times: “Payment Offers to Egg Donors Prompt Scrutiny.” The article explores whether compensation for egg donors–especially those young college students coping with money problems–might inspire some “to donate against their own best interests,” especially since the offered compensation often exceeds $5,000.

Also, check out Gabrielle Birkner’s piece in The Wall Street Journal: “Fertility Treatment Gets More Complicated.”

Sound familiar? Lilith’s groundbreaking Fall 2001 story, “Jewish Women’s Eggs: A Hot Commodity in the IVF Marketplace,” covered much of this territory nearly 9 years ago! Download the original article and compare for yourself!

Do you have thoughts on the demand for Jewish women’s eggs? The repeating nature of history? Please leave your comments below!

The Lilith Blog

May 10, 2010 by admin

Fair pay beats flowery bouquets — and other post-Mother's Day reflections

I spend every Mother’s Day I can with my mom — and there are, to be sure, fancy-pants meals and spring walks. But she and I both know the holiday was born out of less flowery sentiments, ushered into the world in part by a native New Yorker, poet, abolitionist and suffragist named Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) — yep, of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” fame. Her lesser-known “Mother’s Day Proclamation” of 1870 begins: Arise then … women of this day!/Arise, all women who have hearts!

Well, women have been rising up for some time now, securing the vote, breaking glass ceilings (go Mom!), transforming expectations and daily lives in ways Julia Ward Howe could barely have dreamed. But we’re not there yet. We can’t ignore the fact that women earn 78 cents for each dollar men make and that we pay more for everything from health insurance to haircuts. Or that women — especially single mothers (more than a quarter) — are more likely to live in poverty. Simply put: economic justice cannot exist without women’s economic equality, and poverty can’t be eradicated without fairer pay. We know that when women do well economically, their families benefit — so do their communities. This equation is so reliable that it’s now the foundation of anti-poverty programs in the developing world and here at home. In the words of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, global anti-poverty goals “depends fundamentally on the empowerment of women.”

So this Mother’s Day, I couldn’t help but think of all the great moms I know — including my own — and about how much better our society would be if it valued women and families through equal pay and family-friendly policies. Working women are still fighting tooth and nail just to be protected by laws enacted to prevent discrimination: Right now, the nation’s largest corporate employer is embroiled in the nation’s largest class-action lawsuit in American history. The company? Wal-Mart. The lawsuit? Gender discrimination and unfair pay. Late last month, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco voted 6-5 to affirm a federal judge’s decision to award class-action status to potentially one million women or more.

I’d like to see the plaintiffs win. This decade. I’d like to see stronger safeguards and more stringent penalties for discrimination like those in the Paycheck Fairness Act. And I’d like to see certain talking heads in the Jewish community — particularly the ones who loudly lament the prospects for Jewish continuity — commit themselves publicly to Jewish families by supporting family-friendly policies in all of the organizations and institutions that make up the Jewish communal landscape. Yep. I’d like to see them supporting family leave policies and committing themselves to actively achieving women’s equal representation on all rungs of the Jewish organizational ladder, not just the bottom. (Pssst: It’s good for business! Workplaces with family leave policies have loyal workforces and more productive employees. It’s a win-win!) To this end, the group Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community, as the Forward writes in its “Invest in Families” editorial,

is persuading, training, cajoling and exhorting American Jewish organizations to adopt family-friendly policies. The goal: 100 sign-ups in 2010. Since only 35% of Jewish communal organizations have paid maternity-leave policies, even though three-quarters of their workforce is female, reaching that goal would have tremendous significance.

And yes, you’re reading this post on the blog of an organization that has family friendly policies. Not enough organizations and companies do. Let’s hope that the AWP succeeds. Spread the word!

–Erica Brody.

This post was originally published here, on jspot.org.

The Lilith Blog

May 10, 2010 by admin

Looking Up

I spend a lot of time riding the bus. I prefer it to the subway, because you can see the city, and because it’s easier to read on the bus-it’s slower. So I am unhurried in getting to my destinations in the city, but impatient about the snail’s pace of making change in the world and in my communities. As one of my favorite students, as well as Walt Whitman, is fond of saying, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Doing any kind of social change work requires a certain level of optimism. It’s often hard to find reasons for it, and even hard to maintain those reasons when things get worse, or when it never stays good for very long. Optimism is not innate to my personality, but it has become essential to my activist life.

Two years ago, I attended a three day long training for Jewish educators with Keshet, a Boston based organization that works for the inclusion of LGBTQ Jews is all aspects of Jewish life. It was truly a restorative experience for me, to see folks from so many different Jewish organizations being challenged and given impactful tools to challenge others. The fact that I was encouraged to attend the training by Hillel was a source of  great relief and pride for the organization I have worked for for years.

There are a lot of reasons to feel positive about change in the Jewish  community: The ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis, the establishment of robust Jewish feminist spaces, the creation of new ritual, the funding and nurturing of organizations that work for real inclusion. The question remains as to the depth of the change we will be able to make, and what the cost of addressing change on a level of pure lip service will be. It’s not simply a matter of giving folks permission, of tolerance (oh, how I  hate  that word), it’s about changing a culture. We have to bring what is considered marginal into the mainstream, to take this as seriously as the charge to learn Torah, defend Israel and grow ourselves as a people.

The potential for change, when we are empowered to ask honest and provocative questions about the present and future state of our
communties, is truly stupendous. We have to be optimistic enough to believe that such a thing is possible.

–Chanel Dubofsky

The Lilith Blog

May 10, 2010 by admin

Readers Respond! To "How 20-Somethings Mate Now"

Lilith has gotten many responses to our recent article on “How 20-Something Mate Now”. We’ve posted a few below, but we encourage you to leave your own thoughts as comments below!

“Your observation that the “normative Jewish experience” is generational is so true and I can actually extend that from my personal experience. My husband and I met at Brooklyn College through a group of all Jewish friends. I thought marrying him was free will too–I never realized the smallness of the world I was inhabiting. We separated almost two years ago and here I am–single in Austin, Texas. I have plenty of Jewish friends through my temple but a great majority of them are in interfaith marriages. The norm looks different in Austin, TX for my generation. And the world has opened up for me. I am in a deep and happy relationship with a wonderful kind man who is not Jewish. In fact, he is German. I too, am struggling with the questions these 20-somethings are asking. And, yes, at some point, I will write about it.” –Esther Moritz

“The piece you sent me is just fabulous! I had such a good time reading it and quickly sent it on to about 15 family and friends… I want [my daughter] to read it to hear those incredible girls you interviewed. They are amazing and you captured them perfectly! Thank you so much for sending it my way. It would actually be a really fun piece to read and discuss with the kids in her Temple High School. That’s a fun idea! I’ll let you know.” –Jenifer Firestone

“I thought your article in Lilith was an amazing article which in effect creates a language for the experience of seeking commonality with a partner on the issue of religion.

Lately because of my own relationship I have been spending a lot of time thinking about what is necessary for me in a relationship in the context of my own strong Jewish identity.

I am currently a member of a Modern Orthodox synagogue. When out of town, except for B’nai Jeshrun in NYC, I daven at modern orthodox congregations. In terms of practice, I am really more Conservadox. My girl friend of many years has decided after some effort that she is not into Orthodox Judaism and left to her own devices would rather go to an art museum on Shabbos than synagogue. So, I have been struggling with this issue.

I am friendly with a Chabbad rabbi in Brookline with whom I recently had an intriguing conversation. He said that having similar ritual practices is not important. Going to shul together is not important. He sees things through the prism of the Orthodox perspective where male and female roles legitimately differ. From his perspective, the most important thing is for both people to have a relationship with Ha’Shem though that relationship would obviously not be the same for each person. As I have reflected on this idea of both people having a relationship with Ha’Shem, it makes a lot of sense to me. This idea seems to track with many things that you are saying in your article.

One of the main things that I got from your article was the idea of the importance of each person having a religious “sensibility.” For my purposes, I would phrase this as each person having a Jewish sensibility. Having said this, I am not yet sure what this means. One possible explanation of this phrase that I gleaned from your article is: sharing a knowledge base about time and space that is Jewish – the lifecycle, holidays, history and having a framework to talk about these things. I also think that having a Jewish sensibility might also mean having a relationship with Ha’Shem. That relationship would lead to manifestations such as: caring about one’s Jewishness; having kavanah about one’s religious practice whatever that may be; seeking greater understanding over time of that relationship and how it plays out in the world through study of Jewish ethics, law, precepts of social justice and putting these into practice.

Your article has helped me move further in my thinking now with the advantage of having a richer language through which to consider the issue.

Thanks to your daughter and her friends and yourself for the experiences and thoughts shared in the article.” –Barry

“Greetings, and first off, a compliment. I just read “How Twenty-Somethings Mate Now” in Lilith and could not put it down. It was fascinating and provocative. I loved the way Susan Schnur used an oral history approach akin to Studs Terkel’s technique. And, I liked the way she gave her own succinct interpretation at the end. I was sad that these three young women grew up so immersed in Judaism and yet likely will end up without Jewish partners. Still, like Susan Schnur, I realize that they are not abandoning their faith.”
–Linda K. Wertheimer (Linda also wrote a response piece to this article, which you can read here.)

The Lilith Blog

May 3, 2010 by admin

Jewdaho: Lag B'omer

So it’s Lag B’Omer season, and the Lag B’Omer party is at my house this Friday. I live in one of Pocatello, Idaho’s “sweet spots” known as an urban-wildland interface (aka “Old Town”), so my back yard, technically, doesn’t end. Instead, it rolls up and around for miles and miles. It’s sick. I am so blessed, praise Gaia!

I’m not sure what people outside of Idaho care or think about Idaho. Especially Jewish people. Idaho isn’t really a hotbed of Jewish action—except for up North, but those neo-Nazi rednecks moved to Montana a long time ago. And the first Jewish state governor in the US was Moses Alexander, governor of Idaho from 1915-1919. But I didn’t learn all that stuff until I moved here for what was supposed to be one year, max. Then I was supposed to move on to somewhere real like Portland or Seattle or Somewhere in Colorado. Somewhere that people had actually heard of. That was almost 12 years ago, and I’m still here. And this Friday, the hotbed of Jewish action is going to be in my backyard—unless we get snowed out, which is a distinct possibility. In that case, it’s a garage party, because the keg of Lag Beer’Omer will be in the garage, courtesy of my Catholic (lapsed) husband John.

There has recently been a leadership transition at Temple Emanuel in Pocatello, Idaho. Carl is stepping down as Lay Rebbe after 15 years of dedicated service and Debra is stepping up. Naomi is also stepping into the role of board secretary. Passionate, dedicated, intelligent women at the top, oh my! Not that Temple Emanuel women haven’t always been at the top.

Joan, the matriarch, had half the town at her 90th birthday party this past year. “When in doubt, ask bubbe,” we say. Gail is a Jewish convert whose daughter lives in Israel, and Gail frequently hosts visitors traveling with “Soul Train,” an program in Israel dedicated to bringing Judaism to the hinterlands of the Diaspora. Judith and Mary are the wives (or ex-wives, or both) of Carl and board President John R, respectively. Judith and Mary are Not Jewish. And yet they are fundamental to the congregation core. Mary, by the way, is one of only two female ski-area managers in the country. Talk about a nontraditional occupation for women. Ski bunnies? In charge?

Naomi and her partner Amanda have recently been blessed with baby Miriam. Amanda is a Jewish convert and biology doc student, and Naomi is an attorney who gets to stay at home and play with baby. They have also raised chickens in their backyard. Neli and Marina are native Russians and Israelis; Neli the patient wife of Arthur, who insists visitors to his home down two shots of chilled vodka before the coats are off. My husband loves him.

There are several more active Temple Emanuel women whom I don’t know very well, and I hope to learn more about them in the future. We are professors, managers, mental health professionals; we come from the all corners of the country. We utilize the landscape of Southeast Idaho to be Jewish in a way that is unique, powerful, and authentic. When the women of Temple Emanuel get together, it is a party indeed.

–Nancy Goodman

The Lilith Blog

May 3, 2010 by admin

With and Without (Part II)

It occurs to me sometimes that I spend a lot of energy pushing on doors that seem like they’ll never open. The doors, of course, lead to inclusive, feminist, actively anti racist, socio-economically diverse, queer positive Jewish communities

In my previous post, I spoke about feeling marginalized from Jewish communities because of a pressure to form a certain kind of family and to behave according to expectations prescribed to Jewish women. Here, I’d like to offer my own prescription for making change, not only to this specific paradigm, but also to challenge our larger “communal” values.

1. Challenge/Expand the definition of “family”

It’s not our fault as Jews that we’ve absorbed the idea of the nuclear family- we live in a society where that is the norm, but just because it’s something we’ve inherited doesn’t mean we can’t redefine it. Family does not simply mean a wife/mother, a husband/father and their biological child-it’s any combination of people who love and support each other. If we adopt this larger definition of family, if we actively discuss it, point it out to our children, create programming around it, make different kinds of families visible, then we no longer have to marginalize people who don’t fit into it or do not choose it.

2. Stop treating heterosexuality as the norm and the expectation.

It goes without saying that Jewish communities prize the heterosexual couple/ relationship over all others, and that we demand that queer Jewish folks fit into this model in order to be accepted. We have to teach about ally-ship the same way we teach Jewish text, mitzvot, history. Part of being a good and active ally is not assuming that everyone around you is straight, or talking about how straight you are, or how everyone must want what you want and be who you are. This is precisely the kind of behavior that makes it difficult to be our authentic selves in Jewish communities, and pushes us
away.

3. Publicly acknowledge people for accomplishments that have nothing to do with marriage/children

In Jewish communities, we value academic and artistic accomplishments–to the point where we invisibility those who lack access to the networks and institutions that provide these opportunities–but only to a certain degree. Continuity, in a traditional sense, is most explicitly valued. What if we created Jewish ritual and/or publicly acknowledged moments and accomplishments that have nothing to do with marriage or procreation? What if we named and placed value on our own moments of growth?

4. Understand that sexism hurts everyone.

Sexism impacts men as well as women, not to mention folks all along the gender spectrum. Placing oppressive gender roles upon women causes men to suffer as well. Based on what we’re socialized to believe about women, we expecte to see them as maternal, as primary care givers of children, even if they are partnered. On the other hand, we are leery of men who are kindergarten teachers and baby sitters, however, because they are stepping into a traditionally feminine role, rendering them “abnormal” and “dangerous.”

This is not different in Jewish communities, where we also mistrust, confine and punish men, in ways that are both glaring and insipid. We can break the cycle once again by opening the definition of what it means to be male and female in Jewish life, as well as exploring what lies between the gender binary. We cannot simply make overtures towards inclusivity, we must own it.

To some degree, Jewish communities can do all of the above. I believe this because I’ve seen communal change on many levels, and because I know people who are committed to making change and working for justice. I also believe that this is within me, both of these things, the rabble rouser and the person who wants to remain connected to Judaism. The potential of Jewish communities to be just and authentic is more than is being realized, and because this is true, we must pursue, claim and demonstrate new values. We know we can do better. We have no choice.

–Chanel Dubofsky

Podcasts

April 27, 2010 by admin

The Inaugural Lilith Sisterhood Podcast

Listen in to the Forward’s web editor Gabrielle Birkner in conversation with Lilith editor in chief Susan Weidman Schneider, Lilith associate editor Melanie Weiss, and the Forward’s editor, Jane Eisner.

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Read more here!

The Lilith Blog

April 26, 2010 by admin

With and Without (Part 1)

At the heart of it all is a story that these days, I rarely tell. Most of the time, when I offer the stories of my past lives, they’re about my mother and grandmother, the resourceful, opinionated women who raised me. It was from them that I learned self determination and independence–feminism, actually, although I didn’t know the word for it until high school.

My mother’s life as a single woman was desperately difficult. She and my father divorced when I was seven, the same year she was diagnosed with the breast cancer that would kill her twelve years later. She was the lone provider in my house, and worried about money more than I will probably ever be able to comprehend. Looking back, I’m surprised she could sleep at night, knowing how much anxiety plagued her. She searched for safety and security, both within herself and within the world which she saw as consistently cruel and unstable.

I often wonder what she would think of my life now–31 years old, college educated, reasonably traveled, living in a big city, unmarried, yelling about gender politics, grappling with this concept of inevitability that seems to be everywhere around me. I was socialized to be outspoken, to have opinions, to believe I could do anything, but I was also expected to get married and have children. Once I told my grandmother that I wasn’t interested in either husbands or babies, and she said, “Oh, I didn’t want those things either, but then, you do it. You’ll change your mind.” It’s this idea–that as women, we will capitulate, whether it’s because we’ll realize that we want it, or because at some point, it will be impossible to avoid it, but either way, we will accept marriage and child rearing into our lives because that’s what happens. There are simply no other choices. It happens to everyone.

For me, honoring my mother means living a fuller life than she was able to. That means owning the privilege I have to be honest with myself, that I like being alone. It feeds my soul, it feels genuine to me. It’s hard for the Jewish community to hear that–because we remain entrenched in a sexist world where women don’t know what’s best for them, where they must be attached to a man to be see, because we as a Jewish people need women to perpetuate ourselves, because on a purely practical level, being alone is complicated and scary.

The pressure to couple and reproduce comes from everyone I know–my friends on J-Date, my friends who ask me about my relationships, my family members who make jokes about me being over thirty (!) and single, people to whom I speak about feminism, readers of my blog, my friends outside the Jewish community (I have some), media, etc. At the same time as I dismiss questions about wanting to meet someone, inquiries into my sexuality, the obvious ratios of single men to single women at parties or meals, it hurts. What this persistent questioning and marketing whether it comes from inside the Jewish community or out, says is “You are not enough, no matter what you think.”

It hurts me the most when it comes from inside the Jewish community. As long as I remain single, comfortable and true to myself, I will never be a full member of many Jewish communities. No matter how fervently I love Judaism and Jewish communities, the truth is that if I do not produce Jewish children, I will always be thought of as on the margins.

“The Jewish community,” as if there were such a monolith, has a responsibility to listen, and to hear, it’s not just theoretical, it’s in the daily liturgy-three times. We might listen, but what truths will we really hear? Only those that make us feel good? Only those that we consider to be valid or real? When will we listen to each other and value what we hear? When will we welcome our whole selves and our realities in, instead of insisting that we change to accomodate comfort?

As women, admitting to ourselves what we want and don’t want is like dropping a raw egg from a height and watching it break, the yolk spreading everywhere, messy, unwieldy, impossible to tidy. Telling our own truths has the power to level our daily lives and the lives of those around us, but no matter what, we have to tell them, live them, and work to build communities that value them. In the words
of Muriel Rukeyeser, “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.”

–Chanel Dubofsky

The Lilith Blog

April 15, 2010 by admin

Introducing…

Three days before the end of Passover, I’m sitting on the floor, surrounded by a group of other Jewish feminists, staring down an orange. We peel away the lumpy flesh and distribute the slices around the circle. We recite the blessing, tell the story we know (Susannah Heschel, Oberlin, the orange represents the queer community and also women). I taste it cautiously, hoping the flavor is sweet and juicy, instead of like an old sock.

The taste is right, and it dissolves quickly in my mouth. I wasn’t raised in an observant house, so I’m pretty sure the first time I ran into an
orange on the seder plate was in college, running towards feminist communities as if my life depended on it. It was thrilling to see ritual
being reinterpreted to create space for me.

In most of my circles now, the orange is commonplace, acknowledged, and then we move on, because, seriously, we want to eat. This year, though, I’ve been thinking about this orange more than usual, even now that Passover is gone. I’ve been considering how it’s bigger than women and queer people, it’s a symbol of all the Jewish folks that the mainstream community doesn’t know what to do with, who won’t fit into a box, who won’t just settle down and be what we’re expected to be (heterosexual, breeding, married, content with the status quo, etc.).

As a single Jewish woman, I’m part of this symbol, both because I’m female and because I choose to not be partnered. In fact, the Jewish community is at a total loss to respond to single people, but particularly women. J Date, singles events, Shabbat meals-the answer is, simply, find someone! As a people, we’re very wedded (pun intended) to pairing each other up. There is an explicit understanding that one is to move out of this purgatory stage of roommates, bar nights, synagogue socials and speed dating into the “reality” of family life. One is not considered a full Jewish adult until this happens.

For women, this expectation is ponderous. To defy it, to say we want something additional or instead of marriage and children is to subvert what many would say it means to be feminine. In the Jewish communities in which I travel, and I suspect in most communities, men are something to be attained, especially if they happen to be attractive and well learned. Women prepare meals, not exclusively, but overwhelmingly. We take care of our guests, we give to each other, but our relationship with food remains predicated on how skinny we feel we need to be. After all, we want to get married. If we protest coupling and fecundity, if we opt out, we’re a traitor to our people. What about the Holocaust? How will we ever make more Jews? To these questions, I’ll offer another : What kind of Jews do we want?

To be clear-I’m not advocating that we all stop having relationships and/or babies, but that as a Jewish community we create space for everyone and not assess one’s committment to Judaism based on whether we have a profile on Jdate. There must be models of all kinds of Jewish women, and overall, our life choices must be taken seriously, not relegated to a corner until we “grow up” or “figure it out.” This is what it means to live in a diverse community that’s serious about justice. It requires us an unflinching look at ourselves to realize how far we need to go.

–Chanel Dubofsky