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

The Lilith Blog

April 27, 2010 by Maya Bernstein

Anyu

I am back on the train again. Strangely, this morning, it is the window that is foggy, preventing me from seeing clearly the world beyond, rather than the air being full of Bay Area morning fog. Last week, my mother in law passed away unexpectedly. I have just returned from the week of sitting Shiva with my husband and his family. My mother, sister, and her baby flew across the country from New York to be with our daughters. A whirlwind of motion in an attempt to preserve some semblance of stability, in a world that has become so suddenly foggy.

How do you talk to children about death? In the few weeks that their grandmother was very sick, we began to try to prepare our children. “Your Anyu is very sick,” we told them, “and Papa is going to visit her to try and help her feel better.” Our oldest furrowed her brow, and then said: “Papa, don’t get too close – we don’t want you to get sick.”

One beautiful afternoon on Passover, when the weather in Palo Alto seemed a mockery of the cold within us, I was sitting in our garden with the girls, and the little one noticed a bee on the ground. “Look!” she shouted, and we all ran over. The bee was hobbling, on the verge of death. “That bee is very sick,” I told the girls. “It will most probably die soon.” The little one looked closely at the bee. “Bee – sick,” she said slowly, “and Anyu sick.”

When I received the dreaded phone call, I held the girls close, and told them that Anyu had died. The older one tried to explain it to the little one: “When someone dies, it means we never see them again.” And then she asked me: “Did Anyu get old?” Their Anyu was just shy of 62; her own mother is alive, 93 years old, and is in mourning for her daughter. All day long, the older one was trying to work it out. “I’m going to die before my sister, and you’re going to die before Papa, and Papa’s going to die before me…” attempting to comprehend the incomprehensible.

We made pictures and talked about memories and read all of the books and played with all of the toys and wore all of the clothes Anyu had given them. Now that their father has returned, unshaven and watery-eyed, they are slightly wary of him. Their windows, through which they peer bright-eyed and joyous, are clear, like those on the other side of this train; ours are so blurry it seems impossible to imagine clear sight. They cannot comprehend their own loss. They have lost a grandmother, a friend, a confidante, an advocate, a role-model. They have lost one of the finite number of people on this planet who love them more than anything in the world.

They watch us closely as we blink our eyes, and with our damp sleeves try to rub at the windows, hoping the sun will begin to shine through.

–Maya Bernstein

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

The Lilith Blog

April 2, 2010 by admin

Information Overload vs. Our Spiritual GPS

Recently, I’ve seen an interesting pairing of movies that address God’s relationship to Humankind, and Humankind’s relationship to people who explain the relationship to God. First, I saw “A Serious Man,” the Coen brother’s Hebrew school revenge film. Next, I saw “The Answer Man,” starring Jeff Bridges and Lauren Graham.

The Answer Man wrote a book of divine revelations that resonated with people so strongly it became a runaway bestseller, and spawned a writing and marketing revolution similar to what you’ll see on either side of The Secret in bookstores. Of course, the fame drove him to hermitville and assholedom. A Simple Man seeks divine insight and guidance through the foreboding maze of old school religious congregations. Helpless as an abandoned puppet. Questions, answers, and results.

Both these films are about people with questions seeking guidance from people who are supposed to have the answers. “My rabbi/priest/pastor/guru/priestess/minister has the answers.” “This writer/celebrity/leader/book/movie/health fad/religious movement/rock song has the answers.” And this is true; there are as many fountains of wisdom and knowledge as there are people seeking a drink, it seems.

But what of our own wisdom? What of our own knowledge—things we knew innately, before we forgot? Ideas and beliefs that are hard-wired into our individual souls and minds, buried, waiting for us to discover them again?

I enjoy being a lifelong learner and amateur scholar of the self—digging in to learn more about theories, trends, teachers. Finding ways to conceptualize my experience of life through a positive, productive lens, and how to manage my feelings, issues, or relationships. The self-help, religion, spirituality, psychology, philosophy, and even business sections of bookstores have much to offer us—fantastic insight to help us learn, grow, and evolve. But I have found myself, from time to time, suffocating from Too Much Information. Too many books telling me what to think and do, too much data about everyone else’s beliefs that I am supposed to remember, understand, and practice.

Sometimes, we have to put the book down. Stop reading and learning, and start processing and listening. We have a voice, we have an answer key, right inside of us.

I love what the Kabbalah says about the spark of God—how there is a spark of God in everything, including us, wanting to reconnect with all the other sparks, all across the universe. That divine spark is like a spiritual GPS to the Greater Whatever, and if we nurture it, tend to it, explore it, and trust it, it will lead us right to where we need to be, if we aren’t already there.

Problem is, that little scrap of transcendence is like our scary friend who always wants to take us out skydiving or bungee jumping. “Quit your job!” “Dump the jerk!” “Stand up for yourself!” “Let it go already!” “Change your life!” No wonder we seek guidance outside of ourselves; our own answers and instincts scare us to death, and not without cause.

Asking questions of people I respect is something I’ll enjoy doing my whole life. There is so much to learn, and the more I learn, the less I know. But I also trust, most of the time, that within me is a little wisdom as well. Our instincts, our fleeting memories, our individual observations, our connections, our moments of synchronicity and epiphany create a vast library that we alone can access. It is information given to us from…somewhere, and sometimes, that is all the scholarship and wisdom we need.

–Nancy Goodman

The Lilith Blog

March 26, 2010 by admin

Jewdaho: Pesach and Purification

Next year in the Holy Land, next year in Jerusalem. This is what we say, leapfrogging off Purim and into two nights of intense lounging, heavy drinking, treasure hunts, and lots and lots of sitting. Pesach is a celebration of miracles, heroes, redemption, triumph of good over evil, and divine prowess. Our God, 1. Your gods, 0.

The Pesach story is of slavery and escape from Egypt, crisis of faith in the desert, and delivery to the Land of Israel. God’s gift to us, as the Chosen People. I wonder if we would have been so psyched to accept such a gift if we knew that God was also going to give Israel to everyone else on the planet. And then make them all hate us. “If God had only left us in a nice unassuming cave that nobody could find and hadn’t led us into the land flowing with milk and honey and drama…”

Next year in Jerusalem. But what about right now, this second? We pray for something that is somewhere else, somewhere in the future, when something external and beyond our control happens. This year we are slaves, next year we will be free. What are we slaves to? Freedom from what? And what are we supposed to do until the youth-group kids can’t be blamed for the empty Elijah’s cup, as we are ushered into a messianic age?

The story of Pesach is basically a story of darkness into light, with the final destination being way, way further down the hot, blazing, unforgiving desert road than you initially thought. In contrast, springtime is the season for renewal, rebirth, and abundance, and our Seder plate ornately displays lamb from the field, fruit from the trees, and a ceremonial ova. The time of year when Persephone returns to the arms of Demeter is always cause for celebration–whether it’s honored by dancing around a Maypole, hunting for chocolate eggs, or hunting for bagel dust on your hands and knees so you can spend five hours nibbling on garnish.

Cleansing the home is a big part of Pesach ritual. Every bread crumb, Twinkie, carb is banished from the kitchen. Spring cleaning. But a purification ritual is a purification ritual, and who can’t benefit from that once a year?

I’ve been thinking a lot about emotional spring cleaning; how spring is as good a time as any to take your emotional and spiritual temperature. What still has you in shackles? Do you have your bearings in the vast desert? How might you want this night, any night, to be different and sacred? And, the magic fourth question, what are you going to do about it?
Me, I’m catching up on my to-do list as a means of sweeping out the cupboards. And as a gardener, I’m very hopeful and excited at the concept of rebirth. I poke around my flower garden for early signs of life, while heirloom tomato seedlings thrive in my mud room (yay!). Whatever you do to clear your headspace, reflect on long journeys, or triumph over times of bondage and suffering leading to enlightenment, don’t wait until next year to do it. Make this year the year you create your own holy land, in your own holy places, while giving thanks for the chance to do anything at all. Dayeinu.

–Nancy Goodman

The Lilith Blog

March 18, 2010 by Mel Weiss

All Those Who Are Hungry

Allow me to state the obvious: the weeks leading up to Pesach are a time for thinking about food. That’s not only my very Jewish opinion—it’s my assertion as a designated foodie. This might sound ridiculously obvious, but the case deserves to be made anew: thinking about food is profoundly Jewish. Worrying about the feeding of others has been the purview of the Jewish woman since time immemorial, and the need to combine food with both elevated consciousness and a sense of commandedness is, basically, the root of kashrut (and the basis for Jew-foodie-ism). What you eat matters, how you eat matters, when you eat matters, and how that food got to you certainly matters. Straightforward, no?

I am swayed by this argument, not least of all because I like to frame my own food preoccupations—the local/organic/free-trade/non-GMO—as channeling the Jewish imperatives towards consciousness and justice through the too-often downplayed power of consumer purchases. You can’t avoid buying food, I always say, so why not buy food that works toward the greater good?

Of course, I forget about those who can’t buy food in that neat little construction, which is why I’m glad that there are things like AJWS’s Global Hunger Shabbat to help remind me. Global Hunger Shabbat, coming up this weekend, is “a day of solidarity, education, reflection and activism to raise awareness about global hunger.” As we prepare to invite “all those who are hungry” to our tables symbolically, we have a chance to do some learning, some communal and personal planning and committing, to the cause of global hunger—to the simple idea that there are people whose most basic human needs go unmet, and that that is wrong. That we have the power to do something about it. And more than just the power—perhaps the imperative.

AJWS seems more and more drawn to providing Jewish substance for the work they do, the work they enable and the work they encourage all of us am ha’aretz folks to join in on. Whether or not you’ve signed up for the Shabbat experience itself, check out the fantastic resources AJWS provides. They’ve got me thinking not only about the biblical roots of attending to the hunger of others as we are able to, but about the nature of our obligation. Tzedek, a word not infrequently tossed around, is generally accepted to translate in all its intricacy to “justice,” and justice is not optional. Without wandering off into theology, basically a Jew exists to serve God and strive for justice. Putting the tzedek back into tzedakah puts us on the hook to look at these issues with new eyes and a new sense of dedication. Without wandering off into sociological history, it also allows us to further elevate the still-underplayed role that so many Jewish women have committed themselves to throughout the ages: filling those bellies that need filling. Sounds like a good deal to me.

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

March 16, 2010 by admin

Angel's Landing, Nancy Sitting

Last year I visited Zion National Park in Utah as part of the great road trip that exists on Interstate 15 between Pocatello and San Diego, where my parents now live. While I’m always puzzled at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS, or Mormon) penchant for adopting Jewish names, symbols, and beliefs as their own, I can appreciate the decision to name this park Zion. Walking through the cool red canyons and seeing streams glide over sandstone felt distinctly biblical to me. I could almost imagine the gathering of prophets and spiritual seekers in similar oases across the globe thousands of years ago. Zion would be as good a place as any to relocate should one decide to live in a cave and trade wisdom for simple sustenance as a career.

A very popular hike in Zion takes you to what is called Angel’s Landing. This destination is a piece of cake to get to—if you are an angel. For everyone else, it’s a 2.5 mile grind up a steep trail, through an echo-filled canyon, and through a series of tight nearly-vertical switchbacks. This is no big thing—anyone can get up anything if you take it slow enough, and don’t mind watching 6-year olds and senior citizens pass you by.

It’s the last segment of the trail that mystifies me to this day. Basically, a long time ago, someone climbed to the top of a canyon, checked out a steep, narrow cliff-thing that soared several hundred feet higher with nothing but lots and lots of air and gravity on either side, and said “this is a great place to build a trail.” So a vast series of thick chains were set-up to help hikers get to the top. Chains, you have to hold on to chains. After passing signs warning of certain death should I fall, and cautions to people with a fear of heights, I braved the first series of chains before embracing my inner wimp and refusing to hike another inch.

What was interesting about this experience was the refreshing opportunity I had to feel fear of something real—falling off a cliff—instead of being afraid of stuff I’ve made up in my head over the years. Functioning outside of one’s physical comfort zone is a great way to figure out how to function outside of one’s emotional comfort zone. Programs such as Outward Bound, NOLS, study abroad, and pilgrimages to holy lands teach us this.

Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying “do one thing every day that scares you.” Do you need to climb Angel’s Landing or ride a zip line every time you need a dose of bravery? Not necessarily, if you’re building up your bravery a teeny bit every day, say by digging around the excuse of “procrastination” to see what irrational fears might be holding you back from your goals.

That day, it was a very easy decision to sit with my back against something very smooth, flat, and solid where I couldn’t see how high up I was to wait for my husband’s summit and return. And I feel no need to ever brave Angel’s Landing again, especially since a woman from Pocatello did fall to her death on that trail this past summer.

But when it comes to the really scary things in life, sometimes we are forced to grab hold of those chains and start climbing–fast. If you’ve got some experience dealing with fear in smaller ways, and have learned that breathing slowly and saying nice things about yourself helps a lot, then you might be able to interpret the pounding of your heart as a sign of excitement rather than panic. By starting small, you might discover that you are stronger and safer than you thought. Even if, in general, you prefer to stick to the slot canyons.

–Nancy Goodman

The Lilith Blog

March 9, 2010 by Amy Stone

Rapunzel, Rapunzel

Rapunzel, Rapunzel. Disney thinks your name is too girly girly and is calling its upcoming Rapunzel 3D cartoon vision “Tangled.” The Disney
Juggernaut fears that giving the film a girl’s name will turn off boy moviegoers.

What’s going on here? Disney cartoons based on the Brothers Grimm tales – Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty – and the non-Grimm Pocahontas, Little Mermaid, Mulan, and more and more – seem to have done just fine with the time-tested girls’ names for the title. And Tim Burton’s current twisted “Alice” will probably do better than it deserves.

But presumably the marketing mavens don’t want a downer like a girl’s name for a film title. But if we’re cynically talking money (godforbid), why not call it “Hair” (OK – that’s already taken) and make a fortune on Disney brand hair products for hair-obsessed girls?

Rapunzel is such an icon for hair beyond belief. Right up there with Lady Godiva. And we all know the power of hair. When my Freudian psychiatric social worker mom asked my boyfriend of yesteryear why men like long hair, he told her: “It looks so good on the pillow.”

And the Jewish men who wrote the Jewish laws sure knew it. Only single women are permitted to seductively let their hair fly free. Married? Keep it under wraps. I don’t know what the thinking is on Orthodox women covering their heads with Dolly Parton- or Rapunzel-length wigs. Is this the letter of the law defying its spirit?

The beloved Grimm Brothers’ heroines have long been deconstructed by feminists appalled at their passivity. “Sleeping Beauty” indeed.

At least “Twisted” promises a feisty teen heroine with its release over Thanksgiving weekend.

And, by the way, it’s worth looking at the Grimm version of “Rapunzel.” The opening lines will surprise you: “There were once a man and a woman who had long, in vain, wished for a child. At length it appeared that God was about to grant their desire.” Sounds like Abraham and Sarah. And if that weren’t Jewish subtext enough, click on the preview for “Tangled” – the music with its soulful clarinet sounds like Jewish schlock. Tangled indeed.

–Amy Stone