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The Lilith Blog
July 9, 2019 by admin
I Walked Away Furious from an Auschwitz Exhibit: Here’s Why
On June 26, my mother—the daughter of Eta Wrobel, a partisan fighter in the Holocaust—took me to the Auschwitz exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan. While many people who visit Holocaust museums and memorials leave feeling sad or moved, I walked away deeply furious.
The museum was full of artifacts from Auschwitz, photos of prisoners, and videos of survivors, all with accompanying descriptions. Many of the videos featured survivors who felt not just an urge, but a need to use their voices to ensure this type of inhumane and cruel treatment never happens again. As I heard their stories, all I could think about were the Jews that I have encountered who are anti-immigrant, pro detention center. The thought flooded me with anger.
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July 3, 2019 by Alice Sparberg Alexiou
Thank You, AOC, for Inspiring Jews to Stand Up for Immigrants
Let me just put it out there: As a Jew, I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s now-notorious Instagram post on June 17 comparing the border detention centers to concentration camps was brave and magnificent.
Her use of this phrase, which some Jews seem to believe belongs to them and them alone, keeps pushing the debate forward and forces us to look squarely at what is happening as the result of Trump’s unconscionable policies: crying children being snatched out of their parents arms at the Texas border, for the “crime” of trying to cross over into a better life, and held in squalid conditions in mass detention centers.
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June 24, 2019 by Chanel Dubofsky
“My Favorite Murder” Podcast Hosts Take on Trauma and Hope in New Book
I’m not sure when, in the course of my entirely unsupervised reading and television watching as a child and adolescent, I became obsessed with murder. Nor do I remember exactly when I realized many people thought it was weird to be obsessed with murder, but I assume it resulted in an awkward social situation that I’ve since blocked out. It didn’t stop me, of course — that’s what obsession is —and as it turns out, I am far from the only person who continually consumes true crime: tv shows, documentaries and podcasts.
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June 18, 2019 by Nora Lee Mandel
Barbara Rubin, Who Influenced Dylan, Ginsberg and Lou Reed, Gets Her Due
Barbara Rubin introduced Andy Warhol to the band the Velvet Underground, Allen Ginsberg to the Beatles, London to “Happenings,” Bob Dylan to Kabbalah, and female eroticism to film. So why don’t we know about her? In his feature length documentary “Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground,” director Chuck Smith reanimates the young Jewish woman who challenged the men of the 60s underground–an alt-culture was known for glorifying the phallus—with her vulva images, charisma, and artistic matchmaking.
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June 11, 2019 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Conversation with a Curator: Avery Exhibit Features Works by Artist Wife and Daughter
“Summer with the Averys [Milton/Sally/March],” a remarkable show at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, presents the work of american painter Milton Avery alongside that of his wife Sally and their daughter March, who were both artists in their own right.
A Jewish girl born in 1902, Sally Avery (née Michel) studied painting at the Arts Students League and met Milton in 1924; she was 22 and he was 39. They married in 1926 and embarked upon an unusual artistic life together.
Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough talks to Stephanie Guyet (who assisted Professor Kenneth E. Silver in mounting the show) about the special role Sally played in her husband’s life and career.
Sally Michel Swimming Lesson, 1987
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June 7, 2019 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
“Jade Lily” Imagines Jewish Refugees Who Found Home in Shanghai
Vienna, 1938. It’s clear to the Bernfelds that they are no longer welcome in their city and they have to flee. But where? No one wants or will accept the refugees…no one except the Chinese that is, and so the family, or what remains of it, heads for Shanghai. Novelist Kirsty Manning talks to Fiction Editor Yona Zeldis McDonough about how she accidentally stumbled upon this bit of Jewish history and what she did to bring it to life in The Song of the Jade Lily.
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June 6, 2019 by Rebecca Katz
Moments My Bubbe Would Hate, Part 3: I Never Wanted Kids
In the third part of this comic strip series about my grandmother, my mom and I wrestle with the consequences of Bubbe’s parenting on our relationship (see part I and II here.)
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June 3, 2019 by Nylah Burton
It’s Time to Be a Single-Issue Voter for the Climate
Voting for a political candidate solely on the basis of their stance on a single issue is not always the smartest thing to do. Bluntly put, it’s often a decision motivated by myopic selfishness, as well. Part of this is because single-issue voting is, in my mind, too often associated with people who vote for candidates with draconian policy positions. Consider guardians of gun “rights”, so-called Israel “supporters” who ignore domestic policy both here and there, opponents of gay marriage, and anti-abortion advocates. At this moment in time, with extreme, oppressive positions on so many of these issues, single-issue voting can feel dangerous.
But then there are the other kind of single-minded voters… people who have worthy causes they care, but who will vote for candidates with no chance of winning for the sake of “purity.” I get it: voting is an extremely personal statement of values, but it can be frustrating when this happens during a high-stakes election. Remember all those people who voted for JIll Stein and Gary Johnson during the 2016 election? Yeah… I’m still mad about that.
So, it’s safe to say that I usually think single-issue voting isn’t the best thing to do. Except in the 2020 presidential election. As a Black Jewish feminist I am committed to many issues that are life and death–from police violence to abortion–but for the first time, I find myself zeroing in on a singular issue: climate catastrophe.
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May 29, 2019 by Eleanor J. Bader
Restorative Justice in the Classroom: An Interview with Cassie Schwerner
It’s been six months since Dr. Cassie Schwerner became the Executive Director of the 37-year-old Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility in New York City and she has many items on her organizational to-do list. The group’s mission – to promote equity in public schools through reliance on restorative justice over suspension for rules infractions; increase social and emotional learning in the classroom; and inspire honest, well-facilitated discussions about the impact of race on everyday interactions — is enormous, but Schwerner says she’s up to the challenge.
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May 28, 2019 by Chanel Dubofsky
Female Rebellion Challenges Patriarchy in Two New Novels
“Revolutions don’t come from a place of happiness,” writes Etaf Rum, in her debut novel, A Woman is No Man. The narrative flips between two, sometimes more, perspectives—Isra, a Palestinian woman who leaves her home in the early 1990s to marry Adam, a man she has met only once, and move to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter, navigating through her senior year of high school in 2008, while trying to convince her grandparents that she should be able to go to college instead of getting married. It’s a story of insularity, brutality—and the redemption that can come from women’s quiet revolutions.
Women Talking is the latest novel from Canadian author Miriam Toews (an actual Canadian informed me that it’s pronounced TAYVZ), about a group of women discussing what action to take after coming to the realization that they, as well as their daughters, have been raped by men living alongside them in Molotschna, their isolated Mennonite community somewhere in South America. August Epp, a young man who has recently re-entered the community after his parents were excommunicated, is the notetaker for the women, who can neither read nor write. The novel chronicles the decision-making process (the options are Do Nothing, Stay and Fight, or Leave), and the conversation grows steadily tenser when the women learn that one of the rapists is returning to the community.
It’s easy to draw lines between these novels and the current state of affairs in the world—there’s even a “not all men” moment in Women Talking. These are books about patriarchy, religious and cultural, and how women suffer while the boot is on their throats. Naturally, both these books are attracting major attention in 2019—especially from female readers and critics—as abortion bans and #MeToo stories sweep the country. It’s important to acknowledge how frankly the writers address patriarchy:
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