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The Lilith Blog
March 3, 2017 by Eleanor J. Bader
Meet the Publication Taking on Anti-Choice Propaganda
Jodi Jacobson is Rewire’s Editor in Chief. Photo © Greg Schaler.
The site is called Rewire and its goal is to “rewire the way we think about the news, especially when it comes to reproductive and sexual health, rights, and justice.” It’s obviously a huge mission.
Five days a week, 51 weeks a year (staff take a break in late December) the site publishes original news stories, analyses, cultural critiques, plus podcasts and interviews. On a recent Tuesday, for example, Rewire covered racial disparities in abortion access; the mistreatment of immigrants and refugees who have experienced domestic abuse; Title IX protections for transgender teens; a renewed Republican-led crusade against pornography; the links between the Trump administration and the private prison industry; and a review of Joyce Carol Oates’ latest novel, A Book of American Martyrs.
This is intersectional feminism writ large.
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March 1, 2017 by Nancy Kalow
Why Being a Union Member is a Jewish Value
My grandfather was a union-buster. He was the oldest son of Eastern European immigrants, and he simply needed a job. The job he found was working for a consortium of Chicago businessmen to cook up confusion and skepticism among Chicago’s workers, misinforming them about the benefits of coming together to negotiate for better working conditions. I think of my young grandfather’s methods and realize that not much has changed in union-busting techniques since his day: divide the workers, one against the other; make workers think that the company cares about them, and that a union would hurt this special relationship; denounce the motives of the union organizers—as outsiders, an alien third party.
Ninety years later, I’m part of the Duke faculty union, proud to work together with my colleagues and SEIU Faculty Forward as we go through the collective bargaining process with the administration to seek clear, fair standards and a way forward for “contingent” faculty (adjunct teaching staff and the like) to have more job stability. Our union organizing campaign last year faced the same exact techniques my grandfather used to suppress union organizing back in the 1920s. But we did win our union, solidifying our view that universities should resist an increasingly corporate model of higher education that sets aside the leadership and scholarly concerns of faculty in favor of an ever-growing, top-heavy structure of administrators. March 1, 2017 is a national day of campus resistance, demonstrating our continued commitment to worker organizing. At Duke, we are gathered today directly outside our President’s office to make our voices heard.
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February 28, 2017 by admin
Remarks from the (First-Ever) Lilith Launch Party
Rebecca Katz, former Lilith intern and current Lilith cartoonist, speaking at the launch party at the JCC Harlem. Photo Credit: Joan Roth.
Lilith decided that in these chilly times we need the warmth of one another’s company. It’s a great time to have feminist friends! For the first time in our 40-year history, we held a party at the new JCC Harlem celebrating the launch of an issue our magazine. In case you missed it, here’s a chance to sample some of what was said.
Rebecca Katz on What It Means for a Workplace to Be Feminist
“That’s when I learned what a feminist environment was. What it meant to be in a group of women who support each other, who lift each other up, who support and drive each other to be better.”
Elizabeth Mandel on Embracing Judaism and Feminism
“When I was growing up in the 1970’s, my mother, like so many women of her generation, didn’t finish college, stayed home when her three daughters were small, later worked part time as my father’s assistant in his medical office, and then, when we were in middle school, went back to school to finish her college degree, got her Master’s in international affairs and went on to a successful and inspiring career. She was—is—strong and determined, a role model for me and for my sisters—but, also like so many women of her time, she insisted that she was not a feminist.
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February 27, 2017 by May Aihua Ye
Breaking Boundaries and Building Bridges
May Aihua Ye (right) and Nancy Hammoudah (left). Photo Credit: Aaron Van Heest.
On Thursday, January 26th, I sat at the piano bench in the dismal practice rooms of the school of music at Western Michigan University. My eyes would often wander from the Brahms sheet music in front of me to the stained orange carpet. Lately, I’d been struggling to find purpose in what I do. With less than one hundred days until I perform my senior recital in pursuit of a Bachelors of Music degree in Piano Performance, it doesn’t feel right to practice the music of eighteenth-century aristocrats which once provided me with joy and peace. I can no longer justify creating this art I once found so powerful. Now, I feel guilty spending hours every day in practice rooms.
The calm I once experienced is now overpowered by an awareness of the tremendous suffering and pain felt in my country and across the world, the fear felt by so many who are being marginalized and oppressed. There was a time when I was content in my career path. I dreamed of using music as a means to conflict resolution in the Middle East. I deeply believed in its ability to unite people, to heal and to bring comfort. Watching the week of January 20th unfold, manipulating beautiful melodies out of black and white keys was no longer possible. With a major recital looming, I found myself unable to focus on this important last requirement of my degree. I took my phone off of the music rack and typed a message to my friend: “Will you come if I organize a rally against Islamophobia?” A minute later, I texted my friend back: “I AM organizing a rally against Islamophobia for next Sunday. Hope you’re in!”
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February 24, 2017 by Oksana Mironova
Soviet Daughter: An Interview with Julia Alekseyeva
Julia Alekseyeva’s memoir-cum-history, Soviet Daughter, chronicles major events—including the Russian Civil War, the Revolution, and World War II—through the eyes of her rebellious, Jewish great-grandmother, Lola, who was born in 1910. Lola would become a secretary for the NKVD (later the KGB) and a Lieutenant in the Red Army. Towards the end of her life she began to write down her story in a memoir that contained a note at the front specifying that it should not be read until after her death, which is when her great-grand daughter first saw Lola’s writings.
Alekseyeva, who immigrated to Chicago with her family in 1992, weaves her own story into this narrative, describing her experience with immigration, assimilation into American culture, and radical politics. Today, she lives in Brooklyn, teaches Japanese cinema and documentary film at Brooklyn College, and is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at Harvard.
I met up with Julia in downtown Manhattan, after a Jewish solidarity rally for refugees in Battery Park. We talked about Russian history, Soviet feminism, intergenerational friendships, and the importance of immigrant literature in the current political context.
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February 23, 2017 by Chanel Dubofsky
How Repealing the ACA Could Specifically Impact Jewish Women
Since the beginning of the Trump administration, we’ve seen the destruction of social safety nets that benefit the most vulnerable Americans, particularly women and folks of color. This destruction isn’t even limited to the U.S.—as one of his first executive actions, Trump reinstated the Global Gag Rule, a policy dictating that no federal funding will be given to non-governmental organizations around the world providing abortion counseling or support for abortion in any way, without including the usual exemptions that even anti-choice administrations typically make available.
In the U.S., the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare has allowed 20 million Americans who previously did not have health insurance to access it. The A.C.A. has always been under attack, but Trump has vowed to take it apart completely, and the process to repeal and replace has already begun. The language around health care policy isn’t necessarily accessible to the average person, but one thing is clear about what the dismantling of the A.C.A. and the defunding of Planned Parenthood means: people who need preventative care the most, including Jewish women, won’t be able to afford it, and the results of that fact will be devastating.
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February 22, 2017 by Rebecca Katz
Gentrifying Home
Rebecca Katz is your average white, Jewish, twenty-something who likes to talk and draw about food, privilege, television, and her period. After six years away, Rebecca has returned home to Brooklyn and lives just three blocks away from where she grew up. Take a look at more of her comics at katzcomics.tumblr.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lilith Magazine.
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February 21, 2017 by Joan Roth
Artistic Uprising Against the Exploitation of Women
Activists including Eve Ensler, Rosario Dawson, Dr. Debbie Almontaser, and others gathered last Tuesday as part of 1 Billion Rising Revolution against the exploitation of women.
The organization’s website provided the following information: “Tuesday, February 14, women and men throughout the US and in 200 countries worldwide [came] together [to] RISE to end violence against all women and girls (cis, transgender and gender non-conforming) as part of V-Day’s massive annual One Billion Rising campaign, including this just-announced rally – ‘Artistic Uprising – A Call for Revolutionary Love’ – [and took] place in Washington Square Park. The rally [featured] performances and speeches by artists and activists.”
Lilith photographer Joan Roth was there to document the event. See her photos below.
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February 20, 2017 by Barbara Stock
A Jewish Therapist’s Tips for Surviving in the Trump Era
“The air I’m breathing feels different,” a friend said after the inauguration. Clients report waking from dreams screaming at Trump and his supporters. I, myself, wake through the night, agitated.
The confirmation of Jeff Sessions as attorney general, arrests of immigrants who have lived productively here for decades, Mitch McConnell silencing Elizabeth Warren on the Senate floor—these are troubling times. I sign petitions daily, call my state and federal Congress people weekly. When I couldn’t get through to his Washington office, I even mailed a handwritten full-page letter to my Congressman detailing my concerns. Anxiety makes for activism. How do we sustain our commitment, hold steady in the midst of chaos?
Deep breaths, sleep, healthy food, exercise—these are necessities. Mani-pedis, bubble baths, hot showers, massages and vacations are wonderful but not sufficient. I need more. How do all of us nurture our souls knowing we’ve signed not for a sprint but for a triathlon?
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February 17, 2017 by Keren McGinity
Let’s Stop Romancing the Jewish Womb
Photo Credit: David Lisbona
Born to two Jewish parents, I have enjoyed the privilege of engaging with Judaism in whatever way I see fit. It wasn’t until I took a non-Jewish surname that my Jewish identity was ever truly questioned. Upon learning that I’d married the name McGinity (and kept it after I divorced), people usually shrugged their shoulders as if to say: “Well, you’re still Jewish and your children will be, too.” Wow. If coming out of a Jewish womb is all it takes to be Jewish then perhaps I should identify as a Jew-by-chance. Just as I explain that I was born in Madrid because my parents happened to be living in Spain at the time, my being Jewish and my daughter’s being Jewish seem likewise unintentional. This inadvertent byproduct is the legacy called matrilineal descent.
Jewish women have the advantage, provided they are biologically endowed, with having the right womb. If they intermarry, as many non-Orthodox Jews do today, they can join synagogues where their children will be deemed sufficiently Jewish to become bar or bat mitzvah without any additional measures necessary. Not so for intermarried Jewish men whose wives lack the Jewish womb. Is it any wonder, then, that intermarried Jewish men are currently less likely to raise children to identify as Jewish than are intermarried Jewish women? (It is also worth noting that this fixation around wombs is both cisnormative and heteronormative.)
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