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.
Elizabeth Mandel, speaking, is a Lilith writer and the founder of JGirls. Photo Credit: Joan Roth.
And yet, and yet, there was Lilith magazine, at her bedside, on the dining room table, and eventually in my hands…. As my mother and many of her friends, while modeling feminist behavior, would not name it as such, and while I was despairing that my emerging feminism and Judaism as I knew it were inherently incompatible, there was the magazine, giving me the tools to embrace feminism, Jewish feminism. Lilith blazed a trail through my mind and my soul, encouraging me to challenge, question, break glass ceilings, and telling me, and so many others, that feminism was not antithetical to living a Jewish life, rather it was imperative to living a Jewish life.
Susan Weidman Schneider on The Power of Collectivity
“The magazine is not the creation of only one or two or three people… I think it’s the collectivity that feels so marvelous, both in creating in Lilith and in an opportunity like this party—an opportunity to hang out and talk to people who are like—and unlike—yourself.”
Lilith’s Editor in Chief, Susan Weidman Schneider was the final speaker of the evening. Photo Credit: Joan Roth.
Many thanks to Chef’s Table, Fairway Kosher, and Seed + Mill for generously donating excellent food for this event and to the JCC Harlem and Ma’yan for co-sponsoring the event with Lilith.