April 20, 2020 by admin

Gender & Ritual

I started many mornings at Camp Ramah in Northern California by inviting campers to try on tefillin, and I tried to make space for campers to think about their own connection to the ritual.

It didn’t work. Or, at least, not yet—almost no new staff members or campers tried on tefillin last summer. [These are the small leather boxes and strips that a religiously observant Jew—usually a man—is to wind around the arm and head for weekday morning prayers.] Even in my conversations with camp staff members, many of them just laughed when I asked them if they would be interested in trying on tefillin. These open, thoughtful conversations are just the first step—they won’t get my community all the way to full ritual egalitarianism. But having them now, even years overdue, might mean that the next generation of staff members won’t be asking the same questions that I am.

 ELANA REBITZER, “When I Tried to Get Girls to Wear Tefillin,” The Lilith Blog.

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The Lilith Blog

May 13, 2019 by Rebecca Sassouni

Why I Started—and Then Stopped—Wearing My Tallit

Seven years after beginning to wear a tallit during prayer, I decided to stop. It was not easy to begin to take on the mitzvah wearing a tallit. Neither has it been easy in the nearly two years since I stopped.

When I wore a tallit, it was an outward manifestation of my inner conviction that women and men are made in God’s image, equal, and equally obligated to the mitzvot. As I selected and wore each of my beautiful tallitot, I felt nestled in these powerful convictions. I also felt nimble as I’d twist and braid the tzitziot on my own tallit as I had my grandfathers’ and my dad’s as a child.  Hoping that my son and daughters would someday feel connected to Judaism and mitzvot, too. I first began wearing tallit the year of my eldest children’s b’nai mitzvah.

When I chose to refrain from wearing the tallit, it was the result of the creeping realization of my own naivete: My personal convictions notwithstanding, men and women are not treated equally, are not equally safe in synagogues or the world-at-large. Wearing tallitot conspicuously marked me, exposing the vulnerability of my most deeply held beliefs while living through reactionary times where minority beliefs are so readily misconstrued, denigrated, and marginalized.

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