Jewfem Blog

My friend Helen Varney, who is writing a doctoral dissertation on breast cancer and body image among Orthodox Jewish women, herself a breast cancer survivor living outside of Melbourne, wrote this provocative review of Helen Garner's, The Spare Room, that raises important issues about cancer, care, women's relationships, and death: Limpid prose, a tautly-told tale – this is a compellingly readable novel. I devoured it in a day, and wasn’t surprised that it won in the fiction category of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. But it’s also a book that troubled me.

The revelation by freshman Likud MK Zipi Hotovely that she will not shake hands with men has created a stir in the Israeli media, and generated a heated debate over what constitutes feminism. Veteran Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea, who discovered her practice when he innocently held out his hand when he met her for an interview, called her practice "surprising" and "condescending" in his column in yesterday's Yediot Ahronot. "She left my hand hanging," he said. Moreover, Barnea took issue with her self-description as a feminist saying that if this is religious feminism, then this is a feminist movement that has not quite "arrived." Hotovely, in her own defense, wrote a column in today's Ynet

My dear friend Dr. Chaya Gorsetman, who recently lost her father, has begun to chronicle some of her experiences as a woman in synagogue since becoming a mourner, and new devotee of regular minyan: Feb 17 In the center of the main sanctuary sits a tzedaka box for both men and women to give tzedaka during or after tefilla. However, the daily 6:45 minyan has different rules or rather the men who join that minyan are totally oblivious to the woman saying kaddish. Although the mechitza is low and all the men can clearly see the women’s section, no one in the room thinks it’s important to bring the box to the center or anywhere near the woman who says kaddish on a daily basis. For the past three weeks I have attended the daily minyan with 12 to 20 men who never once think that I should or could give tzedaka. For a few weeks I kept going to the men section after tefilla to put my dollar in the container but for some reason today I got angry and walked out thinking one more time that on some lever I must be invisible. I suppose I could say something but my father’s recent death is still raw and I am unable to be assertive. I need people to take care of me and to notice. As a reminder, this is a shul that supports women saying kaddish out loud and supports women’s voices in shul March 9 Another shul story: I had to drive my sister to the train station early this morning so was looking for an early minyan. I went to “the other” shul in our neighborhood, also a modern Orthodox synagogue. The room is large in width and the mechitza is down the middle and very acceptable for a modern Orthodox shul. The men and women can see each other when standing up. Usually the tzedaka box is placed somewhere in the middle of the room in the men’s section. However, in this shul, because the room was very wide, one man took it upon himself to walk around to every man to put money in the box. I was standing right next to the mechitza with a man next to me on the other side. The one collecting tzedaka did not even look my way and ignored my presence. The men saw me but not one asked the one with the box to reach over so I could put my money in it. Do you have a story? Please share. Send in your essays to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Trackback URI | Comments RSS 3 Responses to “ On Kaddish, the Tzedaka Box, and Feeling Invisible ” # 1 arnie draiman Says: March 15th, 2009 at 1:18 pm well…..here’s the scoop. better she should give tzedakah in a more meaningful way than to go through all of this added emotional baggage to her already existing “raw” emotional and psychological state…. so, tell her to put money in a...

One of the greatest moments in my son's educational life may not have happened had he been in a co-ed class. It was the day he brought his baby sister in for show and tell. I've been thinking about this story sincereading today's New York Times article on single-sex education. The debate over single-sex versus co-ed education, which has a new significance since becoming legal in the public educational system in America, is particularly charged in the Orthodox Jewish world.

Purim is undoubtedly a woman's holiday. Not only is the holiday based on one of the few biblical tales in which a woman is the national heroine -- in one of only two biblical books named for women -- and in fact our only religious holiday named for a woman, the holiday itself has also been on the frontier of advancing women's position in Judaism. I am referring of course to women reading megillah, an event that constitutes one of the first areas of ritual practice that opened up to women. Talmudic exegesis puts women's megillah reading clearly in the realm of the "permissible", and even Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef -- not usually known for his sensitivity to women's needs -- surprisingly announced this week that it is permitted for a woman to read even on behalf of men! He added that women may also write a scroll, another of the many jobs generally reserved for men in Yosef's community (along with, say, being a Knesset member), though Yosef added sardonically that if a woman were to write a Scroll of Esther, he doubts anyone would buy it.

Israel Prize Laureate Professor Alice Shalvi, and her spouse Mr. Moshe Shalvi, who have been married for nearly 60 years, collaborated to create a beautiful digital encyclopedia of Jewish women, the first of its kind. Now, the Jewish Women's Archive has adopted this encyclopedia and is making it available online to the general public. I had the privilege of interviewing the Shalvis last year when the volume was launched, and I am attaching the interview, published in The Forward, here. In the meantime, here is the announcement from the Jewish Women's Archive:

Debbie Gross, Founding Director of the Crisis Center for Religious Women, has been helping women heal from pain and abuse for two decades. The Center handles thousands of calls from women around the country -- not just in the religious public -- in issues including domestic violence, sexual abuse, pedophilia, rape, incest, and more. The specially trained staff at the Center specializes in helping women and children from the religious community, and accompanies women through police investigations, hospital visits, and even the court system. The staff at the center are no less than heroines of the Jewish world. To contact the hotline, click here. Here she brings us an announcement about one of her special retreats for women:

Kolech founder Dr. Hana Kehat will discuss her first book "Feminism and Judaism" at the annual film festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, on March 4-5, 2009. The Festival, entitled, "Women Forge Justice", includes guest speakers lecturer and writer Dr. Orit Kamir, writer Mira Magen, "Harei At" filmmaker sisters Ramit Alon and Leah Dor, as well as Prof. Yedidya Stern, poet Hava Pinkas Cohen, Dr. Ronit Ir-Shai, and more. Tickets can be purchased on-line by contacting Mavoi Satumhttp://www.mavoisatum.org/index.php/en/news.

Congratulations to Sara Hurwitz on being conferred the title "Spiritual Leader" of Hebrew Institute of Riverdale -- a well-deserved honor, though "rabbi" would be better. Kudos to Rabbi Avi Weiss on being a courageous leader in advocating for women, and I hope eventually HIR gives women the full and equal title that they deserve. In the meantime, change is undoubtedly in the air, and Orthodox communities everywhere should take note (hat tip: Matthew Maryles).

by Keren Copperman Close your eyes, and imagine yourself maneuvering throughoutyour typical morning. The alarm clock goes off at 7:00 AM, and youbegrudgingly climb out of bed and make your way to the bathroom,readying yourself to hop in the shower. A bolt charges through yourzombie-like self as the hot water comes sprinkling down from theshower head, but your eyes are still half closed. As you reach forthe shampoo, you make an effort to blink and clear your eyes inorder to distinguish the shampoo bottle from the conditioner. Now stop. Let's say, this one morning, hard as you try, your eyesjust refuse to cooperate. Although you can feel your eyelids rising,all you see is black, with hints of color here and there. There yougo, you see the two blue bottles. But how will you know which oneto use? Normally, you'd just read the label. But today, everything isa huge blur. You frantically run your hands over the plastic to tryand find a difference in the textures, but they feel identical. Youare now, temporarily, experiencing a sliver of a blind man's world. There is so much the average human takes for granted that theblind population is unable to do. The obvious comes to mind, suchas driving a car or reading a book that doesn't come in Braille. Butthere are so many little pleasures in life we'd never even think of. On the Jewish holidays, we are particularly visual-dependent. On Hanukkah, for example, we get a great feeling watching the menorah being lit, watching the dreidle spin in anticipation of seeing that “gimmel”. Yet, the blind Jewish population are often unable to experience such pleasures. Sure, they can spin the dreidel. But how would they have the means of distinguishing a taf from a lamed, a nun from a hey?Thanks to the innovative and compassionate artwork of Marsha Plafkin Hurwitz, now Jewish blind people, young and old, male and female, can participate in this joyful Hannukah game.