In addition to the gift I received last night in the form of an unambiguous reminder of how and why I am where I am, I also received this beautiful poem from Elke Weiss. Wow. A Poem for Elana by Elke Weiss She asked them. How long will I wait for women rabbis? They told her to wait. Wait just a little longer, and while you do it, serve chicken soup and smile because everything is wonderful. How long will I wait to see Agunot free? They told her it would happen soon. Another five years. Ten years. Just wait a little longer. And make sure to look pretty while you wait. How long will I wait to have women be equal? They told her to be grateful for the curtains and the rules and the diamond ceiling, and enjoy the golden cage and chains, because confinement was a gift. How long will I wait to have the abuse against women be addressed? They told her to understand that things take time and look at all the tiny victories and shouldn’t be happy to have grape juice, why ask for wine? How long will I wait till you hear me? They told her to be invisible and small and helpless, and to be a passive victim, and to bear the burden of honor, while having none of the honors herself. How long till you realize you care more about image than substance? They told her to think of her great grandparents, and think of her family and think of the community and think of everyone but herself, like a good Jewish woman. So she told them farewell and walked away. They asked her how could she be so ungrateful and think of the Torah and think of her great grandparents and think of everyone but herself, because tradition mattered. And she told them. No.Elke Weiss, WOW. I have shivers from this. Thank you !!!
Jewfem Blog
“Passover,” Arthur Szyk, 1948. Yeshiva University Museum. There is no holiday that brings out the screaming in my head as much as Passover. There are two sets of noise that take hold of my brain at this time of year: the pre-Pesach (Passover) trauma and the Seder night trauma. Or as I have come to experience it, the trauma created by women’s stuff, and the trauma created by men’s stuff. Growing up, the pre-Pesach anxiety began as soon as Purim was over. We were only allowed to eat from a pre-determined collection in the kitchen, we were on a schedule around what rooms were already sterilized, and my mother’s mood went from the usual cold and cranky to the downright hostile. Nothing was ever right, we walked on eggshells, and life was insane and frenetic. Although I often wonder how many of my traumas are from religion and how many are from my particular family, in this particular case I have come to learn that this kind of thing was going on not only my own house but also in many Jewish homes around the world. Even women of privilege engage in the panic. (I’ll never forget the time, years ago, when a mother frantically came to pick up her daughter from a play date around a week before Pesach, saying, “Hurry, I have to rush home and watch my cleaning lady do the kitchen.”) Pre-Pesach insanity, it seemed, was the Women’s Way, no matter how you celebrated the holiday. I’ve been living in Israel for over 20 years, and it is still astounding for me to watch how this culture takes over Jewish women’s lives, no matter what kind of religious observance they adhere to during the year. Conversations in shops, on the street, and online, revolve around Jewish women of all backgrounds managing the minutia of obsessive cleaning, shopping, and cooking. There seems to be an uncontrolled lust for women comparing themselves to one another—who started cleaning and cooking earlier, who is having more guests, who is more efficient, who is more creative, and ironically also who has more time-saving hacks. Facebook doesn’t help, by the way. Growing up in Orthodox Brooklyn, I found this pre-Pesach cleaning-cooking-hosting-mania was compounded by the other assault on women’s bodies: clothing shopping. Our job, as religious girls, was not only to manage the kitchen, but also to look gorgeous as we did it. We prepared our shul and Seder outfits meticulously and expensively, down to the last perfectly-matching accessory. But let me tell you something: there is nothing quite as dysfunctional within the female experience as surrounding yourself with copious amounts of food and then forbidding yourself from eating it. Women’s and girls’ table conversation, once we finished serving, invariably revolved around calories, points, fat content, carbs, gluten, GI, cellulite, whatever. (Each year, the measures for what we should or shouldn’t eat changed, led by trends announced by The New York Times. This added to women’s competition not...
Weighing in about the tefillin-and-girls firestorm in an op-ed at Ha'aretz: "No Jewish man has ever been subjected to this kind of examination and ownership. No man has ever been told that he is not “sincere” enough to put on tefillin – to wit, Chabad rabbis all around the world chase Jewish men begging them to wear tefillin, even if only for ten seconds, with nary a passing thought about whether they will ever do it again. Comparing the treatment of men’s “motives” and women’s “motives” around this commandment highlights an awful violation of women’s inner sanctity. It’s high time for the religious community to eliminate this language of women’s motives from its public discourse once and for all." Read the entire op-ed here
Revered Leader Blocked Progress on Divorce and Equality getty imagesPainful Legacy: Thousands mourned the death of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv. But his teachings caused enormous pain for women. Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the 102-year-old Lithuanian religious figure who died this week, is being hailed in some circles as the “greatest leader of his generation”. He may have been great to some men, but for women, his ideas and rulings were often the cause of enormous pain. For example, he was a vigorous adherent of the most oppressive and retrograde views on the issue of agunot, or women who are denied religious divorce. He regularly promoted a 16th century opinion by the Maharshdam (Rabbi Shmuel di Medina of Saloniki) according to which a man may never be pressured in any way to give his wife a get, or divorce, ever. Moreover, he believed that if any pressure is exerted by the woman, such as requests to compromise on financial settlements or custody issues, then the get will be considered invalid. Any children born thereafter will be mamzerim, or forbidden from ever marrying a Jew. This position renders rabbinic judges completely helpless in cases of recalcitrance on the part of husbands. Elyashiv’s opinion effectively nullified the 1994 Law of Sanctions, a law passed in the Knesset with the support of the religious state establishment at the time, which gives rabbinic judges the power to enforce sanctions against recalcitrant husbands. These sanctions – which include revoking a driver’s license, revoking a passport, and in some cases imprisonment – are used regularly by rabbinic judges to help women level the playing field when it comes to exiting from Jewish marriage. But to Elyashiv, sanctions were not permissible, and the rabbis should never pressure a man to give a get. (It should be noted that many rabbinic rulings since the 16th century have taken a much more humane approach. Rabbi Haim Pallagi, the chief rabbi of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, ruled that if a husband and wife live apart for 18 months, the court must force the man to give a get). Elyashiv’s retrograde approach played a strong role enabling men to blackmail women during divorce. It is this dynamic that facilitated the formation of the so-called “Agunah Fund”, a pool of money that the rabbinic judges have which they use to literally pay men in order to give their wives a get. The legality of this fund was unfortunately upheld by a 2010 High Court ruling, based on a petition brought by Susan Weiss of The Center for Women’s Justice. One agunah named “Orit” whose story was reported in Maariv several years ago, suffered personally from Elyashiv’s refusal to allow the rabbinical court to help her. She described a marriage full of physical, emotional, and financial abuse, from which she had to escape in fear of her life. The rabbinical judges actually issued a “hiyuv get,” an order to give a get, but she never knew about it because the...
