Letters
Dear Editors:
As a Jewish woman who has long struggled with the images, both internalized and external, of my heritage, I would like to convey my congratulations and gratitude for your venture.
by Nan Holstein Hecht, San Francisco, Cal.
Dear Editors:
I enjoyed your premiere issue so much that I want to send a subscription to my mother, who was a Jewish Feminist long before the present movement started. Thank you for giving us Lilith.
by Melody Wolder, Lexington, Ky.
Dear Editors:
Knowing something of the story of Lilith, I was very pleased and excited to see the notice of this new publication. I will want one copy for myself and my waiting room, and one to give away to friends. Congratulations on choosing such a beautiful name: perhaps you will encourage people not to be afraid to give this name to their daughters.
by Jane Montzingo Berman, M.D., Chesnut Hill, Mass.
Dear Editors of Lilith:
Mazeltov! I was delighted with the premiere issue of Lilith. It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to observe the overwhelming proportion of Jews in the ranks of the left who pay no attention to issues relating to their own Jewishness. It seems Lilith will provide a forum to express the influence of Jewish identity on the American left. Betty Friedan’s article, for instance, was a real boost to me. I felt that a Jewish mother I was really indebted to had finally discussed her alliegance to Judaism. There are many, many influential leaders in the feminist movement who have consistently dodged the area of ethnicity in the formation of feminist ideology.
by Judith W. Klein, Berkeley, Cal.
Dear Editors:
Had Lilith come along seven or eight years ago, it would have been the answer to my prayers. I do not pray anymore. I switched from Jewess to Unitarian rather than fight. My background of conscientious Judaism did not mesh with my feminism, and the community in which I live would not tolerate a feminist Jewess. To this day, the Jewish community of Richmond relegates their women to “auxiliary” status. And the women, secure in their fur-coated luxury, prefer it that way. During those early years of struggle in the feminist cause, I attracted public attention. The Jewish Women’s Club asked me to speak. I was ridiculed and scorned (in a polite way, of course). These intelligent Jewish women bridled with righteous indignation. That was six years ago, and as far as I know, they would still react the same today. Someday, I may write about how it feels to be treated as an outcast. In the meanwhile, please accept a small donation to Lilith in hopes that she may grow and prosper.
by Zelda K. Nordlinger, Richmond, Va.
We Jewish women who are feminists and devoted to Judaism have needed Lilith badly: I join with all like-minded women in the recitation of the shechayanu!
by Bernice Bricklin, Phila, Pa.
Dear Editor:
I work for a typographic company which sets the Jewish Digest, which excerpted your article “The Lilith Question” by Aviva Cantor Zuckoff (Vol I/No 1). I found it impressive, arguing for its writer both a capacity for sympathetic understanding and the possession of a sense of humor. I would like to know more about a magazine that would print this type of material.
by (MISS) P. Scott Hollander, Hamden, Conn.
To the Editors:
You are an oasis in the desert for Jewish feminists everywhere. Your first issue was a delight.
My one complaint is the article “Fear of Feminism” by Bob Lamm. I began the article with intense interest and finished it with total anger. First of all, a male cannot know what 5,000 years of female oppression feels like, and I resented the author’s typically male attitude that everything can be equated to the male’s problems, in this case, oppression by the male Christian society.
Secondly, he tries to side-step the issue of what he has done to the Jewish female through the years by slamming the blame on the pressures placed upon the Jewish male by Christian males to oppress them arid have power over them.
What Lamm really is saying is that these pressures on the Jewish male are surely still around, unless he’s suggesting that anti-Semitism does not exist any longer, and that this cause-and-effect sexism will continue to dominate Jewish females, regardless of his arguments and promises. The author gave a better case as to why this type of Jewish female oppression will go on, rather than why it might be halted in its tracks. It would have been more pertinent to give the space to a Jewish female writer, who might have shed a different perspective on the entire subject.
by Andrea Platt Hecht, Beverly Hills, Cal.
