Happening

Services for Single Parents

Three New York City Y’s have set up programs for single parents: the YM-YWHA of Greater Flushing in Queens, the Gustave Hartman YM-YWHA in Far Rockaway, and the Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn.

The Flushing Y’s Single Parent Family Center offers a variety of services for single-parent families, which comprise more than 50% of the Y’s membership, according to Cheryl Finkelstein, Center Coordinator. Services include individual and group counseling, information and referral services, a legal clinic, special-interest meetings and discussion groups, rap sessions and socials, parent-child Sunday outings, play groups for children, and child care.

The Center’s Swapshop operates as a clothing cooperative, and lets parents bring their children’s used clothing and toys, obtain credit for it, and “purchase” new ones with the credit.

The Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst is now beginning its fifth year of rap sessions and socials for single parents. Among the topics covered in discussions are child support, spouses’ visits, and dating. The Centers can be contacted at:

Flushing YM-YWHA 45-35 Kissena Blvd. Flushing, NY 11355 (212)IN 1-3030

Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst 7802 Bay Parkway Brooklyn, NY 11214 (212) 331-6800

Gustave Hartman Y 710 Hartman La. Far Rockaway, NY 11691 (212)GR 1-0200

Resource Center

A national Jewish women’s resource center is now in the planning stages by Nina Cardin in New York. The center will include traditional texts and contemporary feminist publications. Women throughout the country should send Cardin specific information on all available material relating to Jewish women.

Women in the New York area interested in working on the center, particularly those with administrative, library and related skills, should contact:

Nina Cardin c/o New York Jewish Women’s Center 299 Riverside Drive New York, NY 10025 (212) 874-2399

Travel

A 10-day tour to Israel is being sponsored by Ms. Magazine March 4-14, 1978. The tour will include meetings with feminists and other women who have made an impact on Israeli society through politics, industry, labor, social movements, and the arts, including women in the Knesset (Parliament), officers in the Armed Forces, and Druze and Arab women leaders. Other features include a tour of Jerusalem including Yad Vashem, Mea She’arim and an Absorption Center for new immigrants; the Negev, Masada and Beersheba; the Galilee and Haifa; the Golan Heights; Tel Aviv; Rehovot; a kibbutz—and, of course, free time. For further information contact:

Letty Cottin Pogrebin Ms. Magazine Dept. T 370 Lexington Ave. New York, NY 10017 (212) 725-2666

Money

The National Foundation for Jewish Culture has established a nationwide (U.S.) program of annual grants to individual Jewish artists in the fields of music, theatre, dance, painting, sculpture, belles-lettres, film, television, photography and museums. Grants will range from $5000 to $12,500, depending on artist’s circumstances and her/his project’s requirements. The program will disburse $250,000 in grants each year for the initial three-year period. The field of entries opens in Spring 1978. For information and application write:

National Foundation for Jewish Culture 122 East 42 St. New York, NY 10017 (212) 490-2280

Jewish Women in Folk Song Ruth Rubin, scholar and author of several works on Jewish music, including Voices of a People: The Story of Yiddish Folksong, is available for performances, discussions or workshops on “The Jewish Woman and her Yiddish Song.”

She performs 12-15 songs in order to expose the audience to a variety of the things nineteenth-century Jewish women had to say and sing. Discussion follows her performance. Ms. Rubin is considered unique in her utilization of historical-cultural material as a setting for the songs.

Ruth Rubin 45 Gramercy Park North New York, NY 10010 (212) 260-3863

Anthology of Fiction and Autobiography

Julia Wolf Mazow is editing an anthology of short fiction and autobiographical selections by American Jewish women writers from 1910 to the present. If you have work you would like to submit for consideration, send it to:

Dr. J. W. Mazow 5202 Rutherglenn Houston, TX 77096

The Women’s Division of the Jewish Community Federation of Metropolitan New Jersey designed this Jewish feminist symbol which modifies the cross at the bottom of the standard symbol for women, thereby eliminating the suggestion of a crucifix.

Books and Pamphlets

Call Them Builders, by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso. Resource booklet by the first Reconstructionist woman rabbi on Jewish practices and attitudes on birth and family life. Includes music and lists of books and periodicals on the subject. Available for $2.10 (including postage) from:

Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 432 Park Ave. S. New York, NY 10016

The Jewish Book Annual for 1977, published by the National Jewish Welfare Board’s Jewish Book Council, features an essay on “Recent Literature on Jewish Women,” by Blu Greenberg. The essay gives an overview of the major new books on this subject. The Annual can be ordered for $10. From:

Jewish Book Council 15 E. 26 St. New York, NY 10010

In addition to books mentioned in this section, the following books of Jewish content have been received since our last issue:

Her story, by June Sochen. Alfred Publishing Co. $10. Most women’s history books neglect Jews and Jewish women; this one refers to us occasionally. Very readable volume.

Rabbi: The American Experience, by Murray Polner. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. $8.95. An interesting overview-essay; devotes some pages to women in the rabbinate and rabbis’ wives.

Five Sisters: Women Against the Tsar, by Barbara A. Engel and Clifford N. Rosenthal. Schocken Books. $6.95, paperback. Women revolutionaries in Russia.

Sarah and After: Five Women of the Old Testament, by Lynne Reid Banks. Double-day. $6.95. A fictional account of Sarah and the women who followed her.

The Maimie Papers, edited by Ruth Rosen and Sue Davidson. The Feminist Press and Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe. $6.95 paper; $12.50 cloth. The fascinating memoirs and letters of a nineteenth-century Jewish prostitute, Maimie Pinzer.

Why They Give: American Jews and Their Philanthropies, by Milton Goldin. Macmillan. $10.95. A history that manages to omit all mention of the huge contributions of Jewish women givers and divisions…again!

Periods of Stress, by Irena Klepfisz. A slim volume from an outstanding poet born in Warsaw, focusing on her thoughts, problems and feelings as a woman regarding war, nature, living alone, relationships with a man and with a woman, and on dialogues with herself. Available for $2 plus 35i postage and handling from:

Out and Out Books 476 Second St. Brooklyn, NY 11215