Hasia Diner
I think of her not just as the source of my wallets and maracas, but as a hero of the revolution, someone who stayed when so many of her peers left.
A Kaddish in Havana
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Elegy for a Mentor
Helen Epstein
I took the job, marveling that my mentor could pay someone to research his whims, too obtuse to appreciate that he was buying me writing time on his own dime.
The Cutting Room: How Joan Didion is Helping Me Process This War
Michal “Maggie” Milstein
When war broke out in Israel and Gaza, I thought of Joan Didion. Why? Because she taught me how to think through a crisis.
Bess Kalb Talks #Boymoms, Humor and Jewish Books
Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler
A long, hilarious and very Jewish chat with the comedian and writer.
A Century-Old Feminist Sephardi Novel Is Back–and It’s Awesome.
Yona Zeldis McDonough
Called the first feminist Sephardi novel, Mazaltob tells the story of a young woman raised in the Judería or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco.
Wabi-Sabi
Lisa Simone Kingstone
Miriam sets her alarm at 8.30 a.m. every morning even though she is dying.
The One Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask
Rabbi Rachel Van Thyn
When it comes to infertility, you don’t have to ask. You can listen.
This Apple Falls Far From the Tree: Portrait of My Mother
Rina Shamilov
I opened a door to her life.
Fiction: Dayan
By Sharon Vardatira
God has quieted the wind, the moon is shining a path to the desert.
Talking to KC Wagner About Ending Harassment at Work
Eleanor J. Bader
The courage of survivors inspires me. So many people who step forward do not see justice in their cases, or in their lives, but they see themselves as part of a justice continuum.
Be a part of the story
Happy birthday to Jewish feminist trailblazer, @jofaorg founder & Lilith writer Blu Greenberg!
In our Spring/Summer 1982 issue, she wrote, “For me, at least, the process is not over, this interweaving of feminism and Judaism. Two things I know for sure. My questioning never will lead me to abandon tradition.
But I also know that I never can yield the new value of women’s equality, even though it may conflict with Jewish tradition. To do so would be to affirm the principle of a hierarchy of male and female, and this I no longer believe to be an axiom of Judaism.”
A few months ago, Stephanie Pell`s friend became a midwife, and someone baked her a vulva-shaped cake to celebrate her new vocation.
"The pink frosting petals were so tender I wanted to weep, thinking of the hands that shaped sugar to resemble the place where life begins. But I couldn’t swallow the celebration while Gaza bled, a mere sixty kilometers south. I couldn’t lift my fork with that frosting while mothers nearby delivered babies into rubble, into silence, into a world that tastes of ash."
Read at 🔗 in bio.
🌙 STOP SCROLLING! 🌙
It’s time for your Rosh Chodesh (new moon) check in! Join Rabbi Jaymee Alpert of Neshama Body and Soul for a minute of mindful movement and reflection to kick off the month of Shevat 🌱
How Jewish Was My Mother’s Civil Rights Activism?
In that watershed year of “Freedom Summer” — 1964 — the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) created a women’s social-change project to support the civil rights movement; they named it Wednesdays in Mississippi. The project’s middle-class organizers were all women; the staff was all female, and so were the participants.
Dorothy Height, the national president of the NCNW and guiding spirit behind all of its work, and my mother, Polly Spiegel Cowan, a white Jewish Northerner, organized this unprecedented exercise in boundary-crossing. Week after week, for two summers, interracial and interfaith teams of Northern women flew into Jackson, Mississippi.
Learn more about these two incredible women in “Wednesdays in Mississippi” by Holly Cowan Shulman, originally published in Lilith’s Winter 2014 issue—🔗 in bio!
Photo: National Park Services; Mary Mcleod Bethune Council House National Historic Site; DC-WAMMB; National Archives For Black Women’s History. Photographer unknown.
Tamar Sagiv, an Israeli-born New York-based cellist and composer, recently released her debut album “Shades of Mourning.” The album includes nine original compositions, each uniquely touching on themes of grief. Inspired by the death of her grandmother, the album is both about personal and universal emotion.
Find listings for this album and other new Jewish feminist music, art, theater productions and more in the Happening section of Lilith`s current issue!
🔗 in bio.
