Summer 1996

Creating sacred space at summer camp, in a closet, or in a basement. The shock of finding out that you’re Jewish. Sex or scholarship? Unlike Judaism, medieval Christianity allowed celibate women to use their minds like men.

Cover art is an excerpt from Anna Ruth Hendriques' illustrated manuscript, The Book of Mechtilde.

Table of contents Get the issue

In This Issue

Lilith Feature

The Mysteries of Sacred Space

Architects have always known the place can affect our feelings of holiness. Now we have clues about how women’s experiences can create a holy space in the cellar of a shul, under a tree, behind a file cabinet, even (despite the objections of men) at the Western Wall.

More Articles

Sort by: Features | From the Editor | Voices | Reviews | Happening | All

The World According to Women

feature

Never mind Charles-and-Di mugs. LILITH finds a ceramist--Sandy Goldberg--who commemorates what really matters in life, with plates for your sideboard making the grand occasions of getting a grant or finding a comfortable bra.

Trade-Off: Sex or Scholarship?

feature

Unlike Judaism, medieval Christianity had a loophole that allowed some women to use their minds as if they were men. The loophole? Celibacy.

Louise Kehoe Converts: Why?

feature

Before Mary Gordon found out that her father was Jewish, Louise Kehoe had penetrated her dead father’s final legacy—-he was no lapsed Romanoff living in rural England, but a tortured shtetl Jew, in disguise. After suffering both his denial and his cruelties, she emerges as a Jew too.

Wayward Hearts

feature

Slowly, slowly, a young, pregnant and faithful Buffalo wife in the 1950’s falls into a sexual trance over the unbidden attention of a newly widowed man. Then her sister takes over

The Persistence of Memory

feature

Secrets leak out of the fissures in a crumbling family system when the nice Jewish doctor son comes out as a homosexual. Trying to repair the damage, an aunt blows the cover on his mother’s Holocaust past.

Dudu in Heaven

feature

Dudu left for the Six Day War without saying goodbye. Years later, his sister (with a son who looks just like him) meets up with Dudu again. Bring your hanky.

Case #4 Sacred Wall?

feature

In 1988, women came to the Kotel [Jerusalem’s Western Wall] with a Torah and were greeted with curses and thrown chairs. Israel’s Supreme Court, in deference to halacha, told them... Read more »

Case #3 Sacred Fuse Box Closet

feature

When my father died, I decided I was going to continue saying Kaddish once a day for the traditional eleven months and one day. By chance, a “Minha map” appeared... Read more »

Case #2 Sacred Tree

feature

In the summer of 1961 my mother drove me to Camp Ramah in the Poconos. While I unpacked in my new bunk, she explored the grounds—the beautiful lake, several leafy... Read more »

Case #1 Sacred Basement

feature

I am searching for that primordial Torah, the one the mystics speak of, the one written with black fire on white fire that rested on God’s knee. I imagine God consulting... Read more »

Letters

feature

Letters from Lilith readers.

Back Issues

image of cover of magazine for Spring 2023 Spring 2023
image of cover of magazine for Winter 2023 Winter 2023
image of cover of magazine for Fall 2022 Fall 2022
image of cover of magazine for Summer 2022 Summer 2022