Summer 2020

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Chana Blankshteyn (1860?– 1939) is almost entirely forgotten now, but she was a well-known figure in Vilna between the two World Wars. She was an activist, committed to women’s causes and vocational training for women. As a publisher, editor, and journalist, Blankshteyn defended women’s rights to social, sexual, and political equality. She belonged to the... Read more »

We are Dying Because of the Fears of White People

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Why are white people so afraid of my Black skin? When will living in this Black body feel liberating and freeing, instead of terrifying? When will this country acknowledge this pain? When will we have to stop running on the wheel of white supremacy? When will we be able to breathe? I am exhausted, too.... Read more »

Instead of Punishment

voices

I’m sitting in a classroom of a small alternative high school in Washington, D.C., in a circle with two students who’d gotten into a physical fight and their families. We’re seated around our talking piece, in this case, a hippo paperweight that belonged to my grandfather who passed away when I was in elementary school.... Read more »

Elissa Slotkin on Supporting Survivors of Sexual Assault

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U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants to take back protections for survivors of sexual assault and harassment in schools. Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) fights back: “These rules fail to live up to what survivors are asking of us as leaders: to keep students safe, and make it easier for survivors to come forward, not harder.”

Beyond Instagram Activism

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“Performative wokeness.” You know, the kind of “activism” white people do while scrolling Instagram late at night from bed. A bed we sleep in without a shred of fear that cops will bust through our front door and massacre us. “I stand with #.” Is to post to stand? If to post is not to... Read more »

Our Education is Never Over

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“I am Jewish and I am American. I cannot divorce myself from the fact that the country that gave my family a future was built from slavery. I will continue to educate myself about interconnectedness to this land and its many peoples. As a rabbi, I will continue to raise awareness about mass incarceration and... Read more »

Say Goodnight, Especially in Quarantine

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Psychic containment means checking on others who may not have adequate resources or family support. When you check on your elderly neighbor down the hall, it is helpful to her, and it also reminds you that you are not alone. Psychological containment means daily video or phone calls with friends and family. This is particularly... Read more »

Feminism and Its Backlash: The Real Events of “Mrs. America”

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This multi-part made-for-TV documentary series that debuted Spring 2020 spotlights a generation of women who brought lasting change to the world. Think of women’s lives before the advent of second-wave feminism in the late 1960s and early 1970s! Lilith photographer Joan Roth was onsite for many of this era’s feminist conferences, and its backlash gatherings... Read more »

Abuse Lives On in the Jewish Canon

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An announcement on social media in May that a new book, The New Jewish Canon, edited by Yehuda Kurtzer and Claire E. Sufrin, was anointing certain writers, thinkers and texts as powerful shapers of the Jewish present and future drew outrage, because at least three of the men represented in its pages have acknowledged their... Read more »

Working from Home

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In interviews with more than a dozen women who work as lawyers, writers, architects, teachers, nurses and nonprofit administrators, many said that they were grateful to have some child care help pre-quarantine, and that they could work from home. But they have been slightly stunned to learn that they are expected to organize and manage... Read more »

Immigration Activism Met Spirituality at Our Quarantine Seder

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My husband, Aryeh, and I have been counting many things over the past several months: the days of quarantine; the omer, those days between Passover and Shavuot; the days that Darwin Ramos will remain with us in our home. Aryeh and I were at an immigration protest at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Manhattan last... Read more »

Making Flatbread to Nourish Your Body and Spirit

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Since humans first tamed fire and turned grain into flour, we have been making bread. In the earliest form, breads were simple. Mix one or more flours with water. Pat out into a flat cake. Cook on a hot rock or a stone hearth around an open fire. That’s it. So simple, so basic to... Read more »

The U.S. Labor System

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It’s a Tuesday afternoon and I am sitting on the couch, in my PJs. I should be walking to the elementary school; pick-up is at 2:40. But everything is different now. I work part-time as a nanny, and like many of the jobs that comprise the so-called “gig economy” and the domestic workforce, the Coronavirus... Read more »

Mizrahi Music

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“If I had to compare Mizrahi music with food—which I do, because food is the other super important cornerstone of Mizrahi culture— I’d say it can best be described as a blend of lemon, ginger, and cinnamon: warm and fresh, with just the right amount of kick to open up your throat and heart and get your... Read more »

“I Never Saw My Mother in a Clothing Store”

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The comedian channels her grandmother’s tale of family and footwear.

The “Us” and “Them” of My Life.

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My father stood upright on the floor of a dress factory on West 35th Street in New York City with a steam iron in his hand for thirty years. My uncles owned the factory. My father was Labor, my uncles were Capital. My father was a Socialist, my uncles were Zionists. Therefore, Labor was Socialism... Read more »

Acting Like a Jewish Woman

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Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (1945–2018) forged her intellectual tools in feminist and civil rights communities during the 1960s and 1970s and used them throughout her life as an organizer, activist, and theorist addressing fundamental structural inequalities and the root causes of sexism, homophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism. Kaye/Kantrowitz adopted her last name during the 1980s as a part... Read more »

The Ethos of Rural Life Is Everyone’s Ethos Now

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In the years to come, more of us will be growing our own potatoes.

Link Food Supplies to Public Health

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How do we get political will? Advocate! Vote! Start now!

I Want Us to View Art Through a New Lens

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To be clear, I miss art. I miss being moved and confronted and stretched by artists and their work. But I don’t really miss the apparatus that surrounds it.

White Allies Need to Step Up. Now.

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As the CEO of a majority Jewish women of color led organization, I continue to learn how essential our work to expand racial equity in the world around us is to our very survival.

Quaranzines

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“Recall your worst haircut!” and “What’s the world calling you to do right now?” Art and writing prompts like these drew avid participants to Lilith’s recent Zoom-based zine-making events inspired by our pandemic-induced desire for a Jewish feminist space to combat isolation and alienation. ’Zines—highly personal and handmade—have a history as a kind of feminist... Read more »

We’re Going to Witness a Surge in the Current Health Inequality

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

Abortion for Anyone Who Needs It

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Telemedicine options for many kinds of healthcare have spiked. Yet this has not been true for abortion.

Global Tzedakah: Save for a Rainy Day? This Is a Downpour!

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The Jewish community must take a lead in looking at all the systemic inequities that are being laid bare by the pandemic

Reproductive Justice Instead of “Jewish Continuity.”

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What would it mean to think about a Jewish future that does not revolve around Jewish women having Jewish babies?

Camp, Even When It’s Not Summer

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The non-summer months could be filled with much more camp content in years to come.

Comedy? You Bet!

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

Labor Activism Has New Momentum

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

Relative Privilege in a World of Suffering

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

A Children’s Classic with a Very Relevant Chapter

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I don’t know why I never read books by Sydney Taylor when I was growing up (it wasn’t my gender; my sisters never did, either). But when my wife pulled her old copies out of a box recently, and my six-year-old daughter enjoyed listening to the first one, I was thrilled. As a scholar of... Read more »

Vibrant Stories from a Historic Plague

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In late February, I was staring down a list nearly 50 books deep, all related to the topic I study full time: the music of Yiddish-speaking partisans, written and sung during the Holocaust. I’m almost always thinking about my research in one form or another, a constant hum that buzzes along in the background as... Read more »

The Ashkenazi Table

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

To Be an RBG Biographer…

happening

Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

Jewish Grandparents

happening

Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

“Not That Jewish”

happening

Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

A Beloved Sci-Fi Novel Says a Lot about Gender and Politics

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Kids today. (This isn’t going to be what you expect.) They navigate the world of gender fluidity freely. They don’t stumble upon words or terms. They are the natives in this world, and it can feel like we—the older generations—are immigrants in this land. We seem dated to them, from another time and place when... Read more »

A Mirage of Hope for Israelis and Palestinians

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

Lyrical Looks at #MeToo and Whiteness

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It has been hard to read lately. If this has been true for you—and if, like me, the printed word has always been your escape hatch from reality these last two (three? seven?) months—you can appreciate the sense of utter strangeness created by this absence of reading. My mind floats over the surfaces of novels,... Read more »

How We Talk Mental Health

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

Women in the Shadow of Corona

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

Operation Moses Plus 30

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

Poem: “Playing Scrabble With God”

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Last Thursday God and I were playing Scrabble eating peanut brittle and listening to Joni Mitchell. I used all my letters w-h-i-s-t-l-e-s and I saw a side of God I’d never seen before. First he insisted that whistles has no ‘h’ which is utter bullshit. Then he started to pout complaining all his letters were... Read more »

See New Israeli Film Shorts

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

“Is Now When I Should Panic?”

happening

Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

The Female Gaze

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

Who Shall Die…

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An Unetaneh Tokef for Black Lives.

Pandemics…in Space!

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Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

…And for Middle-Schoolers and Young Adults

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I’ve been reading middle grade and young adult books, mostly novels. They all end on bittersweet, complicated but hopeful notes. Which feels right at a time like this—and probably always. The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman (Viking, $16.99) A novel about two eleven-year-old classmates in 1986 Chernobyl. One from a Jewish family whose estranged grandmother... Read more »

First Woman Chancellor At JTS!

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Shuly Rubin Schwartz, a groundbreaking scholar of American Jewish history, has just become the first woman to serve as chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary in its 134-year history. JTS is the flagship institution of Conservative Judaism. Chancellor Schwartz, who earned her Ph.D. at JTS, became one of the first women on its faculty and... Read more »

Susan Weidman Schneider: “Be the solution.”

from the editor

Life lessons from the mythological Lilith. Betty Friedan on her feminine mystique & being Jewish. Those thorny Jewish women's organizations.

In My Persian Immigrant Family…How My Brother Mothered Me

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He casually asked if my sixth-grade classmates were wearing bras.

Politics Shapes Party Dresses

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In all the years I’d been wearing, collecting and swooning over vintage fashion, I remained a pure formalist. My appreciation was based on the nuances of cut and color, shape and design. It wasn’t until I began a more methodical kind of research into some of my favorite silhouettes that I began to see how... Read more »

Summer 2020

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