The Women's Passover Companion

Description

A powerful—and empowering—gathering of women’s voices transmitting
Judaism’s Passover legacy to the next generation.

The Women’s Passover Companion offers an in-depth examination of women’s relationships to Passover as well as the roots and meanings of women’s seders. This groundbreaking collection captures the voices of Jewish women—rabbis, scholars, activists, political leaders and artists—who engage in a provocative conversation about the themes of the Exodus and exile, oppression and liberation, history and memory, as they relate to contemporary women’s lives.

Whether seeking new insights into the text and traditions of Passover or learning about women’s seders for the first time, both women and men will find this collection an inspiring introduction to the Passover season and an eye-opening exploration of questions central to Jewish women, to Passover and to Judaism itself.

Foreword, Paula E. Hyman xi Preface xvii Acknowledgments xxi Introduction xxv Part 1: Why Women's Seders? 1 For Women Only 4 Esther Broner The Continuing Value of Separatism 9 Judith Plaskow Creating the Ma’yan Women’s Seder: Balancing Comfort, Challenge, and Community 14 Tamara Cohen and Erika Katske Miriam and Our Dance of Freedom: Seder in Prison 22 Judith Clark Every Voice Matters: Community and Dialogue at a Women’s Seder 26 Catherine Spector God’s Redemption: Memory and Gender on Passover 32 Norma Baumel Joseph An Embrace of Tradition 38 Tara Mohr Part 2: Reclaiming and Re-creating Passover Rituals for Women 45 Thoughts on Cleaning for Pesach 49 Haviva Ner-David We Can’t Be Free Until All Women Are Important 54 Leah Shakdiel Setting a Cup for Miriam 59 Vanessa L. Ochs The Celebration of Challenge: Reclaiming the Four Children 65 Leora Eisenstadt Orange on the Seder Plate 70 Susannah Heschel The Open Door: The Tale of Idit and the Passover Paradox 78 Sandy Eisenberg Sasso A New Song for a Different Night: Sephardic Women’s Musical Repertoire 84 Judith Wachs I Will Be with You: The Divine Presence on Passover 99 Carol Ochs Part 3: Women of Exodus 105 Shiru l’Adonai: Widening the Circle of Memory and History 108 Judith Rosenbaum Miriam’s Leadership: A Reconstruction 113 Lori Lefkovitz Their Lives a Page Plucked from a Holy Book 119 Margaret Moers Wenig With Strong Hands and Outstretched Arms 128 Sharon Cohen Anisfeld The Secret of Redemption: A Tale of Mirrors 135 Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg "Fixing" Liberation, or How Rebecca Initiates the Passover Seder 142 Bonna Devora Haberman }Part 4: Telling Our Stories 149 A Story for the Second Night of Passover 153 Ruth Behar Jephthah’s Daughter: A Feminist Midrash 159 Letty Cottin Pogrebin Memory and Revolution 165 Dianne Cohler-Esses Leaving on Purpose: The Questions of Women’s Tefillah 171 Chavi Karkowsky Of Nursing, in the Desert 177 Janna Kaplan On Matzah, Questions, and Becoming a Nation 182 Leah Haber God’s Bride on Pesach 188 Kim Chernin The Matzah Set-Up 196 Jenya Zolot-Gassko Women Re-creating the Passover Seder: Bella Rosenfeld Chagall and the Resonance of Female Memory 202 Judith R. Baskin Part 5: Visions and Challenges for the Future 209 Sanctified by Ritual 213 Phyllis Chesler Reflections on the Feminist Seder as an Entry Point into Jewish Life 220 Lilly Rivlin Placing Our Bettes: Keepin’ It Real at the Seder Table 225 Ophira Edut Pluralism in Feminist Settings 229 Martha Ackelsberg Conflict and Community: The Common Ground of Judaism and Feminism 235 Ruth Kaplan What Now? After the Exodus, the Wilderness 240 Sharon Kleinbaum Letting Pharaoh Go: A Biblical Study of Internalized Oppression 246 Ela Thier Reflections on Exodus in Light of Palestinian Suffering 251 Lynn Gottlieb Walking the Way as Women 256 Merle Feld Notes 263 Glossary 283 Bibliography 293 Index 297 About Jewish Lights 307

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Paula Hyman
• Jewish holiday
• Judaism
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 16 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781580236140
• Langue: English

Extrait

Thanks to Miriam the rock gave water.*


In honor of Miriam Botwinik Horowitz
( April 7, 1912–April 7, 1999 )
who continues to be a source of sustenance in the wilderness


* Carved in Jerusalem stone inside Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.

Contents
Foreword, Paula E. Hyman
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1: Why Women s Seders?
For Women Only
Esther Broner
The Continuing Value of Separatism
Judith Plaskow
Creating the Ma yan Women s Seder: Balancing Comfort, Challenge, and Community
Tamara Cohen and Erika Katske
Miriam and Our Dance of Freedom: Seder in Prison
Judith Clark
Every Voice Matters: Community and Dialogue at a Women s Seder
Catherine Spector
God s Redemption: Memory and Gender on Passover
Norma Baumel Joseph
An Embrace of Tradition
Tara Mohr
Part 2: Reclaiming and Re-creating Passover Rituals for Women
Thoughts on Cleaning for Pesach
Haviva Ner-David
We Can t Be Free Until All Women Are Important
Leah Shakdiel
Setting a Cup for Miriam
Vanessa l. Ochs
The Celebration of Challenge: Reclaiming the Four Children
Leora Eisenstadt
Orange on the Seder Plate
Susannah Heschel
The Open Door: The Tale of Idit and the Passover Paradox
Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
A New Song for a Different Night: Sephardic Women s Musical Repertoire
Judith Wachs
I Will Be with You: The Divine Presence on Passover
Carol Ochs
Part 3: Women of Exodus
Shiru l Adonai: Widening the Circle of Memory and History
Judith Rosenbaum
Miriam s Leadership: A Reconstruction
Lori Lefkovitz
Their Lives a Page Plucked from a Holy Book
Margaret Moers Wenig
With Strong Hands and Outstretched Arms
Sharon Cohen Anisfeld
The Secret of Redemption: A Tale of Mirrors
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg
Fixing Liberation, or How Rebecca Initiates the Passover Seder
Bonna Devora Haberman
Part 4: Telling Our Stories
A Story for the Second Night of Passover
Ruth Behar
Jephthah s Daughter: A Feminist Midrash
Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Memory and Revolution
Dianne Cohler-Esses
Leaving on Purpose: The Questions of Women s Tefillah
Chavi Karkowsky
Of Nursing, in the Desert
Janna Kaplan
On Matzah, Questions, and Becoming a Nation
Leah Haber
God s Bride on Pesach
Kim Chernin
The Matzah Set-Up
Jenya Zolot-Gassko
Women Re-creating the Passover Seder: Bella Rosenfeld Chagall and the Resonance of Female Memory
Judith R. Baskin
Part 5: Visions and Challenges for the Future
Sanctified by Ritual
Phyllis Chesler
Reflections on the Feminist Seder as an Entry Point into Jewish Life
Lilly Rivlin
Placing Our Bettes: Keepin It Real at the Seder Table
Ophira Edut
Pluralism in Feminist Settings
Martha Ackelsberg
Conflict and Community: The Common Ground of Judaism and Feminism
Ruth Kaplan
What Now? After the Exodus, the Wilderness
Sharon Kleinbaum
Letting Pharaoh Go: A Biblical Study of Internalized Oppression
Ela Thier
Reflections on Exodus in Light of Palestinian Suffering
Lynn Gottlieb
Walking the Way as Women
Merle Feld
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
List of Searchable Terms
About the Author
Copyright
Also Available
About Jewish Lights








Foreword
W hen a Jewish women s movement emerged in America some thirty years ago, its primary goal was to alert the Jewish community to the discrimination suffered by women as Jews. Issues ranging from the disabilities imposed on women by Jewish law to our relative invisibil­ity in Jewish culture to our absence from positions of spiritual and communal leadership were highlighted in public statements. Jewish feminists were preoccupied above all with issues of equal access. Women should be counted in the minyan (the quorum necessary for public prayer), taught all types of Jewish learning, and accepted as rabbis, cantors, and communal professionals. Women s experiences should be recovered and rescued from the ignorance and lack of interest of male scholars who defined history as what men did. When women looked into the mirror of Judaism, we wanted to see our own faces.
These issues of equal access were not too difficult to resolve in the institutions of non-Orthodox Judaism, although positions of power in communal organizations remain largely in the hands of men, even today. The language of equality resonates strongly with American Jews, and non-Orthodox synagogues were already used to accommodating both tradition and change. But equal access did not satisfy the desire of Jewish women to wrestle with Jewish texts and to contribute our own understanding of Judaism to a culture that was constantly in the process of becoming. Jewish women came together to create rituals that reflected our own experience as female Jews and that incorpo­rated women s traditions as well. The first feminist ritual was for us, as young women, an obvious necessity: a baby-naming ceremony for newborn girls. It would compensate for the lack of attention paid to females in the community, literally from their birth. By 1973, Ezrat Nashim, one of the first American Jewish feminist groups, had privately published and disseminated a collection of baby-naming ceremonies that feminist parents had developed. Some women also embraced Rosh Chodesh, the New Month, traditionally a mini-holiday for women, as a time to celebrate and learn together. As Esther Broner notes in her reflection, the first feminist seder was held as early as 1976. With the baby-naming ceremonies for daughters leading the way, some feminist rituals became so widely accepted within the Jewish community that it was hard to remember that they had not always existed.
Most importantly, women asserted our right and ability to learn as well as our authority to interpret Jewish texts and experience. By the early 1980s, feminists were calling for a women s midrash, a commitment of women to read themselves into Jewish texts from which they had been absent. Dazzled by the wealth of Jewish sources and experience, women eagerly inserted themselves into the process of creating Jewish culture, following traditional patterns of interpretation but also, as newcomers less constrained by traditional modes, creating novel approaches. Recognizing that women were full partners in the task of finding meaning in Jewish symbols and language, feminists challenged the limitations of a God language created only by men and dominated by masculine metaphors. And feminist historians assiduously set about discovering lost Jewish women and exploring both the attitudes toward women in Jewish tradition and the roles of Jewish women in various Jewish societies.
In response to the feminist challenge, Jewish institutions expanded the educational resources available to girls and women and muted the gender distinctions that had characterized traditional Jewish learning. While denying that feminism had anything to do with it, modern Orthodox schools and synagogues, too, encouraged women to learn texts that had once been denied them. By the 1990s, a powerful international feminist movement had emerged in the modern Orthodox world. Enhanced educational opportunities and the feminist affirmation of women s abilities within the Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative movements stimulated a younger generation of women to confidently approach the challenge of finding meaning in Judaism. And, as this collection demonstrates, the wisdom of the first generation of women rabbis is the most powerful affirmation of the truth of feminist assertions about the importance of listening to women s voices.
The Women s Passover Companion is a splendid fulfillment of the vision of the Jewish women s movement. Like the traditional haggadah itself, this book is an anthology of questions and insights, a tapestry of reflections on the meanings of liberation as well as on the text of the haggadah. It also demonstrates the breadth and depth of the women s midrash that has come into being in the past several decades. It is a resource not only for those seeking to organize a women s seder but also for all Jews who wish to incorporate new reflections into a family or communal seder and to engage others, both living and dead, in a discussion of the meaning of the Exodus from Egypt.
The participants in this endeavor represent the spectrum of diversity of Jewish life. Most of the contributors are North American, but Israeli feminists such as Leah Shakdiel and Avivah Zornberg share their midrashic talents in this volume.
In the contemporary Jewish community in America, diversity is often subsumed in the terms Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Reform, and occasionally unaffiliated. As this collection demonstrates, however, such a definition of American Jewry limits us and omits large numbers of American Jews. The women speaking in The Women s Passover Companion do, of course, derive from various denominations of Judaism, but their denominational affiliations do not account for their differences or necessarily predict their attitudes. Their rationales for taking part in women s seders differ, as do their defi­nitions of feminism. Yet, whatever their self-definitions, they are all participants in a vibrant Jewish women s movement. Reading their contributions, we enter into conversation with women unlike ourselves, women who may challenge our view of the Pesach seder and of the place of women s experience in it.
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