The Quotable Jewish Woman

Description

The words of Jewish women to inspire, enlighten and enrich your life.

is the definitive collection of ideas, reflections, humor, and wit by Jewish women. Compiler Elaine Bernstein Partnow (The Quotable Woman) brings together the voices of over 300 women—including women of the Bible, actors, poets, humorists, scientists, and literary and political figures—whose ideas, activism, service, talent, and labor have touched the world.

Quoted women include:

Bella Abzug • Hannah Arendt • Lauren Bacall • Aviel Barclay • Judy Blume • Susan Brownmiller • Judy Chicago • Jennifer Connelly • Gerty Theresa Cori • Deborah • Anita Diamant • Phyllis Diller • Delia Ephron • Marcia Falk • Dianne Feinstein • Anne Frank • Rosalind Franklin • Anna Freud • Betty Friedan • Carol Gilligan • Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Rebecca Gratz • Blu Greenberg • Erica Jong • Frida Kahlo • Donna Karan • Faye Kellerman • Carole King • Ann Landers • Este Lauder • Emma Lazarus • Rosa Luxemburg • Golda Meir • Bette Midler • Miriam • Bess Myerson • Cynthia Ozick • Dorothy Parker • Belva Plain • Letty Cottin Pogrebin • Ayn Rand • Gilda Radner • Adrienne Rich • Joan Rivers • Ethel Rosenberg • Sandy Eisenberg Sasso • Hannah Senesh • Fanchon Shur • Raven Snook • Gertrude Stein • Barbra Streisand • Kerri Strug • Henrietta Szold • Barbara Tuchman • Barbara Walters • Dr. Ruth Westheimer • Naomi Wolf • Rosalyn Yalow • and many more …

From winners of Nobel Prizes and Oscars to lesser known but equally remarkable women from many countries and backgrounds, this book is an inspirational gateway to the thoughts and lives of Jewish women, both contemporary and ancient.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Judaism
• Wisdom
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 12 septembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781580235044
• Langue: English

Extrait

T HE Q UOTABLE
J EWISH W OMAN
Wisdom, Inspiration Humor from the Mind and Heart

E DITED AND C OMPILED BY
E LAINE B ERNSTEIN P ARTNOW
The Quotable Jewish Woman: Wisdom, Inspiration Humor from the Mind and Heart
2007 First Quality Paperback Printing 2004 First Hardcover Printing 2004 by Elaine Bernstein Partnow
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information regarding permission to reprint material from this book, please mail or fax your request in writing to Jewish Lights Publishing, Permissions Department, at the address / fax number listed below, or e-mail your request to [e-mail] .
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The quotable Jewish woman : wisdom, inspiration humor from the mind and heart / [compiled by] Elaine Bernstein Partnow. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-58023-193-0 (hardcover) ISBN-10: 1-58023-193-4 (hardcover) 1. Jewish women-Quotations. I. Partnow, Elaine. PN6081.5.Q58 2004 808.8'99287'089924-dc22
2004006431
ISBN-13: 978-1-58023-236-4 (quality pbk.) ISBN-10: 1-58023-236-1 (quality pbk.)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cover Design: Jenny Buono
For People of All Faiths, All Backgrounds Published by Jewish Lights Publishing A Division of Longhill Partners, Inc. Sunset Farm Offices, Route 4, P.O. Box 237 Woodstock, VT 05091 Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] www.jewishlights.com
As I learned of the careers of some of the great women of Israel-of the Mendelssohn daughters, of Sarah Copia Sullam, Deborah Ascarelli, high in the councils of the Italian Court, of Rebecca Gratz, most beloved and honored woman of her time, who served as the model for Rebecca in Scott s Ivanhoe , of Emma Lazarus, equally beloved a century later, of Grace Aguilar and a host of others-a new pride possessed me. More cause for worship, more examples of nobility, richer race consciousness.
-R EBEKAH B ETTELHEIM K OHUT , My Portion: An Autobiography , 1927
I close my eyes and think of Grandma tasting a bit of her childhood each Chanukah when she prepared the latkes as her mother had made them before her.
My mother, my aunts, my own grandmothers float back to me, young and vibrant once more, making days holy in the sanctuaries of their kitchens, feeding me, cradling me, connecting me to the intricately plaited braid of their past, and even at this moment, looking down the corridor of what s to come, I see myself join them as they open their arms wide to enfold my children and grandchildren in their embrace.
-F AYE M OSKOWITZ , And the Bridge Is Love, 1991
To my wonderful and amazing sisters,

Susan Partnow
and Judith Partnow Hyman
The sparkle and warmth I see in their eyes
when they welcome the Shabbat queen
has kept Judaism alive for me
C ONTENTS

Introduction
Actors, Comedians Performers
Advertising, Image the Media
Age Aging
Anti-Semitism
Artists, the Arts Creativity
Beauty Appearance
Books, Writers Poetry
Celebrations Holidays
Celebrities, Heroes Sheroes
Change
Children
Cities States
Civil Rights, Social Movements Activism
Civilization Progress
Communication
Community Citizenship
Courage, Character Integrity
Cultures, Nationality Immigrants
Death Grief
Education Schools
Faith, Religion, the Bible Spirituality
Family Relatives
Fashion Shopping
Fathers Fatherhood
Feelings Attitudes
Feminism Women s Liberation
Food, Drink Diet
Freedom Democracy
Friendship
God
Good Evil
Good Times
Government Political Systems
Guilt, Innocence Conscience
Health Disease
Home Housekeeping
The Human Body Its Parts
Humor Comedy
Individuals, Self-Realization Human Nature
Intelligence, Memory the Mind
Israel Zionism
Jews Judaism
Language, Languages Words
Law Order
Life Events
Love Desire
Marriage, Husbands, Wives Divorce
Men
Money, Business Economics
Morality Ethics
Mothers Motherhood
Nations the World
Nature the Environment
Pets Animals
Politics, Politicians Leadership
Population Birth Control
Racism, Sexism Other Prejudices
Relationships the Sexes
Science History
Sex Sexuality
Show Biz, Sports Entertainment
Society Social Classes
Stories Myths
Success, Dreams Achievement
Time-Past, Future Other Dimensions
Truth, Lies Superstitions
United States of America
Violence Rape
War, Weapons the Military
Women
Work Working
Youth Adolescence
Biographical Index
Glossary
List of Full Abbreviated Titles
Index of Women Quoted

About Jewish Lights
Copyright
I NTRODUCTION

Few who are reading these words are not familiar with the prayer uttered by Orthodox men in shul, Lord, I thank thee that I was not born a woman. * Some may also have knowledge of the Apostle Paul s admonition that women be silent in church. To both statements, I say, Why? Women have been silenced for centuries, from the immolation of an estimated five million women during the Inquisition to the prohibition against owning property, having a bank account, and voting-the latter in place in our own country up until less than a hundred years ago and still in place in much of the world.
It has become my life s work to search for the voices of women and place them before the public, in books and in performance. This journey naturally leads to history books, where I have found very little mention of women in general; the same has held true in books about Jewish history. Of course, the Four Matriarchs and the Prophetesses are de rigueur , as are Golda Meir; Anne Frank; usually Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah; and Emma Lazarus, whose poetry is so famously enshrined on the base of the Statue of Liberty. But beyond that- bubkes , or close to it. For example, in The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America by Lawrence J. Epstein (2001), of the 356 people cited, 68 were women, 43 of whom were Jewish (even though, on the cover, it pictures two-Roseanne Barr and Gertrude Berg-along with seven men). Rabbi Benjamin Blech, who authored two books for The Complete Idiot s Guide series- Jewish History and Culture and Understanding Judaism , both 1999 publications-barely mentions any women. The Big Book of Jewish Humor by William Novak and Moshe Waldoks came out in 1981. Okay, a long time ago-but, what?-there weren t plenty of women humorists and comics back then? Yet of the 60 or so cited, only one-Judith Viorst-is included. Even the old classic Pride of Our People , a 1979 biographical dictionary of 100 outstanding Jewish men and women, by David C. Gross, did better than that, profiling 14 women. Thank heaven for the likes of Lilith magazine; Ma yan, The Jewish Women s Project ( http://www.mayan.org/mayan.asp ); the Jewish Women s Archive ( http://www.jwa.org ); and all the wonderful books that have been published in the last fifteen years or so about Jewish women, many of which are cited in these pages, else we might be truly invisible to the greater public eye.
C RITERIA
I have become a real maven of women s quotations, this being my sixth collection (the first five were subsequent editions of The Quotable Woman ). The work has always inspired me but perhaps never so much as with this collection. If tikkun olam is the true mission of the Jews, our raison d etre, then the women in this book are messengers of that mission. In biblical times they may have been called prophetesses, as were Deborah, Huldah, and Miriam, whose words appear here. All of the women whose works contributed to these pages, be they scholarly or social, literary or theatrical, political or spiritual, have helped heal the world with their ideas, their activism, their service, their talent, and their labor, bringing tears and laughter, thought and reason to a world sorely in need of all these.
My upbringing was not an especially observant one: we attended the synagogue on high holidays and lit the menorah at Chanukah. I went to Sunday school and was confirmed. The year of my confirmation, I attended special classes where I had arguments with my rabbi, who defined a good Jew as one who went to shul. In these pages I make no judgments as to whether or not some of the sources of the quotes were good Jews, bad Jews, or apathetic Jews. Wherever their personal faith has led them, they are Jewish women who have been notable in their lifetimes. You will find women born and raised Jewish who have become secular; women born and raised Jewish who are observant in some fashion-whether Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, or Reconstructionist; a few women who converted to Judaism, like Aviel Barclay, the sofer stam (Jewish ritual scribe), Marilyn Monroe, and Elizabeth Taylor; some, like newspaper columnist Susan Jacoby, who did not discover their Jewish roots until adulthood; and many half-Jews, like Gloria Steinem, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Frida Kahlo, and Muriel Spark, some of whom have chosen to identify as Jews or at least acknowledge their Jewishness, others of whom have paid it no heed whatsoever. There were a few women I came across who were, I felt sure from a variety of indications, Jewish, but as I had no real evidence to support my belief, and as these particular women had clearly chosen not to identify as Jews, they have not been included.
I was often astonished to discover that someone I was quite familiar with from my previous probings into women s history, or my exposure to the world at large, was Jewish, when I had had no idea before: Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Gerty Cori, financial adviser Sylvia Porter, actor Simone Signoret, writer-editor Robin Morgan, philosopher-writer Ayn Rand, singer Laura Nyro, actor Winona Ryder. And then there were the women whom I d never heard of before: