Category — Feminist

It wouldn’t be a Jew-fight if this one wasn’t calling that one a Nazi and the receiving side wasn’t taking great umbrage.

The haredim called the feminists at the Western Wall “Nazis,” and needless to say, the feminists are reeling in horrified pain, and the JTA and the Forward are dutifully reporting this “news” story.

Glad things are relatively slow right now in the Jewish world. When Jews calling Jews Nazis makes the Forward and the JTA, it means nothing is currently going “kaboom.”

Now sit back and wait for the ADL to condemn the incident, and for someone at Jewschool to reprint the JTA story with barely a sentence of original content, and we’ll call it a day.

Dana Goldstein asks,

Why is it that even as Jews have assimilated and rejected many religious practices, such as strict Kashrut, we continue, as a community, to cling to circumcision?

Does Dana accept any other male-only ritual? Or just the one that involves penis slicing? Like most other Liberal Jewish feminists?

Keep in mind, these are the responses of a woman whose “endorsed” section includes such oh-so-gender-sensitive publications as Feminist Law Professors, Feministe, and Feministing.

Goldstein gives some typical responses.

But there’s also a deep emotional tie to circumcision; a feeling of pride that Jews are physically marked as such — that a Jewish man can never totally escape his Jewishness, because it is inscribed on his body through circumcision. During the Holocaust, this was one way in which Jews were identified by the Nazis. We Jews are rightfully attached to that history. One of my friends, who is studying to become a rabbi, recently told me he considers circumcision the single most important Jewish religious obligation.

Her answers don’t reflect the true answer. The true answer is quite simple.

Jews continue to “cling” to circumcision in such large numbers because the kid can’t refuse. That is the only reason. There is no other reason. If Jewish circumcision were done at age 18 or 21, the circumcision rate for Jews would drop dramatically.

Izzy is not happy that Jewish women’s accomplishments are devalued if they don’t also have babies. Izzy notes,

Maybe we Jewish feminists should be less worried about the fact that online dating is an impersonal experience, and more worried about how even in this enlightened age — a time when egalitarianism is utterly the norm in some strains of Judaism, e.g. the female-rabbi–dominated Reform movement — we’re still haranguing women to work those wombs.

Leaving aside that from a Jewish communal perspective, I don’t think we devalue these women enough, let’s consider Izzy’s issue. Now, Reform Judaism isn’t really egalitarian in the first place, but it is feminist.

So why don’t liberal Jews stop “haranguing� these women?

Because every civilization – even a feminist one – wants to survive. It wants to continue to exist. And it wants its descendants to be a part of that same civilization.

So…if a man or woman (even a feminist) has children, she will want to make sure there is a critical mass of appropriate mates and members to support necessary infrastructure — like hipster Jewish websites that feature essays that pretend we don’t care about babies even as they steer people to dating sites where they can meet others with whom to make Jewish babies with. Because the way things are going here, that isn’t going to be so easy, unless they are willing to go Ortho, which isn’t always the same civilization in many ways, and it certainly isn’t feminist.

So these things called children are required. And we have a shortage. And the most qualified to help are the ladies.

And if you have no hopes or demands of continuation of our civilization, then why the hell did you bother becoming a rabbi in the first place? Even a Reform one?

So maybe, Izzy, you should be less worried that “we’re still haranguing women to work those wombs,� and more worried about how to successfully harangue women to work those wombs.

As we start the new cycle of the Torah, replete with strong and distinct matriarchs, we must remember that many in the Reform Jewish community are not able to read Hebrew, have not studied the Chumash, but know that it is very sexist.

Fortunately, there is a new “A Women’s Commentary,� and though it won’t be read by many outside of narrow academic circles and Reform clergy (the Reform masses are not particularly devoted to old scrolls), it will function to plagiarize offer alternative ideas through modern interpretations.

The JTA reports,

“How many people know that when the Torah describes Abraham mourning the death of Sarah, it’s the only time in the entire text that a man mourns a woman?�

Now sexist apologists might note that when Miriam died, they no longer had a well running in her merit, and all sorts of rock abuse occurred in exasperation, and the whole camp in its entirety mourned. But that’s different! The whole camp is not one man! Gotcha, traditionalists!

“Or that Adam and Eve were equal partners in crime?�

Clearly, the JTA and “A Women’s Commentary” is correct. When G-d kicked both their asses out of paradise, we thought this was because G-d wasn’t sure who was at fault, and that He was simply administering collective punishment.

And there is more! Much more.

More than traditional commentaries, the new volume will focus on women when they’re in the text of the Torah — and also when they’re glaringly absent, editor Tamara Cohn Eskenazi said.

For instance, Chayei Sarah deals with the death of Sarah and the courting of Rebecca. Abraham’s slave finds Rebecca at a well, where she offers him water, and he asks her family if he can take her back to Canaan to wed Abraham’s son.

The women’s commentary is careful to point out that Rebecca gives her consent. Rebecca is an active, not passive, character from her very introduction in the Torah, the commentary says.

This is a fascinating chiddush. Most of us assumed that Rebecca, credited as a heroine among depravity, was, in fact, abducted against her will at the well, according to Abraham’s directive.

So how about that. She actually said “yes,� and was not wed against her will in flagrant violation of Jewish law, both in terms of forcing a marriage and kidnapping.

Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch!

And there is this as well,

While the description of Eve being created from Adam’s rib is commonly taken as a sign of Eve’s inferiority, it’s more a statement of their equality, she says. They’re described in Genesis 1:26-28 as being of the same flesh, both “created in God’s image and blessed with fertility and power.

Amazing what brand spanking new ideas the Reform can come up with when someone actually checks the Hebrew version. Fortunately, that won’t happen with most of their constituents, so by all means, present these very modern new egalitarian insights as your own.

If I were a Reform rabbi, I would do exactly what these women are doing. Steal from commentaries throughout the ages and claim I am writing an updated socially modern one.

Who’s going to check? It ain’t in the King James version!