The first time I found myself in a synagogue with a Mechitza, I was pretty confused. My father had brought me to Shaarei Tfiloh because he’d heard they were having trouble getting ten men together to pray, and he wanted to help. The community that had once belonged to the synagogue was mostly gone or dead, and as an Orthodox shul in a no-longer-Jewish-neighborhood, there weren’t enough Jews who could walk to the building anymore. So it was dying.
There I sat, peering at my dad from afar, trying to figure out what was going on. I didn’t figure it out of course. I was offended by being separated and left alone. It seemed archaic and chauvinistic to me. So I avoided seeing another Mechitza for years and years.
But then in Iowa, we had one at Hillel, because we had an orthodox service on Saturdays… and I had to rethink the wall. I had to try and find a way to see it as something besides a burka, a chastity belt, a ban on birth control.
I never fully came to a place of embracing the Mechitza, but I’ve since discovered that there are ways of thinking about it differently. It no longer upsets me to be around one. And there are resources out there… considered feminist voices supporting the Mechitza. I wanted to point you to a few of them today.
A synagogue in Jerusalem Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance A blogger worth meeting, and another one And oh, hell… it looks like someone already made a list!
Now… maybe tomorrow we’ll talk about the Mikveh…