But the Orthodox community is diverse, with diverse beliefs, including feminists and advocates against dangerous extremism. Take Shoshanna Keats-Jaskoll, co-founder of the Orthodox organization Chochmat Nashim, which directly translates to “women’s wisdom.” 

Although she was born in Lakewood, New Jersey, a very traditional Orthodox community whose practices oft border on extreme, Keats-Jaskoll did not grow up religious, and therefore was not a witness to this extremism. Her drive to oppose extremism, she says, came later in life. However, justice has always been a core value of hers. Her grandparents, Holocaust survivors, inspired her not to stand idly by as others were being hurt. When Keats-Jaskoll joined the Haredi Beit Shemesh community in Israel, she first encountered extreme behavior taking place, for example, in the form of women and girls’ erasure in images and her young daughters pressured to sit in the backs of buses. Keats-Jaskoll subsequently arrived at the conclusion that the driving force behind the behavior was not Torah, but a desire to control. “There was just a sense that the Torah and the Judaism that I loved was being used for abusive purposes by those who wanted to control others,” she says. 

It spurred a revolution.

Chochmat Nashim was born after several factors came together for Keats-Jaskoll. Serving as the physical representative for her aunt, whose husband, in refusing to give her a get (Jewish divorce document), had fled to Israel and left her an agunah (chained woman), Keats-Jaskoll experienced disillusionment in the religious court and leadership. This, combined with an influx of letters from people who read her blog in the Times of Israel, telling her about how they had noticed similar extremism on the rise within their own religious communities, led Keats-Jaskoll to co-found Chochmat Nashim. Chochmat Nashim is an organization dedicated to fighting extremism within Orthodoxy and fighting for women and their rights. What makes Chochmat Nashim unique is the internal nature of the advocacy. When calls for change come from within the house, it is more likely to be perceived as originating from a genuine desire to help and improve, as opposed to external critiques, which are perceived as empty criticisms intended to belittle its practitioners. It is therefore less likely to be viewed as an attack and more likely to be heard. When there is a social problem plaguing the community, responses from within are more welcome.

Chochmat Nashim’s initiatives include the creation of a photo bank of ordinary Orthodox women, designed to counter the extremist erasure of women in Orthodox publications; a subtle campaign inside the Haredi world for breast cancer awareness, intended to encourage women to get checked; fighting for other agunot (women who are victims of get refusal), and a project for women to write more articles in spheres wherein female contributions to Torah insights may have gone unnoticed. Most recently, following the breaking news of the Chaim Walder case, Chochmat Nashim was involved with the distribution of flyers raising awareness of sexual assault and the dangers of including the Biblical prohibition against gossip in the dialogue around sexual abuse. 

Chaim Walder was a well-known children’s book author and therapist in the Haredi world, who was accused of serial sexual abuse of women and children over the course of decades in an exposè by Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. Following a conviction by a Safed rabbinical court, Walder committed suicide. In the aftermath, the Haredi community varied in response to the allegations. Some newspapers reported on his death without mentioning the accusations, painting him as a hero; others included them. 

In general, Walder’s death prompted a wave of discourse on the appropriate response to sexual abuse within the Haredi world. Some, including anonymous Haredi women working on this campaign alongside Keats-Jaskoll, were horrified by the seemingly halfhearted responses to sexual abuse in their communities. Others cited the halachic prohibition against gossip as a reason not to discuss allegations or, presumably, address them. This notion is exacerbated by the old adage that lashon hara kills, and is therefore equivalent to murder. Keats-Jaskoll, in countering that concern, describes a hypothetical scenario in which a young Haredi boy sitting in school will, upon hearing this, think to himself, “Wow, I’m so happy I didn’t tell anyone that so-and-so touched me. And now I never will.”

The Haredi community is saying, ‘you’re not sacrificing our children anymore for the klal, for the entirety.’

In some cases, says Keats-Jaskoll, “anything that could bring harm to the community as a whole has to be stopped, regardless of who’s harmed in that process,” the community’s needs being prioritized over individuals’. There has been a change in sentiments brought about with the Walder case. Now, says Keats-Jaskoll, “the Haredi community is saying, ‘you’re not sacrificing our children anymore for the klal, for the entirety.’” A line has been drawn. No longer will Haredi people stand by as sexual predators’ crimes are brushed off, ignored under the guise of avoiding gossipmongering. To advertise the cause and their support for victims of sexual abuse, Haredi women put up fliers offering support to victims of sexual assault, redirecting them to available resources. As the community deeply values halacha, Jewish law, as well as the perspectives of Rabbinic authorities, they will sometimes obtain Rabbinic approval in order to address sensitivities of the Haredi world. A set of fliers that were put up quoted Rabbinic statements, elaborating on the importance of reporting sexual assault, and affirming that reporting sexual abuse does not violate the laws of lashon hara.

In the long run, Chochmat Nashim’s goal is to fight extremism and protect Orthodoxy. Extremism begins, says Keats-Jaskoll, by targeting the most vulnerable members of society, women and children. But when the most vulnerable members of society are treated fairly, that serves as indication that Chochmat Nashim has done its job. “When women are back in pictures in Orthodox publications, and there’s a systemic solution for Jewish divorce, so that no one’s trapped in marriage,” says Keats-Jaskoll, “I’m happy to close my doors.”

Change on the ground starts with change in the conversation.

It is clear that Chochmat Nashim has had an impact in recent years. “Change on the ground starts with change in the conversation,” says Keats-Jaskoll. And the conversation has changed. Various individuals have reached out to the organization to thank them for providing the words and the terminology to discuss their feelings. Members of the community reach out to Chochmat Nashim for advice on how to make change–and it works. Some people have even thanked Chochmat Nashim for being the reason that they did not leave Orthodoxy.

“I see change in the community wanting to take action, meaning they’re not sitting silently,” says Keats-Jaskoll. “They want to know, ‘How do I make personal change?’ As opposed to waiting for change from the top-down, I see a real movement of people wanting to make change within, bottom-up.”

The Orthodox community is complex. It isn’t easy to maintain a millenia-old legacy in a new world, and we will not always agree on the best approach. But we are, as one, driven by the beauty of our religion and committed to following its ways. Chochmat Nashim is a perfect example of the struggle to preserve our values, keep our faith, while simultaneously keeping a balanced, healthy Orthodoxy.

The post Preserving Tradition, Rejecting Extremism appeared first on Jewcy.

“Judy Lansky likes ‘At the Well.’” This information didn’t strike me as particularly significant as I read it on Facebook a few weeks ago, but I “liked” along.

Back then I knew little of Rosh Chodesh, the new Jewish month and its significance to women. I wasn’t aware of Timbrel, At the Well’s upcoming inaugural retreat. And I knew nothing of the glorious red tent I’d find myself in, full of meditation cushions, and candles, and comprising the entire space of the Jubilee room of a retreat center just outside Baltimore.

I received an invitation to attend just after Thanksgiving, the Instagram post reading, “We’re planting seeds and sparking a clear path forward at the intersection of physical health and spirituality, and we’re rooting it all in Jewish wisdom.” I appreciated the sentiment, the metaphor, and the mention of scholarships.

The logo was a series of circles evoking the cycle of the moon, combined to create a timbrel, the biblical word for a tambourine. I thought of Miriam, and the (Debbie Friedman version of) Mi Chamocha. Later I learned there was a third meaning hidden in the branding, a reference to At the Well’s mission to gather women around the world in well(ness) circles for self-care and spirituality.

It was the confluence of holistic self-care and religion that intrigued me. As did the promise of “explorations of Jewish notions of divine femininity” and “dance parties.” My Judaism and spirituality didn’t often cohabitate, and that gap left me feeling disconnected, unsure where to go for guidance. I craved unification. I reached out for more information, but didn’t pull the trigger to enroll.

The initial inspiration for At the Well, an organization founded just a few years ago, was to update Rosh Chodesh materials, and connect Jewish women to their bodies, and one another. From there it’s grown into an international community, addressing health, mental health, and holiness. Timbrel would take that to the next level, bringing together women from across the world to connect deeply over a three-day retreat, this new organization reviving ancient ritual.

I was intrigued, but unsure. I learned about the opportunity while traveling, and wanted desperately to reclaim my routine, and sleep in my own bed. On my way home to Michigan I stopped briefly in New York to visit my parents.

“We’re worried about you,” they told me. At 32 their parenting concerns hadn’t lessened as much as morphed. “You stop yourself from doing things,” my mother continued. “You’ve made a set of choices that have left you with increasingly limited options.” I listened, absorbing what I could, as they continued a somewhat one-sided conversation about my career, finances, partner, and life choices.

They couldn’t fully see me. But they could see my uncertainty — what I held beneath the surface but hadn’t realized I couldn’t hide.

That night I retreated. Closing the door of the guest bedroom, I pulled on my coziest pajamas, and cried out loud. I wanted anything but to experience the pain of feeling feelings, and questioning my life path, but now I looked at it head-on.

I felt a pull to go outside into the dark night. In bare feet, wearing only snowflake pajamas, I took three deep breaths as I raised my face and arms to the moon.

The moon. Timbrel. My mother’s words played in my head. It came to me like a deep knowing: I had to go. The origination of the message was unclear, but I understood it, and obeyed. I signed up for the retreat mere hours before registration closed.

That’s how I found myself in a room full of women, beneath the tent. Lights twinkled from above in swathes of red fabric, mimicking the glow of starlight. My heart skipped a beat when I first saw it — the recognition of something new, yet uncannily familiar. I sat on the cushions, my hips aching but my heart happy. On Friday, just a few hours before Shabbat and the fourth night of Chanukah, I settled in for the weekend, and awaited a miracle.

I knew no one attending, and little of what to expect. The founder introduced herself. Sarah— Sarah Waxman. Then another Sarah emceed, her schtick light and funny and warm. They both had traveled from the West Coast but quickly made this space feel like home, joined by women from around the world. Another Sarah, this one from DC, sat beside me on the plush rug.

There were so many of us, almost eighty in total, interested in an embodied, progressive, present experience of our Judaism. Six Sarahs all told, as well as multiple Hannahs, and Rachels, and Miriams. All of us our own people, as well as one another’s people. All of us individuals, and connecting in a long line of matriarchs harkening back to the very first: Sarah.

Sarah (Waxman) shared the creation story of this community for women. She talked about our communal disconnection from the planet, and from our bodies. She spoke of modern questions with ancient answers. Of mikvahs, moon cycles, and menstruation. Of rabbis, Rosh Chodesh, and red tents, and of vulvas, and orgasms, and well circles.

She referenced the moon and the water, inextricably linked. The moon controlling the tides and cycles. The water serving as a life force and meeting space. Both bringing all of us together. The weekend continued with workshops, prayer in meditation and movement, and communal rest. That night, after Havdalah, the dark room brightened as we lit candles for Hanukkah. A guitar began to strum, and the group broke into song. Dancers erupted from the crowd, first in pairs, then circles, then concentric circles moving in opposite directions.

“And the women dancing with their timbrels followed Miriam as she sang her song…
The voices rose, and the floors shook. The candles flickered, but remained lit.
“…Miriam and the women danced, and danced the whole night long.”

I could barely sing, barely move, barely breathe. A sensation welled up so strongly in my body I could have sobbed. Something latent was activated within me, and I knew I’d opened a door, and an opportunity. This singular moment was thousands of years in the making.

In a sea of Sarahs I awakened. Old parts, and new parts, and pieces just being realized and coming into being. “Sarahs start shit,” I spoke aloud to the founder, thinking back to the original biblical babe. “Yes,” she smiled back at me. “In tents.” I was being called to serve as a leader.

The retreat has ended, but my awakening has just begun. I come from a long line of Sarahs, have a new community of them, and get to explore and express what it means to simply be me. In writing, in speaking, in tracking my cycle, and in dance moves. In song, conversation, well circles, and being part of the longest-running book club out there. As a daughter, a therapist, a woman, and a Jew. I’m reminded that to sense the deepest messages within us sometimes we need a mirror to show us what we cannot see, like the moon’s reflection on the water.  

I rediscovered myself during a weekend where no one knew me, and everyone had my name. And by doing so, I found a new path to take. One that goes forward and backward – to the future of Jewish femininity and spirituality, and to the past in an unwavering line of strong-willed and wild women.

Hineni. I found me. I am here. I am whole.

Photo by Shana Gee-Cohen

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The new Hulu show The Handmaid’s Tale – based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood – is, like other dystopian stories, a warning. It paints a picture of a possible future society in which women are fired from their jobs, their money is taken by the government, and they’re forced into servitude to men. Their oppression is perpetuated by strict rules like dress codes and curfews. At first glance, anyone could call this future ridiculous and impossible. But the point of portraying these hypothetical societies is to to take a critical look at our own: our culture in anyway similar to The Handmaid’s Tale, in which we oppress women?

The answer is, obviously, yes. Women are policed all the time, from their reproductive choices to their clothing choices. And a recent example in the New York ultra-Orthodox community looks like a step down the road towards the dystopic nation of Gilead.

Recently, an all-girls Haredi high school called Bnos Menachem in Crown Heights issued a dress code. It’s not unusual for a school to require this of their students, but this time, it wasn’t for their students. It was for the moms of their students.

The school had an already-established dress code for parents, which included covering the elbows and collarbones, covering their feet, and wearing a sheitel. (The policy also requires parents to agree to a “TV free home policy,” and to monitor and restrict videos and Internet usage.) Apparently, the women must have been taking extreme advantage of the leeway in this policy, because Bnos Menachem decided to step it up a notch – or twelve.

The school sent home a new policy with a letter to the moms (for both the mothers and fathers to sign) with requirements like, “shaital length should not exceed the shoulder blades,” (the underlining meaning they’re serious,) and, “nail polish should be conservative/soft colors.” Because of course, the louder nail polish colors might incite women to have a voice and speak out against bullshit.

Unfortunately for Bnos Menachem, that didn’t work. Women of the community began sharing their opinions about the new restrictions. Some were infuriated, but some were definitely less triggered. Of course, men, as they are wont to do, weighed in on the woman’s issue as well. Crownheights.info, a news website for Haredi Jews, became the main forum for people to write in and give their two cents.

One woman who opposed the new policy from within the community was Chaya Sara Waldman. She asked how “a man, especially a frum man and a chossid – could ever imagine it appropriate to speak to a woman about her body?” (Yaaas, Chaya Sara!) She argued that other issues are more pressing of the community’s attention than whether a woman’s skirt is cotton or denim:

“To me, more appalling than denim, is the eight-year-old boy who has been bullied since he was four. More obscene than a three-year-old girl’s bare calf, is the shameless conspicuous consumptionism [sic] of a bar mitzvah I recently attended… More dreadful than red nail polish, is the silent serpent of poverty that poisons the happiness of young families who can barely make ends meet… More alarming than a tight skirt is the rampant consumption of alcohol by our children in yeshivos.”

One man who couldn’t resist weighing in was Rabbi Avrohom Brashevitzky. Rather than commenting on whether he agreed with the policy, he chose to address the people who were angered by it. He argued that parents have a choice in which school they send their children to, writing, “you don’t like the school – you don’t send your child there.” He also provided a metaphor of following an airline’s instructions while flying to following the policies of a school.

“Imagine buying an airline ticket and demanding consideration from the airline for your own choices, such as not using the seat belt or to remain standing in the aisles for entire duration of the flight. If you CHOOSE to fly – you have to follow the rules! No one is forcing anyone to travel; certainly not with a particular airline.”

Regardless of what Rabbis or other women think, it’s important to listen to the people this directly affects–the mothers of Bnos Menachem. One wrote an op-ed anonymously. She agreed with Rabbi Brashevitzky – she thinks that the school has a right to set their standards. However, she also believes that woman should be able to look fashionable. “I want my daughter to feel pretty and confident and not to be embarrassed of her mother who looks like a ‘nerd,’” she wrote. While the school argued that the dress code for mothers will allow them to be role models for their daughters, this mom argued that it’s in being “beautiful and Tznius” that she’ll encourage her daughter to have similar values.

You could say that this woman, who believes in “classy, light colors only” for her nail polish and chose to speak anonymously, shows internalized sexism. But that wouldn’t be a feminist standpoint. She has a choice, and can choose a life of religiosity and modesty. But I still wonder if she’s just drinking the kool-aid.

At least the girls of Bnos Menachem wear uniforms. I hope they’ll be able to put of the stress of picking out the right skirt – and deciding whether dress codes are empowering or oppressive – for at least a little longer.

Photo from a fascinating piece from Lehraus, about the oft-used facetious argument that strict modesty rules are the way it’s always been, when instead there’s been revisionism to hide a more liberal past. The above photo was photoshopped to give sleeves to Bais Yaakov girls in the 1940s.

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Are you a girl who is interested in building friendships with other girls who are not Muslims? Would you like to learn new skills, but not with Jews? Are you against reproductive, gay, and transgender rights? Have your parents examined their consciences, and determined that purchasing Girl Scout cookies negates the values of the Gospel? Then the American Heritage Girls (sic!) are the group for you! In joining, you can personally participate, with the help of well-meaning and irrevocably prejudiced adult mentors, in turning back the clock on human rights, and in undermining an over one hundred year old organization historically committed to empowering girls and women.

The media has covered the recent decision by the archdiocese of Kansas City to definitively cut ties with the Girl Scouts. While the Catholic Church has long been a major sponsor of scouting troops, their hierarchy has more recently stated their aggressive opposition to the Girl Scouts U.S.A.

In 2016 the St. Louis archdiocese took the more tentative step of discouraging Catholics from participation in Girl Scouting, even suggesting that they refrain from buying the delicious cookies which support secular humanist values. An FAQ section on the St. Louis archdiocese website explains concisely the root of the problem: Girl Scouts U.S.A. is affiliated with WAGGGS, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, an internationalist group with border-transcending powers to advance its agenda, including gay and transgender rights, sex education, and access to birth control.

Lest you misunderstand the mission of this global conspiracy, the St. Louis website explains it to you: “Once again, we see ‘reproductive’ as code language; these groups are really advocating for access to abortion and birth control.” The male hierarchy of the Catholic Church has explained to its members that the scary code word “reproductive” must be handled in quotes.

If you were not scared off Girl Scouting by this point, the website “reproduces” (sorry!) the above Instagram image (originally a gif) which GSUSA posted after the Supreme Court upheld marriage equality: the phrase “Love Wins” in multicolored letters above a sea of dancing cookies.

Yet the most disturbing attribute of Girl Scouting to some of the Church hierarchy is not sex without the possibility of reproduction, but rather encouraging girls to emulate strong role models. Both the St. Louis and Kansas City archdioceses single out two women as particularly antithetical to Catholic values: Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. These Jewish feminist leaders embody everything which the Church views as destructive: female social and economic independence, reproductive rights, and international advocacy on behalf of women’s and human rights.

So what’s a Catholic Girl Scout to do?  To be clear, any religious group has a perfect right to develop its own youth program, strictly dedicated to advancing specific beliefs and principles. Yet Catholic participation in GSUSA had always been predicated on the special character of Girl Scouting as a movement which is flexible in accommodating each girl’s faith tradition, as well as in providing opportunities for girls of different religions to celebrate what they share in common. The Girl Scouts have even designed religious recognitions, pins which girls may earn for dedication to their own traditions: Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, many different Protestant denominations, and Roman Catholic.

However, this encouragement of religious diversity no longer seems to meet the needs of the Catholic Church, which has suggested as an alternative organization the dishonestly named American Heritage Girls. Unlike GSUSA, an inclusive organization which has, since 1993, allowed Girl Scouts to substitute an alternative name, phrase, or idea for service to God in their official pledge, the AHG, around since 1995, is explicitly Christian. Its “Statement of Faith” demands belief in a triune God (the three in one version not shared by Jews, Muslims, and other faiths), and also asks girls to pledge to “reserve sexual activity to the sanctity of marriage,” defined as, you guessed it, “between a man and a woman.” (It is significant that a program allegedly appalled by the sinister values of a secular society asks young girls to explicitly address sexuality in a way which is completely outside of the scope of traditional Girl Scouting.)

There are many disturbing aspects of this alternative to Girl Scouts U.S.A. Founded in 1912 by Juliette Gordon Low, Girl Scouting was created as an affirmation of the ability of girls and women to participate in all spheres along with men: technology, outdoor activities, scholarship, culture, arts. Perhaps the most outrageous component of the American Heritage Girls is their appropriation of role models for their “Level Awards.” This attempt to co-opt American icons as part of an indoctrination program in anti-American values includes the Sacagewea, Lewis and Clark (they’re not even girls!), and, perhaps most reprehensibly, Harriet Tubman awards. In an alternative version of “American heritage,” the courageous Native American guide confronting U.S. expansionism, and the soldier of abolitionism and the Underground Railroad, are models of idealized “purity” and adherence to retrograde values which limit the choices of women. (Sacagewea was born into a Native American faith tradition; it is unclear whether her “marriage” as an adolescent to Toussaint Charbonneau promoted her belief in a triune God.)

If you are wavering between GSUSA and the AHG, perhaps it is time to buy some cookies, and enjoy them while reading or re-reading the Girl Scout Law:

Girl Scout Law

I will do my best to be
    honest and fair,
    friendly and helpful,
    considerate and caring, 
    courageous and strong, and
    responsible for what I say and do, 
and to 
    respect myself and others, 
    respect authority,
    use resources wisely,
    make the world a better place, and 
    be a sister to every Girl Scout.

The post ‘American Heritage Girls’— It’s Girl Scouts. For Bigots! appeared first on Jewcy.

This past Sunday in a rented storefront in Crown Heights, Vaybertaytsh, a podcast which producer Sandy Fox bills as “the first—as far as we know— Yiddish speaking, feminist radio program” celebrated the release of its second season.

Before it was a podcast, “Vaybertaytsh” – literally “translations for women” in Yiddish—was a term once used for commentaries on Torah written by Hebrew-literate Ashkenazi men for their Yiddish-speaking women wives (and other women) who were unlikely to learn the “Loshnkoydesh” (“holy tongue”) themselves. “Vaybertaytsh” also came at times to refer to the language of Yiddish itself, one of many names the “jargon” (another slang term for Yiddish) went by.

This podcast is a project of reclamation of the word.  Women themselves become the teachers, “flipping the concept of ‘vaybertaytsh’ on its head,” says Fox, “explaining and commenting on our own terms.” Interviews in the first season included a midwife serving the Hasidic community, a female cantor  for the renewal movement in Germany, and several international attendees of the Women’s March last January.

These interviews and conversations take place entirely in Yiddish, and the podcast draws guests mainly from the international community of Yiddishists, a group which speaks Yiddish in order to preserve the language. The Yiddishist movement began at the turn of the 20th century as activists and scholars sought to “legitimize” what was at the time seen as a “low” tongue, spoken by unsophisticated people—and women. “Those scholars were primarily men whose mission was to de-feminize Yiddish, to distance the language from its association with women as a ‘mameloshn,’ [or ‘mom’s tongue’],” Fox told me.

Sandy Fox, who also goes by the Yiddish name Sosye, describes Vaybertaytsh both as a continuation and a refutation of that philosophy. Just as these men sought to produce mainstream literature and journalism in Yiddish, Fox creates episodes of Vaybertaytsh available for download on any podcast app.

But unlike this earlier wave of Yiddishists, Fox does not shy from association with women or the home. The pilot opens with a tribute to the Riot Grrrl music movement , and another episode in the first season is devoted to a conversation between women who have lost their mothers on their memories of those women.

Nor does Fox insist on a rigid grammatical purity, as the first wave of many turn-of-the-century Yiddishists did. “I don’t really believe there is such a thing as ‘authentic’ Yiddish,” she says, “and it can be uncomfortable to speak perfect clinical Yiddish.” Vaybertaytsh’s opening episode contains a kind of non-apology for any grammatical “mistakes” the podcast may make: “Let’s simply feel free to speak” says Fox in the first episode (in of course, Yiddish). Creating something new is “too important to wait for a perfect Yiddish.”

As a Yiddish learner who speaks with less than perfect grammar, this stance excites me. More than once I have lost my train of thought while speaking due to interruptions correcting my grammar. While such interruptions are kindly meant and an important part of the language-learning process, they can make communication a little exhausting. “Often it’s been men serving as the gatekeepers,” Fox notes.  That gate-keeping can turn people away from actually speaking the language, something the relatively small community of Yiddishists arguably cannot afford.

At the second season’s release party, Fox welcomed non-Yiddish-fluent guests to “Yiddishland” before continuing entirely in Yiddish, while translations in English appeared onscreen behind her. “Maybe it seems weird, considering the fact that we all speak English. But such is the way of the Yiddishists,” the screen read, “Welcome to our world.”

The default language of the night was Yiddish, with a “learner’s couch” equipped with a dictionary. Party attendees schmoozed over the food, the drinks,  and the choice of women’s social justice groups to which to donate the nights proceeds (the winner was Days for Girls), all in Yiddish of varying fluency. Emboldened by the podcast’s premise, I took my time forming clunky sentences for concepts that I might have communicated much faster in English. By the time the event ended, I was only rarely asking my conversational partners to repeat themselves.

One man asked me near the evening’s end how I had first encountered Vaybertaytsh. I told him I’d heard of it online, I’d been unsure if my language comprehension would be strong enough to follow along, but I eventually checked it out and was using it to train my ear. “And here I am!” I finished exuberantly. My conversational partner nodded. “Okay. But I didn’t mean the podcast—I meant the language.”

Rachel Wetter is an educator and history nerd living in New York who also goes by Rokhl.

Images via Facebook.

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When considering this year’s options, we realized Today is International Women’s Day (and the Women’s General Strike). And so, here are a list of Jewish women you should portray for Purim (though anyone of any gender can rock these looks!).

Specifically, these are fictional women, because 1) Reality is too weird and surreal right now, 2) These figures are culturally iconic, and 3) Someone at that party is already going to be the Notorious R.B.G., so you might as well go a different route:

Cher Horowitz belongs at the top of this list. Do we need to explain why? As if! Good luck picking just one look, though we suggest the yellow plaid. Besides, now is her time:

Baby Houseman from Dirty Dancing, OF COURSE! Wear a tank top and jean shorts, or capris with a shirt tied above your navel. When in doubt, carry a watermelon. Make a male partner wear all black and generally look like Patrick Swayze. Everybody wins. Bonus points for doing the lift.

Rebecca of York (from Ivanhoe) isn’t as big of a name as some of the others on this list, but she’s A) great and B) an excuse to recycle your garb from the Renaissance Faire (if you’re the type of person to choose this costume, you already have the dress). Plus, real life icon/Jewish woman Elizabeth Taylor played her— consider it a layered reference.

Batwoman, the superhero alter-ego of Kate Kane, is both Jewish, and gay— did you know? Rock the bodysuit. She has an A+ cape:

Kitty Pryde is another Jewish superhero (her queerness isn’t canon, but boy are there some convincing think pieces), and she has the benefit of changing her costume every freaking five minutes. Your possibilities are endless. And pretty please, someone, anyone, do the costume where she wears striped thigh-highs and roller skates.

Once, for Purim I dressed as how Kitty Pryde would dress if she were Wolverine for Purim. Yes, really:

Willow Rosenberg is the last niche, geeky choice on the list. But she’s a great one— gay, Jewish, a literal witch. Bonus points if you’re Vampire Willow (which also works if you have dark hair rather than red).

Fran Fine. Beehive. Leopard print. Nasal impersonation that will get you kicked out of a party. Go kill it.

Rhoda Morgenstern is one of the most important Jewish women on TV— way before Rebecca Bunch or Grace Adler, and boy did she have style. Find your most 70s shirt, and tie a scarf on your head. Voilà— an homage to Valerie Harper.

We confess that this list is disappointingly white— Jewish fictional characters skew way more homogeneous than we actually are, and rare Jews of color in media tend to be male. But there is Cristina Yang from Grey’s Anatomy who’s both Asian-American and Jewish (and scrubs and a name tag make for an easy costume). And written fiction offers significantly more options, like in the fantasy world of Shira Glassman (also, bonus points because it’s super queer). It’s not as obvious a choice as Cher, but we have to build our icons somehow.

Pretty please tweet us pictures of your costume! And hurry— you only have a few days left!

Images via Wikimedia, except for the embarrassing one of the writer, via Facebook.

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Editors Note: This is part 2 of our 2 essays on Jewish experience in the post-Inauguration Women’s March. Part 1 can be found here.

In the weeks leading up to the Women’s March on Washington this past Saturday, an online community of Jewish women formed and pooled resources for participating in a demonstration over Shabbat, organizing ride shares to D.C., arranging Friday night meals through friends and local synagogues, and posting updates on Jewish groups and institutions offering services and/or swag in support of the March. On the morning of January 21, 2017, they met outside Sixth & I Historic Synagogue and marched toward the National Mall with fellow Israelites of every age, gender, and affiliation, claiming the pavement of the United States capital like the chasm of the Red Sea out of Egypt toward Independence Avenue, where over the course of the next few hours Michael Moore taught America to memorize the number to call the office of any member of Congress, Cecile Richards pledged to keep Planned Parenthood’s doors open, the Mothers of the Movement rallied the audience in the names of their murdered children, Sophie Cruz led hundreds of thousands of voices chanting “¡Sí se puede!” in unison, Van Jones called for a movement based on love—“that mama-bear love”—and the ground shook with Angelique Kidjo singing Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

“This makes me proud to be a Jew,” my father—who insisted on wearing his own hot pink pussy hat the whole day—said quietly as we set out from the Chinatown Park rendezvous point, beaming at the signs quoting the Talmud, Deuteronomy, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Emma Goldman, Hillel, and other seminal Jewish texts and voices. As Orthodox Jews, my family had rushed to make our own posters Friday afternoon, before Shabbat began, checking the city’s eruv map to make sure we could carry them without violating our traditional observance, and coordinated with friends in advance to find one another at or after the march without our phones. “I haven’t come to Washington to protest since… Vietnam!” my parents’ friend Miriam, who had come on her own from the Bay Area, declared proudly as we neared the Mall, quickly making friends with the Jewish mothers and bubbes flanking our party who echoed her realization.

The skies were grey but the streets were vibrant: like a foal recognizes its mother by her stripes among a zeal of zebras, members of the assembly tracked their marching companions by the specific hue and texture of one another’s pussy hats amid a sea of pink wool, felt, and fleece. Cheers rippled through the crowd in call-and-response; strangers shared snacks from regulation clear plastic backpacks and introduced themselves by asking each other from where they had come. Volunteers handed out stickers and posters from Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Emily’s List, and flash mobs and faith groups burst into song inspired by the movement and its historical moment.

It was a day that inadvertently celebrated the legacy of Jewish women, among others, who emblemized or at least symbolized femme empowerment and activism. The bespectacled visage of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, shlita, floated among a cluster of the faces of great women painted on large cardboard cutouts and held aloft by a group who happily chirped, “This is what happens when women puts their heads together!” when asked about the project. Another group claimed a street corner with a large banner quoting Emma Lazarus: “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” Everywhere you looked, there were enough A Woman’s Place Is in the Resistance posters to summon the Second Coming of Carrie Fisher.

Modern Jewish heroes were well represented on the stage, as well. Senator Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was a vision in pink—two different shades of it, in fact—standing by her colleagues Kamala Harris, Tammy Duckworth, and Kirsten Gillibrand as they each took the mic to define what “women’s issues” are. IKAR founder and senior rabbi Sharon Brous wished the crowd a Shabbat Shalom at the end of an impassioned speech delivered with Linda Sarsour’s white hijab in view over her shoulder throughout:

Sometimes it happens—maybe once in a generation—that a spirit of resistance is awakened at the intersection of love, faith, and holy outrage. And in those moments, we are reminded what we’re fighting for, what this country was built for, what our armed forces are willing to die for, what our flag flies for, and that is liberty and justice, for all. This is one of those moments.

And let us not forget Our Lady, Gloria Steinem smiling benevolently from her seat upon the stage, thanking the audience “for understanding that sometimes we must put our bodies where our beliefs are,” and commanding, “Make sure you introduce yourselves to each other, and decide what we’re going to do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.”

But most of the crowd only witnessed these appearances later, from or on their way home, streaming the footage on laptops and smartphones long after the events had concluded. About five times the number of people expected by the Women’s March organizers crammed into streets and spaces parallel and perpendicular to the stage; visibility to even the jumbotrons was limited, and the sound was inadequately amplified to reach the ears of over half a million listeners. So great was the turnout that the march itself was all but disbanded, the planned route eschewed for the spontaneous directive to “go North,” toward Pennsylvania Avenue, nearly an hour after the scheduled departure—and the final speakers still had yet to take the stage.

Rivulets of the assembly headed for the Mall in hand-holding human chains, gathering force until the current turned with them, leaving islands of die-hards standing their ground to watch Angela Davis’s projection and hear the echoes of her voice bounce off the National Museum of the American Indian. An African American family squeezing past a rooted cluster of Jews stopped to look back, bringing me—an Orthodox Ashkenazi 20-something sporting a sweatshirt reading THE FUTURE IS FEMALE and a vivid pink pussy hat bedecked with a wreath of flowers—face-to-face with a birdlike grandmother held at either elbow by her offspring as they waited to continue passing.

“I like your hat,” the black woman grinned shyly. “I’ve been looking at it. It makes me smile.”

“It’s a day for smiling!” I answered, thanking my tiny stranger for the compliment.

“It sure is,” the grandmother’s face crinkled into a full smile as she looked at the crowd around us. “It sure is.”

Nat Bernstein is the contributing editor at Jewish Book Council, managing the organization’s digital content, media, and special projects. Nat is a 2011 Ingenuity Award recipient and an F’07 graduate of Hampshire College with a Division II in pedagogical content knowledge for English education and a Division III on the representation of modern genocide in American culture and education.  

Photo by Dan Rosen

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Get on your feminist hats, or tichels, or sheitels, because it’s time for the JOFA Conference 2017.

Once every three years, Jewish women and allies gather under the mantle of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance for a conference that explores the state of affairs for Jewish women in the larger world.

The conference is this weekend, Saturday night and Sunday, January 14 and 15. The weekend will include performances, art installations, a town hall, and well over a hundred speakers on everything from abuse in the Jewish community to navigating the bureaucracy of the Israeli rabbinate to how to make LGBT students welcome in your Jewish day school.

The timing of the conference is also rather fortuitous, given today’s Israeli Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Women of the Wall (who also have a panel Sunday).

There are also shabbatons prior to the official conference, special programming for High Schoolers or college students, and leadership training after the conference.

Seriously, you name it, and JOFA probably has it covered. The conference nearly has 1,000 attendees registered so far, and despite the name, the draw of the crowd is across a wide spectrum of religious identities and observance levels.

“It’s pretty interesting because there’s a huge range of types of people who come with a range of wants needs and expectations,” says JOFA’s Executive Director, Dr. Sharon Weiss-Greenberg.

After all, the same weekend has a “Jewish Vagina Monologues” (Monologues from the Makom), a conversation on girls’ dress code in Jewish private schools, “Ask a Frum, Gay Couple,” a discussion on race in Judaism, deep exploration of the topic of women as Orthodox rabbis, and both interfaith and intrafaith programming.

The first JOFA conference was in 1997, so this year marks two decades since the first time Jewish women gathered to explore women’s rights through the lens of Orthodoxy. Greenberg is optimistic about the trajectory the organization, and the Jewish world, has taken since then.

“I think then it was so new,” she said, of publicizing the organization’s issues. And while she still sometimes hears that it’s an inherent contradiction, there is less resistance now. “I think in some ways it’s so obvious that there should be feminism within Orthodoxy.”

JOFA’s early work, for example, included agunot, women unable to acquire a Jewishly legal divorce, then an often-ignored topic. Today, there are several organizations that exist solely to deal with the issue, and it’s considered a mainstream concern in many Orthodox circles.

Of course, no fight is over.

“As you’re totally entrenched in the world of Orthodox feminism and feminism at large, it’s concerning and comforting at the same time that sexism is everywhere,” says Weiss-Greenberg. In some ways, the Jewish community’s path forward is arguably less murky. “There are clear rituals, there are clear leadership positions. We know what steps are worth taking or we’re able to take, and in some ways that clarity is helpful.”

You can probably still register in person at the conference, but if you want to sign up online, in advance, today is the last day to do so.

Image via JOFA.

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1. Female Empowerment Vashti

Why not get political in the midst of the latest debate about female nudity as empowerment vs. exploitation? The costume would take very little effort; all you need is, say, a crown and the illusion of nudity everywhere else.  Maybe try a large covering posterboard that says: “This is my choice,” or, “Not for Achashverosh’s eyes.”

2. Star Wars Characters

Is it a bit expected this year?  Maybe, but if you have the dough to drop, it shouldn’t be difficult to buy a readymade look from any costume shop. And Etsy, as it turns out, is full of baby BB-8 costumes.

For women who dress traditionally modestly, Leia’s original white dress is fully covering, and Rey’s look would take perhaps the most minor of tweaks to make it tznius as well. If you bring in one of Leia’s looks from the new film, you and your mom could even dress up together! Aw!

Besides, it is my personal headcanon that Rey is short for Reyzl.

3. Jesus

Purim is about being edgy and subversive, but unfortunately also often displays a lack of effort (serious cosplay at Purim gets a side-eye; I know from experience).  So why not be blasphemous and lazy at the same time with a costume of the Prince of Peace?

Let’s face it.  If you have long hair and a beard, you already look like him.  Just throw on a white robe and some sandals, and maybe carry some wine or matzah, and you’re good to go.

4. A Holy Ark

This one is a bit more detailed.  I dressed as an Aron Kodesh about five years ago, so this may partially be an excuse to brag on it.

My costume base was all black clothing, and on my body I wore a cardboard box that I decorated with marble-patterned contact paper and Hebrew letters like you might see on a real ark.

Then, the reveal. Open your box in the front to reveal a Torah on your torso. Mine was made out of paper, so it was lightweight and quick to make. I added a “Ner Tamid” in facepaint on my forehead, and voila! The ultimate Purim costume that works any year.

5. Donald Trump as Haman

This one is easy.  Wear a suit, orange face-paint, an ugly wig, a triangle hat, and a cartoonish moustache. Wait for a fascist at the megillah reading to get into a fight with you. Before fists start to fly, I suggest you use the line:

“I’m the designated driver tonight.  Good thing I’m only drinking until I can no longer tell the difference between Haman and Trump.”

MAKE PURIM GREAT AGAIN! TRUMP/HAMAN 2016 #trump pic.twitter.com/JwIQQkRVt4

— Rabbi Jason Miller (@RabbiJason) March 16, 2016

Feel free to tweet @Jewcy with any more ideas, or photos of any of these!  You still have a few days, so go go GO!

Image sources: Wikimedia commons, Facebook

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Goddess knows, we don’t need another reason to love Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but sister just keeps dropping wisdom all over the place, and—as president of the Notorious R.B.G. fangirl club—it’s my duty to report the latest. In a talk at Georgetown University on Wednesday, the 82-year-old Supreme Court Justice described her early days in the law, when it “was not a welcoming profession for women.”

“In those days, in the Southern District, most judges wouldn’t hire women. In the U.S. attorney’s office, women were strictly forbidden in the Criminal Division,” she explained. “And the excuse for not hiring women in the Criminal Division was they have to deal with all these tough types, and women aren’t up to that. And I was amazed. I said, ‘Have you seen the lawyers at legal aid who are representing these tough types? They are women.'”

Another gem: people often ask R.B.G. when it will be “enough”—i.e. when will there be enough women on the Supreme Court. Her answer? “When there are nine.”

Yes, yes, YES. This is delicious, right? But wait, there’s more! When asked what talent she would choose if she could have any talent in the world, Ginsburg responded: “I would be a great diva.”

To which we all say, in unison: You are a great diva, R.B.G. (And you sure as hell have mastered the art of the mic drop.)

(Image: Portrait by Simmie Knox, under commission of the United States Supreme Court)

Related: Halloween is OVER, Ruth Baby Ginsburg Has Killed It
Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Share Personal Trainer, Mutual Admiration

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