Rabbi's Column
March 2005

Celebrating Women's History Month, or Jewish Girls and Women, and How Quickly Things Can Change

In 1978, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County, California Commission on the Status of Women initiated a "Women's History Week" celebration. They chose the week of March 8 to make International Women's Day the focal point of the observance.

Soon after, broader initiatives were implemented, including a Congressional Resolution to declare a National Women's History Week in 1981. This expanded, in 1989, to a full month of celebrations, educational projects and cultural events in schools, workplaces, in the media and in community venues across the nation.

Back in 1976, in Canada, I was taking my first university course, an introductory seminar in Women's Studies, then a brand-new interdisciplinary subject area for college catalogues. It took a few more years for me to fully integrate my feminist values with my Jewish life.

However, all of these developments, from the first International Women's Day in 1909, to the emergence of Women's Studies as a full-fledged discipline in the 1970s and simultaneous developments in Jewish feminism happened in the twinkling of an eye - in contrast to the lengthy history of women's contributions to Judaism.

But wait, you say. Isn't Judaism the patriarchal monotheistic tradition par excelence? Women's leadership and Judaism - isn't that an utterly contemporary phenomenon?

Our Kesher school children know well that this is not the case, of course. From their studies of TaNaKH (Hebrew Bible) as well as their own creative efforts, they can tell us about Miriam the Prophet, Na'amah, wife of Noah, who tended the other growing things on the ark, along with the matriarchs and many other characters.

But "women worthies" - as I learned to call those famous notables of history and legend as a women's studies student - are not the only source material for the impact of women on Jewish history. Yes, we have had famous, brave and creative figures through the millennia, but we also have countless millions more, who mothered, taught, cooked, created, lived, grew up, and left legacies in private or local realms, feeding and shaping a tradition in the kitchen and the courtyard.

And now, our girls and boys have new images of Jewish women in their lives, whose realms include the synagogue, the courtroom, the halls of government and realms of all kinds. More than ever, our young "daughters of Israel" are influenced by so much more from the broader culture than even their own mothers' generation could have imagined, not to mention their grandmothers'!

Think how Jewish communal issues have broadened because of the influence of secular feminism. This month, I'll be attending the Second International Conference on Domestic Abuse in the Jewish Community, sponsored by JWI-Jewish Women International (formerly B'nai Brith Women) in Washington, D.C. Also in March, our local Pearlstone Retreat Center will host a JWI Young Leaders' Retreat for 18-25 year olds called "When PUSH Comes to SHOVE … It's no Longer LOVE! -A Jewish Perspective on Gender, Power and Relationships." *

For our girls in grades 5 through 8, another local program this month addresses a social phenomenon within a Jewish communal framework. Called "Sugar and Spice, But Not Always Nice," this interactive program for girls and their parents is designed to recognize and address "the hurtful ways that girls bully each other." *

Currently, I'm exploring, on behalf of the congregation, an opportunity for us to participate in a wonderful national project called It's a Girl Thing! Over 150 groups of teen girls, across the denominational spectrum, or connected to secular community institutions, meet to celebrate Rosh Hodesh/the new moon, other festivals, and themselves. This month, for example, groups are meeting to create Megilot of Our Own, inspired by questions about beauty raised by the story of Esther. One megilah or scroll, Song of Songs, will be comprised of positive pictures of women in magazines; the other, Our Lamentations, will show the contrasting negative photographs.

Ask a child in your life who his or her female Jewish role models are; contrast them with your own, and you'll see just how quickly time has flown since Women's History Month became an official observance!

* contact Rabbi Liz for details about these two conferences.