Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 34, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 20, 1992 Page: 3 of 24
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IN OUR 46TH YEARI-THURSDA Y, AUGUST20, 1992, TEXAS JEWISH POST 3
gh the Cracks
inda Stern, Often Fall Through the Cracks of the Community
the responsibility to construct a new lifestyle
n*|.s with them.
I upport groups are the therapy of choice
for most divorced women, say the experts.
“In a support group, people who are
isolated...find a new network of friends,”
says Joan Kristall, coordinator of the Fami-
lies of Separated and Divorced Project at the
J(fl%h Family Service in Baltimore. In an
u] iireatening atmosphere, they untangle un-
familiar legal and financial matters, con-
front their anger and sense of failure, and
have a sounding board to talk about children
who may be out of control. And they do it
with people who are going through, or have
gl e through, the same heartbreak.
1S upport groups force women to face their
own competence, to begin to stick their
necks out and realize they can do it,n says
Ms. Kristall.
The Baltimore group’s minimum com-
mitment is eight weeks, but most people
nj lain for at least a year, she adds. For those
w* o cannot afford the $50 sessions, there is
a sliding scale.
S WEL, in Baltimore, is for single women,
age 40 to 55, who used to come home from
their jobs on Friday afternoon, close the
d/jpr, and not leave home again until Mon-
d \' morning. Members celebrate Shabbat
aiiJ the Jewish holidays together. Through
the Jewish Family Service (JFS), they obtain
tickets to High Holy Day services They
exchange advice on children, finances, home
and auto repairs. They start to heal.
|T,n the smaller Jewish community of Lou-
il file, one goal of Rabbi Robert Slossberg
oi the 700-member Congregation Adath
Jeshurun is to see that divorced women do
not get lost in the shuffle.
He is sensitive to the problems that a
congregant experiences following divorce.
“i7e work together with the couple to re-
s| jve the thorny issues, so that the focus is on
the child, not the disagreements between
parents,” he says.
Rabbi Slossberg works closely with the
JFS of I^ouisville. “Children caught in the
middle are an important focus of our work,”
;| j-eed Judith Cumbler, clinical supervisor
(} ^counseling services there-. Such potential
conflicts as who stands up with the bar- or
bat-mitzvah child, or who pays for what, are
brought into the open and resolved with the
help of the rabbi. Die JFS has also helped
arrange for partial scholarships for Jewish
1 immunity Center membership and Jewish
L*np.
-7== ‘
In a society
that still largely-
bases a woman’s
worth on her
relationships
with men,
acknowledgment
can be hard
to come by for a
divorced woman.
A consensus among divorced Jewish
women seems to be that they feel most
comfortable in a non-establishment, egali-
tarian synagogue with an eclectic member-
ship a place where they are not ou tpriced and
don’t feel judged. For too many of them, like
58-year-old Anne Catz of Alexandria, di-
vorced for 10 years, “it’s not what the syna-
gogue does overtly, it’s the way you feel
about being there when you were married
and now you’re single. Miriam Glaser,
professor of literature at the University of
Judaism in Los Angeles, feltalienated in the
upper-middle-class synagogues of Beverly
Hills. She now attends services held in a
classroom. “We have no leader,” she says,
“and everyone is totally accepting of every-
one else. You just have to want to come. It’s
like the shtetl - loving and warm, with old
and young, married and single. They don’t
pigeonhole you.”
But even some havurot, the groups formed
for these alternative services, can un-
thinkingly keep potential members at
arm’s length. “Divorced women with chil-
dren don’t want to feel alienated from mar-
rieds,” says Dr. Shelli Chosak, a psycho-
therapist in Beverly Hills. Linda Stem, for
example, joined a havurah of couples but
soon found that they socialized entirely with
each other.
Certain Jewish rituals, touched by innova-
tion, can give a newly single mother the
opportunity to claim a new role as head of the
family. On the Fust Passover after her di-
vorce, Ms. Stem decided to conduct the
family Seder herself. She compiled readings
from different sources that would be
meaningful to her children. Over
the years she has added to them
and compiled them into a book of
readings from many Haggadot.
She continues to celebrate the
holiday with her two adult sons.
However successful divorced
women are at reconstmcting
their lives, part of their problem
rests with how they are per-
ceived by the Jewish com-
munity. Despite the ris-
ing rate, divorce is
still about
stigma,
failed. And women buy into this message.”
In a society that still largely bases a
woman’s worth on her relationships with
men, acknowledgment can be hard to come
by for a divorced woman. Karen Singer, of
Silver Spring, Maryland, a Washington sub-
urb, is 46 and has been divorced for 10 years
People in the community continually ask her
if she is seeing someone. “The rest of my life
is insignificant to them,” she says “That I’ve
been raising my kids alone, that I’m self-
supporting, that I feel mature and strong
seems to be beside the point.”
Judy Lemer believes that responsibility
rests with individuals as well as with institu-
tions and their leaders. “Why can’t Jewish
families make a point of including the newly
single at their Shabbat and holiday meals?”
she asks “Why can’t they host cocktail par-
ties or bagel brunches?”
Jewish tradition is clear in its instruction
to welcome the stranger. Perhaps it has some-
thing to tell us about divorced women, who
are at risk of becoming spiritual strangers to
the Jewish community.
Helen Mintz Belitsky is a free-lance writer
in Washington, D.C. This article was made
possible by a grant from the Fund for Jour-
nalism on Jewish Life, a project of the CRB
Foundation of Montreal. Any views expressed
are solely those of the author.
see related stories p. 7
*SJ
says Dr. Chosak. “The
ingrained message is
there is something
wrong with you. You
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 34, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 20, 1992, newspaper, August 20, 1992; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth754608/m1/3/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .