Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 43, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 15, 1989 Page: 2 of 24
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Features
Where were the women
in ‘Who Is a Jew’?
By Marlene Adler Marks__
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
lA/henever I feel down about the
VV future of feminism, as I’ye
been feeling lately, I think about my
Uncle Sol. Uncle Sol was my
father’s eldest brother, and what I
remember most about him is that he
sold Melmac dishes door to door.
Melmac was a post-war break-
through, designed to make the
housewife’s life easier. It had the
safety of plastic and the look of
ceramic; it was unbreakable and
probably dishwasher proof, though
of course, no one I knew then had a
dishwasher.
Uncle Sol lived all his life in
Brooklyn, a quiet man with a
squeaky voice and squirrelly eyes
behind his glasses. He believed in
Melmac, and for a long time I did,
too.
Here was a product of the future!
You could throw it on the table,
smash it with the peas and lamb
chops on the floor. Melmac was a
miracle! But by the Kennedy inaugu-
ral, our Melmac place settings were
replaced by china — the Melmac
wouldn’t break, but it showed every
scratch. Uncle Sol was left with a
product no one wanted.
No, I do not think of feminism as
the political equivalent'of Melmac,
an idea whose time has come, and
then gone. But I’ve been reading
Marcia Cohen’s The Sisterhood, a
history of those frenetic first years of
the women’s movement, and I’m
nostalgic.
Give me a picket, I want to march
again, but the question is, will you be
there with me? Maybe it’s the abor-
tion wars, or the long-ago ERA bat-
tle, but all the working women I
know are tired.
“Is Feminism Dead?” asked Sally
Ogle Davis in a recent Los Angeles
magazine. Noting the anti-feminist
popularity of local talk radio shrink
Dr. Toni Grant and a host of regres-
sive films and books, Davis writes
that in the counterrevolution now
brewing, “The object now is getting
a man to marry you — by fair means
or foul.”
So it’s declasse now to be a femi-
nist — just me and Roseanne Barr (!)
are left. Still, I have to tell you that
the feminist revolution is nowhere
near finished; in fact we need it more
than ever.
My fear is that women have grown
so comfortable with the few perks
they personally have achieved in the
last decades that, well, the real possi-
bility of inclusion into society will be
lost.
I saw that prospect most recently
during the “Who Is a Jew” contro-
versy in which the sexist element
was ignored entirely.
Many dedicated, intelligent
women failed to see “Who Is a<Jew”
for what it was: an old-fashioned turf
war, Orthodox men versus liberal
men, haggling over rules that would
Marlene Adler Marks is the manag-
ing editor of The Jewish Journal in
Los Angeles.
No Jew is better than any other Jew
By Rabbi Emanuel Rackman
it pains me that so many Conserva-
It
Itive and Reform Jews are being
made to feel uncomfortable by some
of our co-religionists. One Conser-
vative layman wrote me that rela-
tives of his make him feel that he is
less of a Jew than they because be
belongs to a non-Orthodox syna-
gogue. And a Reform rabbi wrote
me that he feels “delegitimatized”
by the present controversy pertain-
ing to who is a Jew. Both undoubted-
ly speak for countless others who are
distressed for similar reasons.
To all of them I must say that I too
am distressed — no less than they,
and for a reason not very different.
Yet all of us must bear in mind that
until all Jews are saints, this kind of
ugly behavior will persist.
I know that in some Orthodox cir-
cles my commitment to Orthodoxy is
questioned and my authority as a
halachic decisor is impugned. I can-
not deny that I am often sensitive to
the slander and innuendoes concern-
ing me, but I must not compromise
my personal integrity by betraying
the principles and positions for
which I stand. So not only must I
continue to suffer for what I believe
but my loved ones, to whom the
Rabbi Dr. Rackman is the chancellor
of Bar-llan University in Israel.
pejorative utterances are conveyed,
must also suffer.
A non-Orthodox Jew who fervent-
ly believes that his position is the
correct one must also reconcile him-
self to the abuse that comes from
those who claim to be more right-
eous, more pious, more God-
fearing, or the like. He would be
guilty of hyprocrisy if he pretended
to be what he is not.
Needless to say, those who make
such claims for themselves are
hardly as saintly as they think they
are. By arrogating to themselves the
status of “more religious than oth-
ers” they prove that they are not only
immodest but also that they have no
conception of the centrality of walk-
ing humbly before God in Judaism.
And since they are such spiritually
deficient persons, why should one
feel offended by them?
True, the Torah does command us
to fault each other when faulting is
called for. If we are all responsible
for each other, then it follows that we
ought to try our best to help those
who do not obey the law to change
their ways.
We should do that for their sake —
because we love them and want to
help them achieve greater perfection
and because we want all of our peo-
ple to attain maximum saintliness
and thus hasten the coming of the
Messiah and his era.
But our sages have cautioned us
not to perform this mitzva unless cer-
tain conditions are met and they
knew that only the most saintly of
human beings can perform the
mitzva without sinning themselves in
the very performance of what they
consider to be a God-mandated
“good deed.”
Our sages warned us not to
admonish unless we know how to do
so without offending anyone. They
were saddened by the fact that virtu-
ally no one truly knows how to do
this properly. And, as Rabbi Kook
said, the verse permitting us to fault
others permits us to act thus only if
we have absolutely no malice in our
hearts. Does anyone know people
who have achieved this state of saint-
liness that they bear no malice what-
ever against anyone who differs with
them?
The traditional prayer book con-
tains a paragraph which invokes
God’s punishment upon evildoers,
especially informers. That para-
graph was added to the “Silent Med-
itation” centuries after the original
composition of the meditation, and
its authorship is attributed to a
scholar named Samuel.
It was the immortal Rabbi Kook
who explained why only Samuel
could have composed it. He was the
scholar upon whose lips there always
was the motto, “Do not rejoice when
I
ew*
your enemy falls.”
Only from one who was capable!
refraining from joy when his enemy
suffered a defeat were Jews willing :
to accept a change in the “Silent ■
Meditation” that called for the col- !
lapse of vicious men. This is but an j
additional instance of how the rabj^—-
felt with regard to the faulting!
Jews by fellow Jews. It is always 1
ter to pray for' the vanishing of \
rather than sinners!.
After concluding a lecture a
weeks ago, I was asked by a gende-
man in the audience: How can you
consider a Reform rabbi (wha
name I omit here) a “friend”!
yours? Was I unaware of that whl
he had done to make patrilinear
descent a factor in Jewish identity;
and did I not know how prone he was
to be critical of Israel in the media?
Both facts were known to me and I
am very unhappy that my friend
linked with two positions op whi
frown. Yet, is it impossible for u
be friends? I can-disapprove of what
he says ^nd does but I must not do so
with malice toward him. I must limit
myself to disapproval of the words
and deeds that are his. But I cannot
eliminate him from the scope of the
commandment to love all people.
I know that this is a “tall order
also know that few can fulfill su
see EQUALITY page
imm
certainly have their greatest effect on
women. This was a major policy
decision, pertaining to the rights of
converted Jews to return to Israel, in
which the woman’s voice was not
heard at all.
We concentrated on “Who Is a
Jew” as a debate about the rules of
being Jewish: which rabbi signs a
piece of paper. But the larger ques-
tion of who makes the rules, and who
the rules are aimed at, was never
raised.
And this is the question that bears
our attention. If “Who Is a Jew” is
about conversion, it’s about the con-
version of women, isn’t it? It is about
the fear by Orthodox men that con-
verts who have their children will be
somehow “impure” and “unauthen-
tic ” Jews unless they follow Jewish
law.
But who knows what makes a
woman an “authentic” Jew? Have
women nothing to add to the equa-
tion, which for 2,000 years has been
defined by men? The voice of
women in their roles as carriers of
the faith is what is missing from this
dialogue, and we need to hear it.
So if the issue this time is conver-
sion, at its root "Who Is a Jew” is no
different than any other Jewish tradi-
tion (see the laws of adultery) and
custom (see its attitude about wom-
en’s education) which sees women as
property of men, an object of the
law, a vessel of the Jewish future,
rather than as fully human partici-
pants in society who can determine
their own course. Men will decide,
women will abide.
I’m afraid libera! Jewish men have
not treated women much better in
this matter. For “Who Is a Jew”
unveiled the skeleton in the Jewish
family closet: the large number of
men in the highest levels of Jewish
organizational life who are in fact
married to converts.
These machers cried “foul” and
ran to Israel to kill “Who Is a Jew” to
ensure that their wives and children
are still considered legit. These men
carry on about “pluralism” and
“democracy” in Judaism, but what
is at stake? A concern by men that
their women, too, are “authentic,”
according to rules that they make.
For women to be full participants
in Jewish life — this is the dream of
liberation. Unfortunately, “Who Is a
Jew” only revealed the undeniable
antagonism and hostility that Jewish
men so often have toward their sis-
ters, mothers and the girl next door
— women of their own faith.
Sad to say, the syndrome which
keeps women out of power, tilM|
keeps Judaism an Old Boy Netwo™:
is also part of the syndrome which
leads to intermarriage.
Neither Orthodox men nor liberal
men have records on the inclusion of
women in leadership that are any-
thing to write home about.
At the recent International Fei|
nist Conference in Jerusalem on
Empowerment of Jewish Women,
0
see WHERE? page 3
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 43, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 15, 1989, newspaper, June 15, 1989; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth755249/m1/2/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .