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Cracks In The Walls of Jewish Patriarchy

16 October 2013

By Letty Cottin Pogrebin, October 2013

When my mother died in 1955, I was 15, and though I had been educated “like a boy,” and was a pious little synagogue rug rat and one of the first girls to become a bat mitzvah in Conservative Judaism, I was not permitted to count in the shiva minyan saying kaddish for my own mother in my own house. If my tradition won’t count me in, I reasoned, I will count myself out — and I did. For many years, I maintained the home-based rituals I learned from my mom but I felt estranged from synagogue life and the Jewish “we.” If not for the immense strides made by Jewish feminists fighting to advance women’s equality, I probably would have remained permanently disconnected from the Jewish community. The key events that turned the tide for me were the early Jewish feminist milestones of the Second Wave: Rabbi Sally Preisand became the first woman ordained in Reform Judaism; women won the right to be counted in the minyan and to have aliyot, and girls were liberated from the Friday night bat mtzvah ghetto and accorded equal status with boys on Shabbat mornings. Once these cracks appeared in the walls of Jewish patriarchy, and females began to count as full and authentic Jews, I felt able to re-affiliate with the tradition in which I was raised and the heritage that I revere and love.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin is the author of Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America and co-founding editor of Ms. magazine.

 

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