I CARE!
For those of you who were not present for the dialogue leading up to this emphatic remark, I will clue you in on the details. Following a discussion we had in our Freshman Honors Colloquium, a few of us got into a discourse about the effect of a stereotype threat on girls’ performance in math. One person in the conversation didn’t see the big deal in the fact that girls don’t perform as well as boys in math on standardized tests; however, I have strong opinions about this issue as well as many other issues regarding the female’s alleged inferiority to males.
Why do I care? Put simply, I am nothing short of a feminist; a passionate member of the feminist community. But more than that, I am a Jewish Feminist. Although many religions recognize and encourage the subordination of women to men, both my religion and my female activist views are important aspects of my life. I am part of a community of Jewish Feminists.
A piece of art that represents my community is a book written by Anita Diamant, entitled The Red Tent. In this book’s 200+ pages, the author encapsulates the challenges and triumphs faced by the matriarchs of the Torah. The book is the untold stories of the women in the book of Genesis.
Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, is only mentioned as a footnote in the Torah as a girl who was raped. Other than the statement of this tragic event, she is not mentioned – she is not given a character, personality, or history. Anita Diamant uses both evidence from the Torah, and her imagination, to write a coming of age story about a famous girl in the Jewish Religion. She depicts Dinah’s long wait and eagerness to join the female members of her lineage in The Red Tent each month, as well as the whole story of how she was taken away from her family. When she returns years later to the village in which she grew up, she does not reveal who she is, but asks a couple of the children what they know of Dinah’s whereabouts. They explain to her that Dinah has not been seen – she was raped and never returned. The story told by these children is similar to the footnote in the Torah. According to Diamant, this is how the story in the footnote came to be. In her novel, Diamant also discusses the various marriages of Jacob to his cousins (all of whom are sisters), and other notable events in the Book of Genesis.
This book represents the community of Jewish Feminists, because it gives notoriety to the women of the bible who are all too often forgotten. There is a prayer said during Shacharis (the morning service), known as the Chatzi Kaddish. This is one of the prayers that is different depending on the synagogue in which it is said – there is a version said during an orthodox service, while another version is said during a reformed or conservative service. The difference between the two versions is that in the Chatzi Kaddish chanted during the orthodox service, the matriarchs of the bible are not mentioned. The reformed and conservative sects of Judaism are known for their egalitarian services, while the orthodox services are more traditional with men and women seated separately.
Every time I see someone reading this book, I can’t help but jump out of my seat. It was such an amazing book, and the more people read it, the more fame the women of the bible will gain. From reading this book, you learn more about a couple of stories in the bible; however, it is not told in a dry, dull way, because it includes aspects of Diamant’s imagination, and her quality of writing makes it very enjoyable.
