Jewish Holidays

Content type
Collection

Jewish Feminism in the United States

Challenging all varieties of American Judaism, feminism has been a powerful force for popular Jewish religious revival. The accomplishments of Jewish feminists have transformed American Jewish life, even as the ultimate goal of gender equity and shared power has yet to be fully realized.

Early Modern Italy

A study of the role of Jewish women in household formation, the household, and household dissolution, as well as their engagement in Jewish culture in early modern Italy, raises the question of how much of Jewish practice reflected the context of the surrounding society and how much engaged options in traditional Jewish practices, which were selected to meet their own needs. Despite the wealth of information about some well- known women and reports of the activities of many unnamed women, Jewish women, like Christian women, still functioned in the context of women and the period does not represent a Renaissance for women.

Ishah Hashuvah (Woman of Distinction)

The Hebrew term ishah hashuvah appears in seven sugyot in the Babylonian Talmud, though its meaning is not clear. It seems to refer to a woman of some wealth or importance.

Lina Frank Hecht

Lina Frank Hecht was a prominent figure in the Jewish philanthropic community in late nineteenth-century Boston. Known for the creation of a Jewish Sunday school for new immigrants, Hecht influenced generations of children through her leadership and generosity.

Festivals and Holy Days

According to halakhah, women are responsible for obeying all of Judaism’s negative commandments and for observing most of the positive ones, including the Sabbath and all of the festivals and holy days of the Jewish year. In some instances, however, male and female obligations on these days differ.

Daughter of Pharaoh: Midrash and Aggadah

The rabbis depict the daughter of Pharaoh, who rescued the baby Moses, as a righteous figure who did not follow her father’s wicked ways but rather converted and ceased worshiping idols. She was highly praised by the Rabbis, and the midrash includes her among the devout women converts and those who entered the Garden of Eden while still alive.

Conversas

After the establishment of the Inquisition in 1478, observance of crypto-Judaism became dangerous and more difficult. Women were at the center of Judaizing efforts, since the home was the only remaining institution in which one could observe Jewish law. Crypto-Jewish women most frequently observed the Sabbath and dietary laws.

Cookbooks in the United States

American Jewish cookbooks capture the range of Jewish religious and cultural expression in the United States. Women took advantage of the versatility and variety of cookbooks to add their voices to the growing and developing Jewish culture in the United States.

Leah Bergstein

Leah Bergstein was the first of the choreographers in Palestine who, at the beginning of the 1930s, created festival dances at kibbutzim that depicted life in pre-state Israel and on agricultural settlements. The unique festival pageants she created, often with poet-composer Mattityahu Shelem, contributed to the development of rural Israeli festivals and holiday celebrations and the creation of the first Israeli dances.

Sarah Bas Tovim

Sarah bas Tovim was an elusive figure, and the difficulty of documenting her life has led to doubts about her very existence. She is the author, or more precisely the composer, of two works published in the eighteenth century: Tkhine shaar ha-yikhed al oylemes (The Tkhine of the Gate of Unification concerning the Aeons) and Tkhine shloyshe sheorim (The Tkhine of Three Gates).

Assimilation in the United States: Twentieth Century

Jewish women assimilating into a changing American society across the twentieth century navigated often conflicting gender roles. As they strove to achieve upward social mobility, they adapted Jewish assumptions of what women, especially married women, should do to accommodate American norms for middle class women. Their collective accomplishments registered in political activism, organizational creativity, strong support for feminism, religious innovation, and educational achievement in the face of antisemitism, stereotypes, and denigration.

Celebrating the Earth and the Jewish Women who Keep it Healthy!

Jordan Namerow

A few weeks ago – in anticipation of Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish New Year for Trees – the Jewish Women's Archive introduced a new web-feature, Jewish Women in Environmental Activism.

Topics: Tu B'Shvat

Eight Inspiring Stories for Eight Days of Hanukkah

Jordan Namerow

Happy first day of Hanukkah! With Bernard Madoff bringing a bit of gloom and doom to our nation's holiday season, now is an especially important time for us to be (re)-inspired by those who bring out the best of Jewish life and social responsibility.

To help mark the eight days of Hanukkah, meet eight inspiring Jewish women whose stories are told at jwa.org...

Topics: Hanukkah

More on Jews, Jewesses, and Thanksgiving

Jordan Namerow

Apropos of Ellen's comment about "what makes Thanksgiving so meaningful for some American Jews" in her prior post, I thought I'd share an excerpt from an article published in The American Jewess in November 1896.

Rosh Hashanah and Hurricane Katrina: Reflections from Bluma Rivkin of New Orleans

Jewesses With Attitude

To mark the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the coming High Holidays, we have chosen a story told by New Orleans resident Bluma Rivkin. One of 90 oral histories collected by the Jewish Women's Archive for the Katrina's Jewish Voices project, the interview was conducted by historian Rosalind Hinton on October 12, 2006. This will be the first of a series of monthly podcasts, so check back regularly!

Topics: Rosh Hashanah

Love Your Body Day and the Jewish Holidays

Lily Rabinoff-Goldman

Back to school means a few things to this Jewess: buying new white shirts (they never last more than a season) and preparing for the High Holidays. This fall, there may be a few other things on our collective plates, it being an election season and all, but I want to propose that we spend the next few weeks preparing not only for Rosh HaShana (September 29 - October 1) and Yom Kippur (October 9), but also for Love Your Body Day, an annual event (now in its 10th year) sponsored by NOW, which falls on October 15 (also Sukkot, this year).

Rethinking Purity on Tu B'Av

Lily Rabinoff-Goldman

With the exception of Tisha B'Av, the day of fasting and mourning in commemoration of the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem, not much happens on the Jewish calendar between Shavuot in May/June and Rosh HaShanah in September/October. Or so we thought...

Topics: Jewish Holidays

Midwives, Oranges, and Matzah Frisbee?!

Jordan Namerow

With Passover fast approaching, now is a perfect time to think about the many roles of courageous women in historical and contemporary quests for freedom.

As a start, check out the Jewish Women's Archive's resource on Jewish midwives which highlights Shifra and Puah, two women who play a critical part in the Exodus story through their acts of resistance in sparing the lives of Hebrew male babies born in Egypt.

The American Jewess: Passover in 19th Century London

Jordan Namerow

Besides this piece being interesting as a documentary description of late 19th century life in London, it's fascinating for the writer's clear invocation of class issues, though that seems more a natural by-product of her own upper-class biases than a deliberate attempt to raise an explicit discussion about socioeconomic divisions between Jews.

Topics: Passover, Journalism

Resource Round-up for a Day of Identity Play

Jordan Namerow

In the spirit of Purim, the spirit of spring, and the spirit of the real and its opposites, here are some cool resources to celebrate your day of identity play. Purim Sameach!

 

Topics: Purim

Be happy, it's Adar!

Judith Rosenbaum

Happy Adar, everyone. Get your costumes ready, give the groggers a preparatory whirl, and pre-heat your hamantashen-baking ovens, because Purim is coming! (Well, actually, not until next month, since this is a Jewish leap year, with two months of Adar).

Topics: Feminism, Purim

"Hava Nagila"... for a Teeny Bopper Christmas?

Jordan Namerow

Who knew that "Hava Nagila" could be "sexy" ... or "racy"...?  Lauren Rose (formerly Lauren Goldberg), a Jewess from the UK, has given this familiar (and perhaps tiresome) traditional Hebrew folk song a somewhat dirty, teeny-bopper twist. 

Topics: Hanukkah, Music, Music

Your Babka's Babka

Jordan Namerow

Our favorite Jewish cookbook extraordinaire, Joan Nathan, has invited an old friend to the Hanukkah table. In an article in today's NY Times, she shares with us the colorful -- and flavorful -- memories of babka in its original and contemporary varieties.

Topics: Food, Hanukkah

“Treyfing” Sukkot?

Jordan Namerow

Sukkot is my favorite Jewish holiday. I like a good harvest bounty; I like that I can share meals with friends not in my kitchen; I like that I can eat while meditating on stars peeking through a canopy of colorful paper chains, laquered gourds, and chili pepper lights (which always adorned my family’s sukkah). In preparation for Sukkot (just a few hours away!), I've been thinking about other, more provocative, sukkah decor that might be inside the sukkot in which I eat.

Topics: Activism, Sukkot

Midrash for a new year

Judith Rosenbaum

As we prepare to herald the new year and celebrate the creation of the world, I thought I’d call your attention to JWA’s new edition of our educational resource, Go & Learn. This edition focuses on the midrashic figure of Lilith -- the first woman, imagined by the rabbis as a demon -- and Judith Plaskow’s early feminist reclaiming of her as a woman who demanded equality.

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