Hadassah Magazine Mar/Apr 2022

MARCH/ APRIL 2022

50 Years Women in the

Rabbinate

A Special Issue

The ‘First Four’ Share Their Stories Serving Remote Congregations Moving Beyond the Pulpit A New Day in Israel?

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New from The Jewish Publication Society Night of Beginnings is a groundbreaking new haggadah for the Passover seder from acclaimed poet, translator, and liturgist Marcia Falk, beautifully designed and illustrated with original watercolor drawings by the author. Her blessings honor classical Jewish tradition while celebrating a modern ethos that is feminist and inclusive.

NIGHT OF BEGINNINGS A Passover Haggadah Marcia Falk $19.95 paperback

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MARCH/APRIL 2022 | VOL. 103 NO. 4

30

DEPARTMENTS 12 COMMENTARY Women who should have been rabbis

30 HEALTH 52

IN EVERY ISSUE 4 President’s Column 6 The Editor’s Turn 8 Letters to the Editor 10 Cut & Post 34 Hadassah Medicine 38 Hadassah News

(CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM) SHUTTERSTOCK; FROM ‘ALONE TOGETHER ON DAN STREET’ BY ERICA LYONS. ILLUSTRATED BY JEN JAMIESON/COURTESY OF APPLES & HONEY PRESS; ISTOCK PHOTO

47 Crossword Puzzle 63 About Hebrew 64 Question & Answer On the Cover

Rabbi Sally Priesand in 1972, the year of her ordination from Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion. Feature stories begin on page 14. Photo courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio at americanjewisharchives.org.

Join the Conversation facebook.com/hadassahmag @HadassahMag @hadassahmagazine

Celebrating 50 Years of Female Rabbis: A Special Issue 14 TRANSFORMING THE RABBINATE After Reform Rabbi Sally Priesand’s ordination in 1972, some observers expected a revolution in the rise and integration of women into the rabbinate. Instead, what followed has been an evolution. Also, Priesand is joined by fellow “firsts,” Rabbis Sandy Eisenberg Sasso and Amy Eilberg and Rabba Sara Hurwitz, to assess challenges to the Jewish community (page 18). And in Israel, Rabbanit Shira Marili Mirvis is breaking barriers in the Orthodox world (page 27).

20 BUILDING JEWISH COMMUNITY FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen The rabbis who choose to work in remote, relatively small congregations are a special breed. They face a number of obstacles to accessing Jewish life that don’t exist for their peers in larger communities. But there are also unique benefits, including a special closeness and connection with their congregants.

Can psychedelic-assisted therapy heal trauma?

40 TRAVEL Vienna, a capital city with a diverse Jewish mosaic

44 FOOD Using alternative flours for Passover baking

48 ARTS

• A showcase of women who redefined Jewish leadership

• The Survivor, a heavyweight Holocaust drama

52 BOOKS

• New Passover titles include insightful Haggadot and children’s books

• On the hunt for Nazi-looted art in Woman on Fire

24 ENVISIONING THE RABBINATE THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS

By Rahel Musleah Newly minted rabbis are striking in their diverse backgrounds, approaches and visions for the future. Among them are Jews by choice, Jews of color, Jews who identify as LBGTQ as well as those who grew up in traditional, liberal, secular and interfaith homes. They cross denominational lines and opt for careers ranging from congregational pulpits to Hillel, from chaplaincy to Jewish education and nonprofit work.

MARCH/APRIL 2022

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46 44

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Liberation in Motion D Grand achievements and everyday accomplishments | By Rhoda Smolow iscovery in every sense of the word is embedded in Jewish experience. In every nation they became a part of, Jewish citizens have been pioneers of innovation. Modern Israel has been a laboratory of discovery in agriculture, technology, business, education, medicine and many other fields.

Being a part of the Jewish people often takes us on journeys to places, conclusions and breakthroughs we never imagined.

Hadassah is an integral part of the Jewish and Zionist experience. Not only has our organization been instrumental in building the Jewish state, it also has created space for women in Jewish life that simply didn’t exist before Henrietta Szold and our other founders began their work close to the holiday of Purim in 1912.

But as we approach the Pesach celebration of our freedom, I savor not only Hadassah’s grand achievements over the past 110 years but also the accomplishments large and small, unprecedented and routine, that we see almost every day. The kind that have the stamp of discovery but may not make the biggest headlines, that owe as much to the humanity behind them as the ingenuity.

Take the story of Oshri Bokobza, a professional drummer who also works in the medical records department of Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem. A little over a year ago, he started having headaches and felt his body leaning to the left. Tests revealed a benign tumor putting dangerous pressure on his cerebellum. Hadassah Medical Organization

neurosurgeon Dr. Samuel Moscovici removed the tumor, and during treatment and lengthy rehabilitation, physician and patient got to know each other. They discovered a common interest, and once Bokobza recovered, the two went mountain biking together.

OUR FOREBEARS LEFT EGYPT ON FOOT AND BECAME A COMMUNITY AND A NATION. When Dr. Donna Zwas, director of HMO’s Linda Joy Pollin Cardiovascular Wellness Center for Women, asked about an 8-year-old boy who accompanied his mother to the heart clinic, the Arab woman explained that she wasn’t permitted to see a doctor without a male relative present. The escort obligation is part of a pattern of customs that promotes a lack of assertiveness in traditional women, who rarely ask questions.

The experience led Dr. Zwas and her team to design a course to help Arab women prepare for doctor appointments, empowering them to ask questions and exert more control.

The course was similar to an earlier program created for ultra-Orthodox Jewish women.

Many of you may know that I am a twin, but something I didn’t know until recently is that my sister and I are not as statistically unusual as we once were. Due to in MARCH/APRIL 2022

vitro fertilization and more women having children later in life, the global incidence of twin births has risen 33 percent since 1980. One result of more twin births is more Caesarian deliveries, which carry greater risks than vaginal birth. A new study by a team led by Dr. Anat Walfisch, head of obstetrics and gynecology at Hadassah Hospital’s Mount Scopus campus, indicates that some C-sections in twin deliveries may be unnecessary.

Published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the study found that labor proceeds more slowly in twin births and the critical threshold for clinicians to recommend surgery should be based on the metrics of other twin deliveries and not—as has been standard practice— of single births.

Far from Mount Scopus, an orthopedic surgeon, an oncology nurse and a transplant coordinator recently climbed the world’s highest active volcano. At the top of Cotopaxi, in the Ecuadorean Andes, the three HMO staffers unfurled and photographed the flags of Israel and Hadassah.

Climbing, cycling, studying, teaching how to inquire: None is exclusively a Jewish pursuit, but all are wrapped up in our history. Reading the Haggadah reminds us that at the heart of our liberation story are movement, discovery and questions.

Our forebears left Egypt on foot and became a community and a nation while in transit, empowering themselves as they walked. May we all continue to learn from their journey, and ours.

A joyous Pesach to all!

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The Round Building renovation has made significant headway!

Thanks to your commitment, the iconic Round Building at Hadassah Ein Kerem continues on its path to care for more patients and save more lives. Thanks to donors like you, our vision is becoming a reality. Here’s a round-up of the most significant work to date: ° State-of-the-art dialysis unit with its own nursing stations — completed ° Pandemic-ready isolation units equipped with ventilators — completed ° Internal medicine, Ophthalmology, Hematology-Oncology — in progress ° Safe rooms construction — in progress ° New exterior facade — in progress ° Two additional top floors for greater capacity — under construction Your generous support enables us to maintain our position as a world leader in medical research, treatments and patient care.

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THE EDITOR’S TURN

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Sacred Paths

Rabbis who surprise and inspire | By Lisa Hostein

I

t is no longer news when a woman is appointed the rabbi of a non-Orthodox synagogue.

Which shows how far we’ve come in the past 50 years since Rabbi Sally Priesand became the first woman in history to be ordained by a rabbinical seminary. This issue of the magazine is a celebration of that milestone and of the estimated 1,500 women worldwide who have chosen that sacred path since Priesand’s ordination on June 3, 1972.

The timing of this special issue is intentional. March is Women’s History Month and the season when we celebrate Purim (beginning the evening of March 16) and prepare for Passover (the first seder is April 15). Both holidays feature strong female figures who asserted their leadership and helped shape the course of Jewish history. We also celebrate, around Purim, the founding of Hadassah, an organization that since its inception 110 years ago has been an exemplar of female Jewish leadership and action.

Had history unfolded differently, women, including some of Hadassah’s early leaders, would have broken through the sanctuary’s glass ceiling decades earlier, Rabbi Andrea Weiss reminds us in “The Would-Be Rabbis” (page 12), which begins our special coverage.

Our feature package, beginning on page 14, includes stories that explore multiple facets of women in the rabbinate and introduce clergy in the field who will surprise and inspire you. We also share exclusive essays by the “Four Firsts,” the pioneers MARCH/APRIL 2022

who became the first women to receive ordination in their respective denominations (page 18).

We are thrilled to have brought these four women—Rabbis Sally Priesand, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, Amy Eilberg and Sara Hurwitz— together for an exciting virtual event in our March Hadassah Magazine Discussion. If you missed the live Zoom event on March 10, look for a recording of it on hadassahmagazine. org or on hadassah.org.

These women are also among those featured in a new art exhibit that is reviewed in “A Showcase of Rabbinic Achievement” (page 48). Who knows, they may even be found among the clues in our crossword puzzle on “Rabbinic Pioneers” (page 47). And in the Q&A on page 64, find the reflections of Blu Greenberg, one of the early Orthodox leaders of the Jewish feminist movement.

Beyond the rabbinate, sometimes Jewish women lead in unconventional ways, as we see in Danielle Berrin’s “Can Psychedelics Make You Whole?” (page 30), a deep dive into the use of psychedelic drugs to treat trauma.

For Passover, Adeena Sussman leads us out of the holiday dessert desert “Toward a Grain-Free Flour Pantry” (page 44) and we share a new crop of Haggadot (page 52).

As you celebrate the spring holidays, take the time to savor this issue—and all that women have achieved since the early days of Jewish feminism. We shouldn’t take those triumphs for granted.

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MAGENV54

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

CAMPUS AS BATTLEGROUND

HADASSAH MAGAZINE DIGITAL NEWS

As an engaged alumna of Tufts, I was surprised to read in “Battling Antisemitism on Campus” (January/ February 2022 issue) that the university would be anything but fully supportive of its Jewish students.

I credit Tufts with my love of Judaism that ultimately flowered into my second career as a rabbi. Tufts in the 1970s welcomed the Somerville Havurah to campus. I experienced the spirituality of the High Holidays in a way I had not done so before. Rabbi Arthur Green opened my eyes to the riches that Judaism had to offer, including the philosophy of Abraham Joshua Heschel and the world of Jewish mysticism. So did professor and former provost Sol Gittleman, whose long career at Tufts was built around teaching Yiddish culture, Eastern European Jewish life and the rise of Hitler and Nazism to undergraduates.

The findings of Tufts’ Ad Hoc Committee on Antisemitism, released last month, reassured me that the administration is acutely aware of the issue of antisemitism on campus and is actively working to keep Tufts a place where all students can flourish.

Jill Goldstein Hackell, M.D. New City, N.Y. While encouraging brave students to fight back and self-organize, these same students need strong, sustained external support. A largely heretofore untapped alumni cohort could be another potent counterforce. Alums for Campus Fairness, with some 50 chapters nationwide and growing, aims to fill that void by seeking to inform and involve alumni in fighting antisemitism and promoting a safe campus environment for all students.

Richard D. Wilkins Syracuse, N.Y.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! We value your interest in Hadassah Magazine and welcome hearing from you about the content of the magazine. Please email letters to the editor to letters@hadassah.org. To read more letters, visit us online at hadassahmagazine.org.

MARCH/APRIL 2022

If you’re not already receiving Hadassah’s digital newsletter, sign up for the newly redesigned monthly email at hadassahmagazine.org/newsletter-signup. Now, we also are offering an online, flip-through version of the print issue. The March/April 2022 edition can be found at hadassahmagazine.org/ issue/march-april-2022.

When my son went to college 15 years ago, he also experienced antisemitism. His answer was to start a Jewish show on the college radio station. However, he realized that the answer to anti-Israel sentiment, for him, was to make aliyah. He now lives in Israel with his wife (a life member of Hadassah) and three children.

Alan Levitt Brooklyn, N.Y.

PRECIOUS FAMILY RECORDS As a result of reading the item about the Arolsen Archives in the January/February issue (“Never Forget That #everynamecounts”), I went online to that database and was able to access my parents’ registration forms and marriage certificate, both issued in a displaced persons camp after World War II. I was born in that camp.

Since I was 11 when my mother died, I didn’t know enough to ask her for such records. As I have gotten older, any historical document that relates to my family has become dear to me.

Marcia Bodenstein Brooklyn, N.Y.

ANTISEMITISM AS VIRUS I would like to commend student Everett Rattray for her essay “Speaking Up Against Antisemitism and More” (January/February). Her advocacy and the work of other young people offer hope for increased awareness.

Also impressive was President Rhoda Smolow’s column, “Combating a Deadly Social Virus.” Her use of “virus” to represent the spread of antisemitism is especially topical. Two recent news items come to mind: the act of terror at the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas—a painful, and thank God not deadly, reminder of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh; and Senator Charles Schumer’s account of his January 6, 2021, experience inside the United States Capitol. Sen. Schumer has

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HHHHH National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, in association with Ken Davenport and Sandi Moran presents

reported that he was told that one of the insurrectionists had said, “There’s the big Jew, let’s get him.”

Like a virus, antisemitism can manifest itself in many insidious ways—and can also be deadly.

Jerry Miller Jersey City, N.J. Music by

Book and Lyrics by

BARRY MANILOW

VALUING CATHOLIC COLLEAGUES Malka Simkovich, author of “ ‘We Are So Glad That You’re Here’ ” in the January/February issue, chose to bring her academic expertise to an institution that welcomed both her and Jewish studies. The fact that she is Jewish and working in a Catholic institution is a mitzvah.

She joined a community of learners intent on opening their minds and hearts to the history of her religion and culture. Instead, she felt like an outsider and then rebuffed someone whose intention was to welcome her.

I was one of five Jewish professors at the start of my lengthy tenure as an arts professor at an all-women’s Catholic college in New Jersey. When I initially joined the staff, I was ignorant about Catholicism. But from the first moment I spent with my department chair, a Sister of Mercy, I knew I belonged to a community committed to humanity, learning and teaching.

I heard myself referred to on occasion as “the Jewish girl,” just as I would interchangeably use the term “sister” when the nuns still wore habits and I found that I couldn’t always distinguish between them. We valued each other for our work with the students, our dedication to our academic areas and to the way we projected an enlightened establishment to the broader community.

At my mother’s funeral, the president of the college, the senior administration and the chair of the religious studies department, a Father Newman, were there to support me.

I was part of that university family for 38 years.

Geraldine Khaner Velasquez, Ed.D. Holly Springs, N.C.

A CENTENNIAL YEAR FOR THE BAT MITZVAH To honor the 100th anniversary of the first bat mitzvah in America—that of Judith Kaplan, daughter of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, on March 18, 1922—Hadassah collected dozens of moving stories of members’ experiences of their milestone event. Some women recalled being the first in their synagogue to mark the occasion while others shared stories of becoming adult bat mitzvahs.

To read several of these submissions, visit hadassahmagazine.org.

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CUT

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Commemoration and Revitalization at Babyn Yar Eighty years after it was the site of a notorious Holocaust massacre, Babyn Yar—a wooded ravine near Kiev, Ukraine—witnessed the birth of something unexpected and beautiful: a synagogue. Unveiled in 2021, the wooden structure marks the re-establishment of a Jewish presence at the mass grave of an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people who were shot by the Nazis in a two-year period beginning with the murder of nearly the entire Jewish population of the city on September 29 and 30, 1941. Now, with Yom

The ‘pop-up’ synagogue at Babyn Yar is intended as a gathering place for visiting Jews.

Hashoah—Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day—beginning on April 27, the splendor of the synagogue provides a stark contrast to the blood-soaked history of the land.

“This is a site not only of commemoration, but of revitalization,” noted Robert Jan van Pelt, a Holocaust historian and University of Waterloo architecture professor. Indeed, it is

Confidence and High Fashion as Beauty Enhancers

DEBRA SOMERVILLE PHOTOGRAPHY

If Queens Esther and Vashti had opted to hire a fashion designer, they might have picked Donna Leah Goldstein of Miami,

Donna Leah Goldstein models three of her dresses, including the gold ensemble (right) that she says befits Queen Esther.

whose one-of-a-kind gowns, lounge and evening wear glitter with outrageous individuality.

Conversely, the 58-year-old Modern Orthodox founder of Donna Leah Designs knows exactly how she would dress each queen, whom we celebrate on Purim, beginning this year the evening of March 16. She would swathe Esther in the same gold gown of stretch silk and satin that she designed for her own birthday celebration last year, she said, an ensemble featuring a goldembroidered top and layers of gold fringe. Vashti, she said, would shine in a metallic silver gown festooned with appliqués.

Goldstein, who grew up in Queens, N.Y., is a graduate of Columbia University and the Fashion Institute of Technology.

She designed her first gown only eight years ago—a head-turning white dress that glistened with MARCH/APRIL 2022

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blue and green rhinestones and crystals that she wore to Shabbat morning services. The response was so positive that after decades of dreaming about starting her own fashion line, she launched Donna Leah Designs in 2019.

Though not intentionally created with modesty in mind, much of her line features long sleeves and low hemlines. Now, congregants at her Chabad synagogue in Miami look forward to the dramatic outfits she wears every Shabbat.

“I just want to make myself happy,” Goldstein said, “and my clothing is an expression of who I am.”

Initially, Goldstein had hoped to tap the celebrity market with her gowns, but the pandemic and its stay-at-home ethos motivated her to create a casual line of hoodies, tops and leggings in vibrant shades from lime green to fuchsia.

But now that red-carpet events are resuming, she has created a number of striking dresses for the likes of American singer-songwriter Tanya Tucker and, on the younger spectrum, Instagram

A rendering of the night sky over Kiev on September 29, 1941 is painted on the ceiling.

el Herz’s synagogue design deliberately hovers above this sacred ground, its every detail resonant of traditional Eastern European wooden shuls. Inside, the walls are decorated with

Jewish prayers such as the Shema and Kaddish.

Colorful motifs inspired by classic Ukrainian synagogue interiors include a painted ceiling that depicts the night sky that was visible over Kiev on September 29, 1941.

But the most unusual element is the synagogue’s “pop-up” design, in which the vertical structure unfolds like a book to reveal the sanctuary. German-born Herz has said the process of cranking open the temple with a manual winch is intended as a collective ritual, referencing not only the symbolic reopening of Babyn Yar and Kiev Jewry, but also the Jews’ identity as the People of the Book.

“Being in the open air makes it very inviting,” noted van Pelt. “There’s a lightness about the design that makes us all smile.”

—Hilary Danailova

IWAN BAAN/COURTESY OF BYHMC

hoped that Jews visiting the site will use the synagogue as a gathering space.

Van Pelt is the author of An Atlas of Jewish Space, the first of two volumes in the book set How Beautiful Are Your Dwelling Places, Jacob: Documenting the Babyn Yar Synagogue Project, which is scheduled for release in the United States this spring. He also serves on the architectural advisory board of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, which commissioned the synagogue to inaugurate a complex that will include a library, archives and an educational center.

“We want to invite the world to think with us about what should and can happen here, where the soil is so burdened with history— quite literally,” van Pelt reflected.

Built on a wooden platform, architect Manu-

influencer Alexandra Dieck, who wore a coral-colored evening dress designed by Goldstein to the Latin Grammy Awards in 2021.

“I want to help women feel comfortable with themselves,” Goldstein said, “because confidence enhances beauty and appearance. My goal is to empower women.” —Rahel Musleah

When Angela Engel founded the Collective Book Studio four years ago in Oakland, Calif., she envisioned a publishing space where Jewish women’s voices are amplified every day and with every new release—not only in March during Women’s History Month. With a lineup of largely nonfiction, Jewish-authored books, Engel, a publishing veteran of 20 years, is proud to be considered a disrupter of the corporate publishing industry by championing a new way to do business—partnership publishing.

“It’s interesting in this moment to think about what and how stories should be published,” reflected Engel, 44, a life member of Hadassah who acknowledges that Jewish and especially Israeli perspectives today Angela Engel can struggle to find support in the mainstream book world. In the Collective’s partnership model, authors invest their own money upfront to help fund the production of their book and receive 20 to 50 percent of sales revenue—rates far higher than in traditional trade publishing, where authors typically pay nothing upfront. The studio handles all the editorial, design, distribution and promotion and keeps the rest of the profits.

Engel said her publishing vision is inspired by her three young daughters and by her family’s diverse background. Her mother, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, immigrated to New York from Germany after a stop in Israel; her husband, Dan Engel, is an Israeli with roots in Iraq.

“I am looking at all of my books through a Jewish lens,” Engel noted.

The result is an eclectic lineup of adult and children’s titles that includes the newly released cookbook 52 Shabbats: Friday Night Dinners Inspired by a Global Jewish Kitchen by Faith Kramer; Dear White Women, the book version of Sara Blanchard and Misasha Suzuki Graham’s popular antiracism podcast; and Malkah’s Notebook: A Journey Into the Mystical Aleph-Bet by Mira Z. Amiras, a lyrical book with illustrations that reframes the Genesis story around a young Jewish girl’s coming of age.

“Women,” Engel observed, “bring their experiences to everything they do in a way that creates change.” —Hilary Danailova MARCH/APRIL 2022

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CLARA RICE

Publishing Through a Jewish and Female Lens

COMMENTARY

The Would-Be Rabbis Women who opened doors for those who followed

By Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss

‘LAWRENCE DAILY JOURNAL-WORLD,’ PUBLIC DOMAIN, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

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his spring, as we prepare for Purim and Passover, we also celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ordination of Rabbi Sally Priesand, the first woman ordained by a rabbinical seminary. But had history unfolded a bit differently, we might be marking the 100th anniversary of women in the rabbinate.

Like the biblical Esther and Miriam, the women who yearned to be rabbis decades before it was possible acted with courage as they opened the doors for Priesand and the many others who followed.

In 1921, after three years of study at Hebrew Union College, Martha Neumark asked the administration for a High Holiday pulpit assignment. Her request instigated a lengthy debate about whether women could be ordained as rabbis. As historian Pamela Nadell recounts in Women Who Would Be Rabbis, HUC’s faculty and alumni eventually concluded that “women cannot justly be denied the privilege of ordination.” However, the Reform rabbinical seminary’s board of governors voted to maintain its policy and restrict ordination to men.

While this debate played out at HUC in Cincinnati, the Jewish Institute of Religion opened in New York City in 1922. Irma Levy Lindheim and two other women enrolled in the inaugural class, but they were not admitted as rabbinical students. When Lindheim petitioned the faculty to become a rabbinical student, JIR changed its charter and committed—at least on paper—to

“train, in liberal spirit, men and women, for Jewish ministry, research and community service.” However, after completing much of the curriculum, personal circumstances led Lindheim to discontinue her studies before the final year.

Her classmate Dora Askowith— who entered JIR in 1922 with a doctorate from Columbia University—spent several years taking classes alongside male rabbinical students. She was motivated to deepen her Judaic studies knowledge, not to “enter the ministry,” yet she hoped that her presence at JIR would, in her words quoted in Women Who Would Be Rabbis, “open the road for women who might be desirous of being ordained.”

Although neither Lindheim nor Askowith took that path, both ascended to leadership positions in Hadassah: Askowith as an early member of Hadassah’s central decision-making body, and Lindheim as the third Hadassah national president (1926-1928). Lindheim followed Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold, who studied at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary in the early 1900s, though Szold was required to confirm that she had no rabbinical aspirations when she enrolled.

Helen Levinthal Lyons, president of her local Hadassah chapter in Westchester County, N.Y., merits distinction among the early 20th century Jewish women who sought access to a seminary education. In 1939, she became the first woman to MARCH/APRIL 2022

Premature Report A December 25, 1920 news item in the ‘Lawrence Daily JournalWorld’ announced that Martha Neumark would become the first female rabbi.

complete the rabbinical curriculum at JIR (which later merged with HUC).

In spite of this accomplishment, she was denied the opportunity to extend her family’s rabbinic line to a 13th generation when JIR founder Rabbi Stephen S. Wise refused to ordain her. According to Nadell, he insisted that “while Helen did excellent work, the time was not ripe for the JIR to ordain a woman.”

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he time for the first female rabbi ripened in Germany in 1935, when Rabbi Max Dienemann privately awarded a rabbinic diploma to Rabbiner Doktor Regina Jonas. Jonas taught Torah and comforted people in Berlin as the Nazis rose to power and after she was deported to Terezin in 1942. She was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944.

Not until 1972 would a rabbinical seminary formally ordain a woman.

For her HUC-JIR rabbinical school thesis, Priesand researched the “Historic and Changing Role of the Jewish Woman.” Decades earlier, Lyons had written about “Women Suffrage from the Halachic Aspect.”

Aspiring female rabbis often looked

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to the Bible, Jewish history and Jewish law for inspiration and affirmation.

The stories of Esther and Miriam, the biblical women at the center of the Purim and Passover stories, respectively, highlight characteristics exhibited by these would-be rabbis.

Just as women like Neumark and Lyons took initiative in embarking on a sacred calling not yet open to them, Miriam the prophet repeatedly takes initiative. She stations herself by the Nile to see what will become of her baby brother, Moses, and she grabs her hand drum and leads the women in song and dance after the Exodus from Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea. And like these pioneering women, Esther exhibits wit and courage in her efforts to save the Jewish people from Haman’s decree. She goes before King Ahasuerus uninvited and then enacts a plan that leads to Haman’s undoing.

As Mordecai advises Esther, sometimes people are placed in prominent positions to accomplish things that may seem daunting, but ultimately lead to the greater good.

Fifty years after Sally Priesand became Rabbi Priesand on June 3, 1972, I am the one who stands before the ark, hands outstretched to ordain each new rabbi and cantor at HUC-JIR. This momentous 50th anniversary invites us to expand the celebration and recognize the many bold and persistent Jewish women who have stepped up in countless ways, proving just what can happen when women are given the chance to fulfill their God-given potential.

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Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss is Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost and an associate professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

She served as associate editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary and created the American Values, Religious Voices: 100 Days, 100 Letters campaigns in 2017 and 2021.

afmda.org

MARCH/APRIL 2022

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Transforming the Rabbinate Over 50 Years From scholarship to spirituality, women reshape Jewish leadership | By Debra Nussbaum Cohen

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hen sally j. priesand became the first woman to be ordained by a rabbinical seminary, at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion on June 3, 1972, some hoped and others feared that it would start a revolution.

Instead, it has been an evolution.

Over the past five decades, the rise and integration of women into the rabbinate has transformed many aspects of Jewish life.

“We’re at a tipping point where we have as many women in the active

rabbinate as we do men. It’s more or less equal,” said Rabbi Hara Person, president and CEO of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the professional organization of Reform rabbis known as CCAR. Of the group’s 2,200 current members, she said, 810 identify as female.

“Women’s voices and ideas and creativity have become central,” Person continued. “At one time, it was marginal, maybe even discounted or minimized. Today, women are in leadership and decision-making roles. Women are out in MARCH/APRIL 2022

the front, leading the rabbinate.”

More than 1,500 women have been ordained across the Jewish world in the past 50 years, according to a survey of leaders of all the movements, from Orthodox to Renewal.

Female scholar-rabbis now teach at and, in some cases, run rabbinical schools. Through books and other platforms, they have broadened the understanding of Jewish history,

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50 Years

at the New Jersey temple she led for 25 years) paved the way for women, including Rabbi Andrea Weiss, the provost at HUC, who ordained Rabbi Samantha Frank at Temple Emanuel in NYC in May 2019.

ritual and theology. Gender-inclusive language is now the norm in all prayerbooks in the mainstream liberal denominations. Women in the rabbinate have also raised questions pertinent to all clergy about issues like work-life balance.

Yet serious challenges remain, and, for some, progress has been too slow.

Many pioneering rabbis say that the constant surveillance and commentary about what they wore; verbal digs from male rabbis, board

MARCH/APRIL 2022

Collectible Legacy Priesand was featured on one of the original ‘supersisters’ trading cards in 1979.

in the process of conducting its own study, said Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, CEO of both the RA and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the denomination’s congregational arm. Last fall, the RA for the first time began publishing the names of rabbis sanctioned for ethics breaches, shifting the culture of secrecy that until now protected rabbis guilty of sexual misconduct.

Today, female rabbis face discrimination primarily when it comes to pay disparities between men and women as well as in their quest for top congregational jobs and for equitable family leave policies, experts say.

A study by the Conservative rabbinical body in 2004 found a $40,000 difference in mean compensation between male and female rabbis. Fifteen years later, a 2019 study showed that the largest gap remains only for newly ordained rabbis, with women fresh out of seminary earning an average of 18 percent less than men. The study, which is not available to the public

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(OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM) JANINE SPANG/HUC; PHOTO BY JOAN ROTH, ADAPTED FROM ‘OPENING DOORS: THE WORLD MOVES FORWARD EVERY DAY BECAUSE SOMEONE IS WILLING TO TAKE THE RISK,’ A PHOTOGRAPH IN THE 'HOLY SPARKS' EXHIBITION; RICHARD LOBELL/HUC; (TOP) COURTESY OF MELISSA RICH/SUPERSISTERS

Tipping Point Rabbi Sally Priesand (far left,

members and congregants; and, sometimes, outright verbal, physical and sexual harassment remain bitter memories.

Nasty remarks were frequent, recalled Rabbi Amy Eilberg, who in 1985 became the first woman ordained by the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary.

She remembers comments like: “Oh, do I get to kiss the rabbi?” and “The rabbi is wearing open-toed shoes.”

Eilberg, now 67 and living near San Francisco, moved to chaplaincy and pastoral care after one year with a congregation and has since focused on providing spiritual direction and teaching mussar, or Jewish ethics.

Though inappropriate remarks and behavior continue, it has diminished in recent years, according to many in the field. As Person noted, “Women are much less likely to take it today than they were at one time.”

“Culture has changed. The putting-down remarks, the microaggressions, those have become unacceptable. They were rampant in the early years,” said Pamela Nadell, professor and Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History at American University and author of Women Who Would be Rabbis: A History of Women’s Ordination, 1889-1985.

Today, the non-Orthodox movements are paying new attention to sexual harassment and misconduct in the rabbinate, including misconduct directed at female rabbis and rabbinical students. A 2021 report from the Reform movement’s HUC found a history, going back decades, of sexual abuse, harassment and discrimination by powerful leaders, including presidents and chancellors, against female students.

For its part, the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly is

though selections from the report were shared with Hadassah Magazine, found that among rabbis with five to 10 years of experience, men make an average of 3 percent more.

The small number of women serving the largest congregations actually earn slightly more than their male colleagues—on average, $170,500 compared to $168,700.

In the Reform movement, an across-the-board 18 percent wage gap exists for women, according to Rabbi Mary Zamore, executive director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, a 600-member organization that was founded in 1990 to advocate for female Reform rabbis. She noted that in the past three years, “we’ve seen a nice narrowing [of the wage gap] for assistant rabbis and senior rabbis at the larger congregations.”

Meanwhile, the Reform Pay Equity Initiative, which was formed five years ago by 17 organizations, is working to create a uniform family leave policy to be used in all rabbinic contracts, rather than have each negotiated individually, which often works to the rabbi’s disadvantage.

© STIFTUNG NEUE SYNAGOGE BERLIN-CENTRUM JUDAICUM (TOP)

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abbi sandy eisenberg sasso started rabbinical school at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1969 as part of its second class because, she said, the institution’s president at the time feared that admitting a woman in its inaugural year would be too controversial. During her time at RRC, Sasso, now 75, wanted to research women in Judaism, but “there were no books” on the subject, she said.

“When I asked questions or was asked to speak about women and Judaism, I could find no material.”

As the number of female rabbis has grown, their intellectual and creative contributions have also

called Women4Change Indiana.

Today, she runs the Religion, Spirituality and the Arts program at Indiana University’s Arts and Humanities Institute. She also is a prolific author of Jewish-themed children’s books, including Regina Persisted, about Jonas, and a new work, Sally Opened Doors, a story about Priesand slated for publication this spring.

Regina Jonas

expanded. Libraries are now filled with volumes written by female rabbis and scholars, from Torah commentaries to books on women in Torah and long-forgotten pioneers who have been rescued from the ash heap of history. Among those neglected innovators is Regina Jonas, widely considered the first ordained female rabbi, who received a private ordination in 1935 because the German seminary where she had studied refused to grant her semicha. Jonas was murdered in Auschwitz nine years later.

Change in the religious realm happens slowly, noted Sasso, who was ordained in 1974 and served for 36 years as co-rabbi with her husband, Rabbi Dennis Sasso, at Congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis.

“When everything around us is changing and topsy-turvy, and the ground is not firm, we assume religion will be the place we can escape to,” she said. “People are less comfortable with rapid change in religion. That’s why women doctors and lawyers were accepted before rabbis.”

Sasso retired from the pulpit in 2013 and, after the 2016 election, started a grassroots political group MARCH/APRIL 2022

Another major issue for female rabbis today, said Nadell of American University, “is the challenge that American women face in all professions: How do you balance family life and an extremely challenging career in a country that does not have adequate childcare?”

For some of the trailblazers, family life didn’t seem like an option, and becoming a rabbinic leader came at a cost.

“I always thought I would get married and have children and planned a nursery next to my study,” said Priesand. But once she began working in a synagogue, “I realized I just couldn’t do it. I could never have both a career and a family and do both well. So I chose my career.”

“I made decisions based on what was best for women in the rabbinate,

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50 Years not necessarily what was best for me,” Priesand continued. “I was very conscious of the fact that people were judging women in the rabbinate through me.”

Now 75, Priesand is retired from Monmouth Reform Temple, the New Jersey synagogue she led for 25 years and where she continues to attend services regularly. Her first rabbinic job was at the prestigious Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan, where she worked for seven years as assistant and then associate rabbi.

Finding a position as a senior rabbi, however, was extremely challenging, recalled Priesand. “People just weren’t ready yet” for a woman to fill the senior position at a large synagogue.

Today, the job of being a rabbi is changing, at least in part because of female rabbis advocating for greater flexibility.

“Women have helped all colleagues with issues of institutional culture,” including work-life balance issues, said the Conservative movement’s Blumenthal. “These aren’t just priorities for women, but often women speak in a stronger voice, and it’s a help to our entire profession.

There is no one way for women or men to be a leader but notions of leadership are changing because we have a more diverse field of rabbis.”

That diversity has expanded in recent years to include rabbis of color, rabbis with disabilities, openly gay rabbis and transgender and non-binary rabbis.

In part because of work-life balance concerns, rabbis—both men and women—are increasingly opting for careers as educators, Hillel directors, chaplains and nonprofit leaders rather than pulpit positions in congregations.

It is different today than it was in

the time of Reconstructionist founder Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, when the expectation associated with becoming a pulpit rabbi meant “a rise to status, maybe even a national voice, along with significant pay,” said Rabbi Deborah Waxman, CEO and president of Reconstructing Judaism, which includes the Reconstructionist rabbinical seminary and its congregational arm. “I don’t think that’s the future [young rabbis] necessarily want or expect.”

1,500 ESTIMATED NUMBER OF WOMEN ORDAINED AROUND THE WORLD, WITH MORE THAN HALF, 839,

BY THE REFORM MOVEMENT

dreaming what was possible.”

Since its first class in 2013, the women-only Yeshivat Maharat, which is an acronym for Hebrew words meaning a female leader of Jewish law, spirituality and Torah, has ordained 49 women, with each deciding her own title. They include rabba, rabbanit, maharat and rabbi. Nine more women are slated to be ordained in June. Most work as educators, chaplains and in other non-pulpit roles, though a few serve in assistant and associate positions at synagogues.

Maharat Ruth Friedman, for example, was in Yeshivat Maharat’s first cohort and serves as clergy at Congregation Ohev Shalom-The National Synagogue in Washington, D.C. Rabbanit Hadas Fruchter is the only Yeshivat Maharat graduate to lead her own congregation, the South Philadelphia Shtiebel, which she founded in 2019.

70% 50% F OF REFORMORDAINED WOMEN HOLD PULPIT JOBS

OF CONSERVATIVEORDAINED WOMEN HOLD PULPIT JOBS

Source: Survey of movements, from Orthodox to Renewal

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he first women in the major liberal denominations paved the way not only for female rabbis worldwide but also for Modern Orthodox women to join the rabbinate—a much newer phenomenon.

“Seeing women as rabbis became more normative and allowed young Orthodox women to see themselves in that role,” said Rabba Sara Hurwitz, 44, president of Yeshivat Maharat, which she co-founded with Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, who ordained her privately in 2009. “This allowed us to begin

MARCH/APRIL 2022

or all the challenges faced by women in the rabbinate, the rewards have been great, pioneers agree.

“I’ve seen tremendous change,” said Eilberg, despite the fact that there remains “understandable outrage that women are still being paid less and respected less.” Just because there have been female rabbis for 50 years, she added, “doesn’t mean sexism has been eradicated. It’s alive and well.”

At the same time, she said, “there was never any question about whether what we are doing is meaningful.”

There are very few careers, Priesand agreed, “where you can touch people’s lives in such meaningful ways.”

Debra Nussbaum Cohen, author of Celebrating Your New Jewish Daughter: Creating Jewish Ways to Welcome Baby Girls into the Covenant, is a journalist living in New York City.

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Then and Now: The 'Four Firsts' Weigh Challenges to the Jewish Community Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso

Leading the Way (from left) Rabba Sara Hurwitz (Orthodox) and Rabbis Amy Eilberg (Conservative), Sandy Eisenberg Sasso (Reconstructionist) and Sally J. Priesand (Reform) were the first to be ordained in each of their movements.

Rabbi Amy Eilberg

The year that I was ordained by the Conservative movement, 1985, was one both troubled and celebratory for American Jews. We watched Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso is rabbi emerita of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck with trepidation as Israel attempted to disengage from Lebanon, only to in Indianapolis and director of the Religion, Spirituality and the Arts program at see the formation of Hezbollah, causing grave concern to Israel and to the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Arts and Humanities Institute.

American Jews. At the same time, many younger Jews began to shift from seeing Israel as a vulnerable state surrounded by enemies to seeing it as an occupying power. The divide in the Jewish community’s views of Israel that we know so well today began to spread and intensify.

My ordination also marked a triumph in the Jewish feminist movement, which had decisively emerged as a transformative force in American Jewish life, spawning new works of theology, liturgy and midrash. The floodgates opened, bringing a cadre of new female leaders and new sources of learning, creativity, passion and compassion to the Jewish community.

Challenges remain. The goal of equality of opportunity and respect for Jewish women in the rabbinate is certainly not complete. Today, it is LGBTQ Jews and Jewish leaders who must be included and embraced. The community is just beginning to recognize the needs of the 10 to 15 percent of the American Jewish population who are Jews of Color. And in 2022, the Jewish community must also look beyond itself, working to protect democracy, to stand in solidarity with other targeted communities and to vigorously defend the planet from climate disaster.

Rabbi Amy Eilberg currently serves as a spiritual director, peace and justice educator and teacher of mussar, a classical Jewish system of spiritual development.

MARCH/APRIL 2022

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PHOTO COURTESY OF THE JACOB RADER MARCUS CENTER OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, CINCINNATI, OHIO AT AMERICANJEWISHARCHIVES.ORG

When I was preparing for my 1974 ordination, I wanted to write a Ph.D. dissertation on women and Judaism. I was advised that would be a mistake and was counseled to write about something “important.”

The issues that were important during the 1970s were about Jewish survival, the security of Israel, the rescue of Jews from the Soviet Union and other endangered communities. These were unifying concerns that mobilized American Jews. Secular feminism had a strong presence in America but discounted Judaism as patriarchal. Jewish feminism was just emerging and often viewed as divisive, a threat to Jewish continuity. The havurah movement raised questions about the traditional structure of Jewish life and leadership.

Fifty years later, the impact of Jewish feminism has been enormous, reshaping much of Jewish life and expanding in recent years to include gender diversity. The challenges today concern polarization. As we embrace diversity, we search for a unifying center. Will focusing on important secular and universal causes be enough to hold the Jewish community together when arguments over Zionism and issues of Jewish identity tear us apart? With the rise of social media and diminishing congregational membership, what will be the structures that sustain Jewish living? Will insularity cause us to regress and make us irrelevant? Will loss of all boundaries and individualism cause us to disappear as a community?

Jewish feminism has taught us to widen the tent but at the same time to respect boundaries. We valued the tradition even as we transformed it. The inclusion of marginalized groups enriched, but did not necessarily negate, Jewish tradition. The challenge for the next generation is how to ensure that the boundaries that protect us are not barriers to personal and communal transformation.

50 Years Rabbi Sally J. Priesand

Rabba Sara Hurwitz

The year I was ordained, 1972, was a presidential election year, with Richard Nixon running for re-election against George McGovern.

There was a lot of talk about whether Jews voted as a one-issue community that put Israel above everything else. I addressed the subject in my first Yom Kippur sermon in the main sanctuary of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan, where I held my first rabbinic position following ordination. Rabbi Edward E. Klein, my senior rabbi, taught me to use a free pulpit (meaning the rabbi is free to say whatever he or she wishes) to motivate and inspire people as Stephen Wise had intended. In my sermon, I suggested that we face an election as individuals and not as a Jewish community, considering all issues of the campaign and choosing the candidate we think best for America. I still feel the same.

Another major challenge faced by the Jewish community then was how best to welcome women into every aspect of synagogue and communal life. This issue continues to challenge the Jewish world. Female rabbis are not compensated equally to male rabbis. Respect for rabbis is called into question when male rabbis are addressed as “rabbi” and female rabbis are called by their first name. Some organizations continue to sponsor all-male panels. Large congregations hesitate to hire women as their senior rabbis. Sexual assault, gender bias, discrimination and bullying are just beginning to be dealt with. I congratulate the Reform Jewish community for putting these issues, and others like them, on the front burner, and I am grateful to the Women’s Rabbinic Network and the Women of Reform Judaism for playing a leadership role.

In 2009, around the time I was ordained, Rabbi Sally J. Priesand is rabbi emerita of Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, N.J. I began noticing a pervading sense of disillusionment with the role of women in Orthodoxy.

A 2016 study by Nishma Research found that among Orthodox Jews who had left the fold, 37 percent said that women’s roles in Judaism propelled them to opt out. Although women have reached the highest echelons of leadership and equity in every industry, they are othered or hidden in Orthodox synagogues. Women who are seen as leaders in all aspects of their lives have lower tolerance for invisibility, so they and their daughters are leaving. Yeshivat Maharat, which educates and ordains women, was created to push the boundaries of the Orthodox community. Seeing women on the bimah, in the classroom and as leaders of organizations helps the next generation remain connected to their roots.

Today, the challenges have shifted. The pandemic has accelerated the fact that, across all Jewish communities, synagogues are less central to people’s lives. People are finding ways to connect with like-minded individuals across the globe; proximity is no longer the defining way people create communities. The locus of today’s Jewish life needs to shift from legacy organizations, such as large synagogues and large communal institutions, although these do serve a purpose, to focusing on local microcommunities that gather based on shared interests. Whether people are embracing our global community or seeking local grassroots support, rabbis as teachers of Torah and as pastoral listeners will continue to play an important role in the lives of the Jewish people.

Rabba Sara Hurwitz is president and co-founder of Yeshivat Maharat and serves as clergy at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in Riverdale, N.Y. MARCH/APRIL 2022

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Building Community Far From the Madding Crowd J COURTESY OF SARA ZOBER

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen

ewish life is different outside of urban centers like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami, and the rabbis who choose to work in remote, relatively small congregations are a special breed.

They face career challenges that don’t exist for their peers in larger communities. Most work part time because their synagogues can’t afford a fulltime salary. Kosher food and Jewish cultural events are rare and, among the many tasks they perform, editing their synagogue newsletter appears to be a common one.

But there are also benefits unique to Jewish life in a smaller community,

including a closeness and connection with congregants that rabbis at larger synagogues often don’t have time to develop. Hadassah Magazine spoke with three female rabbis working in different regions of the United States to find out what their roles—and their lives—look like.

RABBI SARA ZOBER, RENO, NEVADA

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hen rabbi sara zober and her husband, Rabbi Benjamin Zober, were looking for their second congregation—the pair had met as rabbinical students at the Reform Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion in

MARCH/APRIL 2022

Cincinnati and were ordained in 2017—they had certain requirements. One was that they both be hired for part-time positions.

Another was that the town had to have “at least a minor league baseball team,” said Sara Zober. “Some people need a good Jewish deli, and we need baseball games. Reno fit the bill.” Last summer, she and about 50 other Jewish fans enjoyed the first Jewish Heritage Night at a Reno Aces game. And she took home a baseball cap with the team’s name written in Yiddish.

The Zobers had specifically sought a smaller congregation, which they

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50 Years

site page, marching with her children in a Reno pride parade) sought a small congregation.

found in Temple Sinai, with its 160 member households. Although an estimated 4,000 Jews live in the Reno area, just a few hundred affiliate with any of the three local congregations, which include a Chabad house and a Conservative synagogue.

“We decided it made sense to work together in a smaller place so we could be available to our kids and not burn out,” said Zober, who is in her late 30s. The couple has three children, ages 10, 11 and 13.

An upside to being in a relatively small community are the strong ties among members, she said. “Every simcha is a big simcha, and every tragedy is a collective tragedy,” she said. “Everyone whose funeral I do I know well. When someone new moves in, it’s so welcoming and warm. In Reno, everyone has to know and count on one another.”

That is true for interdenominational cooperation as well. Zober and the Chabad rebbetzin run the women’s chevra kadisha, or burial society. “If we’re not the chevra kadisha, there is no chevra kadisha,” Zober said. A group of male volunteers takes care of burial preparation for the men.

Collaboration extends to The Hebrew Cemetery of Reno, which also is overseen by volunteers.

It is the only Jewish cemetery in

a small city is that we only have each other.”

The flip side, though, is that in a congregation like hers, everyone is in everyone else’s business—even the rabbi’s. “When I go to the grocery store,” she quipped, “congregants literally look in my cart and comment on the bok choy.”

RABBI SONJA PILZ BOZEMAN, MONTANA

B

ozeman is a world away from Freiburg, Germany, where Rabbi Sonja Pilz grew up and lived until just six years ago.

But Pilz, who is 37, married and a mother of a toddler, is enjoying the change. She is also introducing Jewish-themed nature activities at her synagogue, Congregation Beth Shalom, making the most of the big-sky, outdoorsy culture of the area. For Tu B’Shevat in January, 30 congregants aged 3 to 87 hiked on a nature trail while reflecting on themes and symbols of the holiday.

Pilz was ordained at the Reform

COURTESY OF SARA ZOBER (TOP); COURTESY OF THE JACOB RADER MARCUS CENTER OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, CINCINNATI, OHIO AT AMERICANJEWISHARCHIVES.ORG

Benefits Rabbi Sara Zober (above and oppo-

northern Nevada, so it is used by all three congregations. When conflict arose over the questions of burying cremated remains and non-Jewish spouses, “it took a lot of negotiation” to resolve it, Zober said. “We ended up with yes” on both issues, “but had to make other concessions.”

A new addition will have an Orthodox section in it, boundaried from the rest of it with no cremains and no non-Jewish spouses, she said.

At congregations with limited staff, tasks that go beyond what is generally considered the job of the spiritual leader fall to the rabbi.

Zober, who is also principal of the synagogue’s 40-student Hebrew school, stayed late recently to vacuum cookie crumbs off the floor of the small social hall and mop the bathroom floors. In addition to editing the congregation’s newsletter, she inventories the supply closet and goes through the markers to discard those that have dried out.

Still, she said, the benefits outweigh the challenges. “The joy of being in

Perspective and Compromise Rabbi Sonja Pilz (right, at an event with Rabbi Sally Priesand) would like to help her congregants in Montana ‘create a Jewish life that is as deep, vibrant and as spiritual as possible.’

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movement’s Abraham Geiger College in Berlin. She moved to New York to study with liturgy scholar Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman at the HUC campus in Manhattan. For six years, Pilz lived in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, working as editor of the CCAR Press, the publishing arm of the Reform movement, and teaching ritual and liturgy at HUC. She had once considered becoming a professor of Jewish studies. But while she was part of the Egalitarian Jewish Bridge Chavurah in Freiburg, in southwest Germany’s Black Forest, she was involved in many aspects of congregational life, including teaching Torah, preparing b’nai mitzvah students and serving on the chevra kadisha. Over time, she was drawn

to the idea of pursuing all those roles as a congregational rabbi and opted for rabbinical school.

When board members of the 40-year-old Beth Shalom first offered her a position several years ago, Pilz was single and turned it down.

“There was no way I could pack up and move to Bozeman by myself,” she recalled, noting the remote, frigid locale. A couple of years later, she was married and pregnant, and the board offered her the job again. This time, she said yes, and began her position in July 2021.

About half of Beth Shalom’s 130-member households are retirees, many from large cities like New York City and Los Angeles, drawn to what she described as a “rapidly growing,

increasingly expensive hipster town” close to Yellowstone National Park.

People come to the area “because they want more space, not because they want to lead the most Jewish lives in the world,” Pilz said, adding that they come with “many different perspectives on what Jewish life is supposed to be.”

Her goal, she said, “is for the people who are here now to create a Jewish life that is as deep, vibrant and as spiritual as possible.”

Living in Bozeman, she said, “is a different kind of rabbinic challenge than it would be living anywhere else.

But I am well prepared, coming from diverse, fractured Europe. Options here are rare, compromises have to be made and life has to be lived.”

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In Tune Rabbi Nancy Tunick says that her relationships with congregants in Florence, Ala. (top), transcend the synagogue.

RABBI NANCY TUNICK FLORENCE, ALABAMA

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usic drew rabbi nancy Tunick to Nashville, Tenn., as it does for countless musicians each year. A former Warner Bros. Records executive, Tunick now has her own music promotion and marketing business.

Music also connected her to Temple B’nai Israel in Florence, where she started more than 20 years ago as a cantorial soloist for the High Holidays and now serves as its part-time rabbi, though she still lives 100 miles away in Nashville.

B’nai Israel, which has 40 member households and is denominationally unaffiliated, is near the city of Muscle Shoals, Ala., where Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones once recorded.

Not surprisingly, this spiritual leader

weaves music through her rabbinate.

“Music is the centerpiece of our worship services,” said Tunick, who during the pandemic has led the services remotely from her home piano. The 55-year-old mother of two teenagers—who lost her husband to a heart attack a year ago—wrote her own tunes for most of the prayers at B’nai Israel.

Each tune, she said, was written for a specific congregant or occasion.

Tunick also composes a song for each life-cycle event celebrated by congregants. The wedding of a young woman whose own baby naming Tunick led is scheduled for 2023, which will make the bride the first congregant to have two original songs composed for her.

The congregation is sometimes joined by local musicians connected to Muscle Shoals studios. “We have a community of creatives, many excellent musicians who live in the area and periodically contribute to the service,” said Tunick. “It allows us to combine traditions and musical contexts so that the music is influenced by the community.”

Although she studied with cantors, Tunick didn’t pursue cantorial ordination. She was, however, hired as a cantorial soloist at B’nai Israel in 2000, leading High Holiday services with a part-time rabbi. In 2008, the MARCH/APRIL 2022

congregation, which is over 100 years old and started as an Orthodox shul, invited her to become their sole spiritual leader. A few years later, with their financial backing and moral support, Tunick attended the Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute, a small, nondenominational ordination program in New York City designed for people already working as congregational leaders. She was ordained as a rabbi in 2013.

The congregation, most of whom are over 65, is tight-knit, said Tunick.

Before the pandemic, she said, members went out to dinner together after services on Friday nights. When they go to the symphony, they also go with each other. “You are involved in congregants’ lives in ways that transcend synagogue,” she said of her own relationships. “There is a blurry line between clergy and family and friend. That changes the dynamic. We are in this together.”

They worry about the future together as well. When congregants’ children go to college, “they don’t come back,” she said. Occasionally, new Jewish professors at the University of North Alabama or doctors at the local hospital join.

Streaming services on Facebook during the pandemic has expanded their reach. Between 100 and 200 people watch every service, Tunick said, and some as far away as England and Mexico have become dues-paying congregants.

“There is definitely a feeling of optimism” that the livestreaming, which will continue post-pandemic even as they return to in-person services, will contribute to congregational growth, she said. “The board feels like that model could support the congregation for many years to come and allows the aging community to have some hope.”

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ALAMY (TOP); COURTESY OF NANCY TUNICK

50 Years

Rabbi Lauren Henderson

Envisioning the Rabbinate Through a Different Lens

By Rahel Musleah

COURTESY OF LAUREN HENDERSON

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arlan rabizadeh had wanted to become a rabbi ever since she was a teenager, but only much later overcame the objections of her parents, Jewish immigrants from Iran, and the expectations of her traditional Persian community in Los Angeles.

Inspired by Rabbi Sharon Brous, then a teacher at the Milken Community School, the Jewish day school Rabizadeh attended, she describes the rabbinate as a “calling” that she finally fulfilled after working as an interior designer and Jewish educator. She was ordained at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Manhattan in 2018 and is now director of student life at UCLA’s Hillel.

The 36-year-old Rabizadeh hopes

to use her expertise and background to bridge the Ashkenazi and nonAshkenazi worlds. For her, “being a rabbi is really about being a translator between the two communities,” she said. It’s about “explaining and helping integrate two different cultures, both of which happen to be Jewish” but which have different perspectives “on how some of those values should be carried out.”

Rabizadeh is not alone in the circuitous path she took to the rabbinate.

Before Yael Werber decided to apply to rabbinical school, she had worked on Jewish-owned farms and in restaurants; lived in a cabin with no running water, electricity or plumbing; wrote a children’s book, Spring for Sophie; co-owned a company that sold cloth menstrual MARCH/APRIL 2022

pads; went to herbalism school; briefly tried nursing school; earned a degree in speech therapy from Boston University; and taught preschool in Manhattan.

Though she was raised with a strong Jewish identity in a Conservative home in Boston, it took an “aha!” moment for Werber, now 35, to veer from the female caregiver roles she grew up with in her family and community—like teacher and nurse—to a rabbinic path. But when her supervisor in nursing school berated her, she said, for spending too much time talking to a dying 90-year-old man and his family, she realized that the care she wanted to give required a different focus.

In May, she will be ordained at the pluralistic Hebrew College in Newton Centre, Mass. “Being a rabbi was that thing I was seeking— walking with people in hard times and low places as well as in joyous times,” she said.

T

he stories of these women mirror those of a new generation of female rabbis being ordained by mainstream liberal Jewish seminaries across the country.

Striking in their diverse backgrounds, approaches and visions for the future, current students and newly minted rabbis include Jews by choice, Jews of color and Jews who identify as LBGTQ as well as those who grew up in traditional, liberal, secular and interfaith homes. They cross denominational lines in their choice of seminaries and opt for careers ranging from congregational pulpits to Hillel, from chaplaincy to Jewish education and nonprofit work. Some are choosing new and experimental organizations; some are even creating their own startups.

Gender parity has largely evened

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50 Years

(above) and rabbinical student Yael Werber pursued the rabbinate after multiple career shifts.

out between male- and female-identified students at most of the seminaries, though statistics around career choices vary. At Hebrew College, fewer than 50 percent of alumni are choosing congregational work these days, down from 70 percent 18 years ago, when the college’s rabbinical program was founded. Among newly ordained Reform rabbis, the number seeking pulpit positions is 70 to 80 percent, but even that represents a decline from past years. Officials in the Conservative movement say about half of their rabbis currently hold pulpit positions.

“Jews are entering Jewish life through so many kinds of doorways— the arts, yoga, illness, education— and we need rabbis in all those doorways,” said Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, president of Hebrew College and former dean of its rabbinical school.

Werber said she often speaks to congregants at the three synagogues at which she has served as an intern, most recently at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in Manhattan, about “the winding path to figuring out who we are.

“My growth has not been linear,” she said. “Many people are able to

K

anaan goldstein hopes to become a military chaplain and help erase the stigma of mental health issues in the military.

The 30-year-old, second-year student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in suburban Philadelphia was raised in a Reform home in Norman, Okla. She joined the Navy at 17, searching for independence and control after her parents had divorced four years earlier. Disciplined for an infraction of military rules, she spoke to a rabbi-chaplain for a mental health check-in. “That changed my life,” she said.

When she was stationed on the warship U.S.S. Wasp in Norfolk, Va.—“They put a nice Jewish girl on the Wasp,” she joked—she took leadership roles in both Jewish and military spheres, conducting services on board and attaining the rank of Petty Officer Second Class. In Norfolk, she sought out the local synagogue, Ohef Sholom Temple, where two female rabbis became her mentors: Rosalin Mandelberg, senior rabbi of the congregation, and a member, Connie Golden.

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T

he job market is good for rabbinical students seeking pulpits these days. While some congregations are shrinking and merging, others are booming and new ones are forming—all of which translates into an “explosion” of requests for rabbis today across denominations, said Rabbi Dvora Weisberg, director of the HUC-JIR rabbinical school.

Some of the demand is due to retirements and resignations during Covid or to congregations that delayed hiring, movement officials say.

Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, interim dean of the rabbinical and cantorial schools at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, speculates that next-generation rabbis—women and men—who have grown up in a post9/11 environment of fear, uncertainty, divisiveness and xenophobia, are looking for positions in communities “with a strong culture of kindness, equity and social justice.” At the same time, they are seeking boundaries between work and personal life to

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COURTESY OF TARLAN RABIZADEH (LEFT); COURTESY OF YAEL WERBER

Circuitous Paths Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh

relate to that feeling of not knowing exactly where they are in life, or their purpose, or their very next step. They can feel comforted when a rabbi acknowledges that fear or anxiety.

Being unsure of what comes next is a normal part of the human process, especially in pandemic times.”

Issues surrounding interfaith relationships have been and might continue to be an obstacle for Goldstein, whose partner is not Jewish.

She chose to study at RRC because her first choice, HUC, does not accept or ordain students in interfaith relationships.

Goldstein remains intent on achieving her goal to create space for leaders who are in interfaith relationships in the Jewish community. “The two circles of my life”—Judaism and a career in the military—“are distinct bubbles, yet so similar to each other,” she said. “They are both rooted in tradition, routine and history and focus on community.” The rabbinate, she said, will further equip her to bridge her two worlds.

make their rabbinates manageable and sustainable.

Aspiring and new rabbis are also entering Jewish life at a time of change. “Students in the rising generation know they’re going to have to build the Jewish future in entrepreneurial ways because of the massive changes in Jewish communal life in the past 15 years,” Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president and CEO of Reconstructing Judaism, said, citing declining membership in congregations as one example of the change.

“It’s painful and confusing, and there’s also a lot of opportunity,” Waxman said. “Our students are not mourning what once was. They’re using ancient wisdom to build a Jewish future.”

COURTESY OF KANAAN GOLDSTEIN

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abbi lauren henderson, a JTS graduate and rabbi at Or Hadash congregation in the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, Ga., envisions creating a “haimish community with a homey feeling where it’s profoundly intergenerational and the elders know the b’nai mitzvah students and everyone pitches in to make food for kiddush.” One of her models is Temple B’nai Israel, the only synagogue in Spartanburg, S.C., which her interfaith family joined when she was 8 years old.

At the same time, the 34-yearold rabbi, who started her new post at the 320-family congregation in July 2020, is “exploring what 21st century Judaism looks like,” including more mindfulness during prayer.

Given her family heritage, Henderson is also sensitive to issues of interfaith marriage and is studying halachic parameters that might allow Conservative rabbis to take part in wedding ceremonies where one partner is not Jewish.

For Henderson, it was not a rabbi

week how we understand Torah’s evolution in the 21st century.”

D Kanaan Goldstein

but a Messianic Jew who compelled her to learn more about her Jewish roots. As an undergraduate at Rice University, a friend invited her to a meeting of Campus Crusade for Christ, where the speaker urged attendees to spread the gospel in order to be true friends to one another. She left that evening angry yet determined to deepen her Jewish knowledge, and she promptly joined Hillel. She began her rabbinic studies at the Conservative movement’s Ziegler School at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles and later transferred to JTS, where she was ordained in 2016.

Her experiences have shown her that “we are no longer rabbis with all the answers,” said Henderson.

“I’m continually mesmerized by the richness of Jewish tradition, its boldness, how radical it can be, and its resilience. My role is to be a fellow learner alongside others, to be a curator of the evolution of Torah, and to bring my community into that larger conversation.”

For the past few months, her community has been taking part in a project called Toratah, or the Regendered Bible, in which the artist Yael Kanarek has switched the genders of every character in the Torah from male to female or female to male— including God. “We’re watching,” Henderson said, “as this new lens on Torah is being created before our eyes, in real time, and discussing each MARCH/APRIL 2022

espite the growing diversity, some populations remain underrepresented in the new generation of liberal rabbis.

“America allowed me to become a rabbi,” Rabizadeh, the UCLA Hillel rabbi, said. But she also struggles with being a “token of diversity,” she said, noting that she was the only non-Ashkenazi in rabbinical school at HUC in Manhattan and at her former position at the eclectic congregation The Kitchen in San Francisco, part of the Jewish Emergent Network of collaborating innovative communities where she was a rabbinic fellow.

“People have asked me when I converted,” she said. Her master’s thesis at HUC involved writing a trilingual Progressive Persian Haggadah. In the future, she hopes to create a synagogue or a school to share the richness of Persian and other non-Ashkenazi traditions, or write books that are not “flat and one-sided” portrayals of what Jews look like.

UCLA Hillel’s large Persian population allows Rabizadeh to guide students who remind her of herself.

“The reason Moses could do the job of leading the Jewish people out of Egypt is that he was born Jewish, but he lived in the palace,” she said. “He was both an Egyptian and a Hebrew.

I feel like that, too.”

She also has faith in the power of the rabbinate. “Rabbis are more than just spiritual guides,” she said.

“We’re judges and lawyers, we’re counselors and therapists. We’re paid to think and observe the world.”

Rahel Musleah leads virtual tours of Jewish India and other cultural events and hopes to lead her first post-pandemic, in-person tour in November 2022 (explorejewishindia.com).

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50 Years

In Israel, Breaking Barriers in the Orthodox World

By Michele Chabin

I

n October 2020, when the Torah reader at Shirat HaTamar, a Modern Orthodox congregation in Efrat, realized—mid-sentence—that an ever-so-slightly scrunched letter might render the Torah unkosher, the shul’s leaders called on their resident expert in Jewish law: Shira Marili Mirvis.

Mirvis, who was then in the final year of a five-year program in women’s halachic leadership, walked from the women’s section to the bimah and carefully examined the Torah. After informing the congregation that the Torah was indeed kosher, the Shabbat reading continued.

“After I sat back in my seat in the women’s section, behind the mechitzah, I realized I was asked, and I answered, a halachic question for the whole synagogue that a synagogue’s rabbi would ordinarily answer,” Mirvis said.

Less than a year later, in May 2021, Mirvis officially began to lead Shirat HaTamar, a vibrant 42-family synagogue that was established three years ago in her West Bank settlement near Jerusalem. She is believed to be

the only woman in Israel to head an Orthodox synagogue on her own.

Mirvis, 42, who calls herself a rabbanit rather than a rabbi or rabba, has most of the responsibilities of a male Orthodox congregational rabbi, including answering questions on halacha (Jewish law), teaching Torah subjects to adults and youth, reading the haftarah on Shabbat and delivering sermons. But unlike a male rabbi, she is not counted in a minyan, so she cannot lead prayers or officiate at weddings. Male congregants lead the davening and read from the Torah—just as they did before Mirvis headed the synagogue.

The synagogue’s decision to hire Mirvis was “a natural progression,” said Rami Schwartz, a Shirat HaTamar board member. “She and her family have been members of the community since day one. She shared Torah, taught classes, and people started coming to her with halachic questions. People gravitated to her and saw her as a de facto leader of the kehillah, our synagogue community.”

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irvis earned a heter hora’a— a permit to teach Jewish law, commonly known as a certificate of semicha—by passing the same exam that male rabbinical students in Israel must take before the Chief Rabbinate certifies them as rabbis. The Rabbinate, a strictly Orthodox and state-funded institution that has a monopoly over virtually all matters related to official Jewish life in Israel, does not permit women to take their semicha test.

In July 2021, Mirvis received her heter hora’a from the Susi Bradfield Women’s Institute of Halakhic Leadership, a part of the Ohr Torah Stone educational network. She was handpicked to lead Shirat HaTamar by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the founding chief rabbi of Efrat and founder and chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone.

“This has always been a dream of mine, to see a woman like Shira being a leader of a Jewish community,” Riskin, 81, told Hadassah Magazine. “The first rebbe who taught me Gemara was my maternal grandmother, who learned from her father, a rabbinic court judge in Europe.”

Mirvis was born in Jerusalem into an Orthodox Sephardi family that considered their local synagogue, which was headed by Rabbi

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DEBBIE HILL

Rabbanit Shira Marili Mirvis at home in Efrat

The bottom line, Schwartz said, is that “when people in a community have a question, they go to their community rabbi. It’s natural that we go to Shira, we trust her knowledge and humility. When she herself needs to go to her teachers for guidance, she does. That’s an important quality in a leader.”

For an Israeli Orthodox synagogue to appoint a woman as the sole religious leader “is pathbreaking,” said Adam Ferziger, a professor at Bar-Ilan University’s department of Jewish history and contemporary Jewry. This is especially true as “it implies that she is a halachic authority, which is an area, a role that even many moderate Orthodox figures would be reticent offering to a woman.”

Ferziger estimated that about five or six other Modern Orthodox synagogues in Israel have women who serve as assistant rabbis or in partnership roles with male rabbis. “It’s a slow, incremental revolution, but it’s still avantegarde,” he said.

Pioneer Within Jewish Law Mirvis says that she wants to be the ‘halachic woman figure’

DEBBIE HILL

whom Jewish women—and men—can go to on a variety of issues.

Mordechai Eliyahu before he became a chief rabbi of Israel, their second home.

She insists that her desire to lead a synagogue and be a poseket halacha—a rabbischolar who rules on halacha—is motivated by her desire to serve her community, not to rock the boat of Orthodox Jewish practice.

“I grew up in a family obligated to halacha and, at some point, I realized I hadn’t learned how rabbinic decisions were made, and I wanted to know. At a time when Jews can simply Google a question, a posek gives an answer that is tailored to the specific question and situation.”

She sees herself as a pioneer, yet firmly within the boundaries of Jewish law. “I’m not trying to break tradition,” Mirvis emphasized during an interview in her book-lined, toy-filled home in Efrat. “I value tradition very much.” At the same time, she wants to be the “halachic woman figure” whom Jewish women—and men—can go to on a variety of issues.

She said she wishes that such a woman had existed when she got married 18 years ago and a year later, when she experienced a miscarriage. “I had a lot of halachic questions and I wanted to learn what was minhag— tradition—and what was halacha, but I felt embarrassed asking a man.”

While several women had by then graduated from the yoetzet halacha program of the Nishmat Center for Advanced Torah Study, where they became experts in the area of taharat hamishpacha, Jewish law that relates to marriage, sexuality and women’s health, “they

weren’t accessible to me,” Mirvis said. “Unlike today, there was no yoetzet halacha hotline.”

Nor were they trained to answer Mirvis’s many questions unrelated to those issues, she said.

Mirvis’s husband, Shlomo, the founder and CEO of a tech startup company, calls himself “rebbetzman.” They have five children, ages 7 to 16.

By the time Mirvis’s father died four years ago, and an ultra-Orthodox member of a Jerusalem chevra kadisha forbade her from making a tear in her clothing as a sign of mourning at the cemetery because it would be “religiously immodest,” she knew enough about Jewish mourning practices to insist on tearing her garment. “I told him, no, I need to do this now, and I ripped my shirt,” she recalled. “Of course, I was wearing a shirt underneath.”

F

rom its inception, Shirat HaTamar— which gathers in a kindergarten on Shabbat and holidays but has been allotted land to build a permanent structure by the Efrat municipality—follows the religious guidelines set forth by Riskin, including what women can and cannot do from a religious perspective.

“I’m not counted in the minyan, I’m not the chazanit [cantor], I don’t wear a tallit or tefillin or read from the Torah,” Mirvis said. “We do everything within the boundaries of halacha, so there are so many things that I can do.”

Mirvis said she sometimes feels saddened by the fact that women are not counted in a minyan. “It does bother me, but I bend my wishes to halacha.”

MARCH/APRIL 2022

More than anything, she said, “the essence of my role is to be available to people, to answer their questions. I see myself in charge of enhancing options to whoever wants to learn Torah and halacha.”

In addition to offering classes on different aspects of Jewish law and answering members’ questions—everything from building a kosher-for-Sukkot pergola to surrogate motherhood—Mirvis ushers her congregants through Jewish calendar and life-cycle events. She works to help prepare every prospective bar and bat mitzvah child in the synagogue, and offers halachic guidance and emotional support to members navigating the loss of a loved one.

Asked whether being a rabbanit and not a male rabbi brings “added value” to her synagogue job, Mirvis grew pensive. “I don’t know how to answer,” she said. “I think the role is similar, in that I make halacha accessible to the community.”

But, she asked, “In what way am I different? On Rosh Hashanah, I gave my dvar Torah outside due to corona, in the parking lot, to more than 100 people. I started crying, and my community starting crying. At the end of the prayers a male rabbi came up to me and said that this is the power of a woman rabbi.

She will allow herself to cry in front of her synagogue. I feel comfortable crying in front of them, but I grew up in a small family shul and the male rabbi cried all the time.”

Mirvis’s congregants say she brings a perspective and experience not shared by male rabbis. “As a religious woman I always had to go to male rabbis, even when I didn’t want to, so sometimes I didn’t go,” said Renana Stern, a member of Shirat HaTamar.

Stern said that Mirvis “looks at issues from her perspective as a woman, a wife, a friend, a mother as well as an expert in halacha. Her leadership and her ability to be in touch with her emotions makes everyone feel secure to speak with her.”

Mirvis’s role extends beyond the synagogue.

In Efrat, which has only two paid kashrut supervisors—both male—she has been entrusted by the municipality’s religious council with checking the kosher standards of at-home food businesses run by women. For the moment, she does so on a voluntary basis, she said, because

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50 Years there is no budget for a third supervisor.

The same is true of her volunteer work, which she sees as an extension of her role as a rabbanit. She guides mikveh attendants at the local mikveh, comforts families in the Covid ward of Shaare Zedek Medical Center and works with the local burial society. She also teaches, for pay, at various educational institutions.

D

espite her considerable involvement in the community, some rabbis in Efrat refuse to recognize Mirvis’s authority and have distanced themselves from her.

Soon after the news broke that Chaim Walder, a well-known children’s author, rabbi and therapist in the ultra-Orthodox community, was accused of serial sexual assault, including of children, several Efrat rabbis signed a letter recognizing their community’s obligation to deal with sexual abuse. After Mirvis signed the letter, a few of the signatories removed their names.

“It was very sad,” she said. “It was more important to them to not have their names next to a woman’s than to tell their communities they’re here for them.”

Riskin said that graduates of the Bradfield institute and other Orthodox women’s centers of learning are being accepted for a wide range of positions that were traditionally held

by Orthodox men. But Riskin, the founding rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan before making aliyah in 1983, acknowledged that there are still many Orthodox rabbis and institutions that reject the notion that women can be halachic authorities, especially in synagogues, because they don’t want to be accused of changing the religious status quo.

Many in the Orthodox world worry that “it would appear that they are accepting Reform or Conservative practice,” Riskin said. “They’re afraid of the slippery slope.”

SEE YOUR NAME IN LIGHTS IN JERUSALEM!

Rabbi Kenneth Brander, president and rosh yeshiva of the international Ohr Torah Stone network, agrees. While he is immensely proud of Bradfield institute graduates, he said, calling them rabbis “can put at risk the work that we do. It scares parts of the Orthodox community, because they are sensitive to the nuances and terminologies of halacha.”

Meanwhile, Mirvis, seated at her dining room table, her computer open while thumbing through Jewish texts—a Gemara, Shulchan Aruch and Hazon Ovadia—welcomed her children as they arrived home from school. She then cited a midrash.

“It is said that every soul of Am Yisrael, the Jewish people, has a letter in the Torah. I identify with this,” she said. “The Torah belongs to everyone.”

Michele Chabin is an award-winning journalist who reports from Israel.

Hadassah is truly emerging into the digital age and is changing how our Keepers of the Gate are recognized at Hadassah Hospital. Keepers will now have their names displayed in a prominent area near the lobby elevators at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem, on one of three beautiful digital displays.

If you’ve been on the path to becoming a Keeper of the Gate, now is the perfect time to step up and join us for this fabulous opportunity!

For more information about the new Keepers of the Gate digital displays, please contact annualgiving@hadassah.org.

HADASSAH, THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC. ©2022 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. Hadassah, the H logo and Hadassah the Power of Women Who Do are registered trademarks of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc.

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1/14/22 12:58 PM

HEALTH

Can Psychedelics Make You Whole?

An unconventional treatment for severe trauma

By Danielle Berrin

COURTESY OF SAMANTHA ROSE STEIN

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amantha rose stein had been on the ascending arc of her career as the director of special projects for TechCrunch, an online media platform reporting on high tech and startups, when, as Joan Didion famously put it in The Year of Magical Thinking, Stein’s life changed “in the instant.”

A fixture in Silicon Valley, Stein frequently traveled overseas to helm Startup Battlefield, a global competition run by TechCrunch in which early-stage startups are invited to compete for prize money as well as the attention of media and investors.

The role placed Stein, who is Jewish, in a vaunted position, able to anoint the next hot startup in one of the most lucrative industries in the world.

During the summer of 2018, while on a work trip in Beirut, Stein was violently assaulted. She declined to share details but said that the episode triggered a post-traumatic stress disorder so paralyzing that she was unable to leave her house.

“I experienced a living death,” Stein, 33, said when we sat down together in the courtyard of her hotel during a visit to Los Angeles last November.

After the assault, Stein had difficulty sleeping and exercising. Her appetite decreased. She suffered from nausea, nightmares and panic attacks and was diagnosed with clinical depression. For months afterward,

she avoided socializing even with her closest friends. “I became a ghost of myself. Nothing brought me joy or pleasure,” she said.

Stein threw herself into the pursuit of a cure. She tried an array of therapies, from the cutting-edge to the traditional: cognitive behavioral therapy, trauma therapy, sound healing and mindfulness practice, among others. When those didn’t work, she took prescribed pharmaceuticals. Stein was fortunate to have the means to shell out tens of thousands on her healing journey, but what did it matter when nothing was helping?

Informed by her professional role identifying breakthrough companies, Stein decided to interview PTSD experts about breakthrough therapies. That’s how she was steered toward an unconventional treatment: psychedelic-assisted therapy.

This protocol combines the use of psychedelics—a class of drugs able to induce altered thoughts and sensory perceptions—with talk therapy. “I was super resistant at first,” Stein said. “You don’t want to feel more altered when you’re already altered.”

But she was desperate.

Stein is now among those who claim that a handful of psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions was transformational, enabling her to confront her trauma and heal her wounds.

“I don’t think I would be where I MARCH/APRIL 2022

Samantha Rose Stein

am today or who I am today without psychedelics,” Stein told me. “I credit these therapies with bringing me back to life.”

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sychedelic drugs—including MDMA, the drug known as “ecstasy,” and psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms”—are still illegal in the United States, classified by the federal government as Schedule I, meaning they have no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. But a network of clinicians has been researching and administering them nonetheless.

Over the last decade, research in psychedelics has undergone a renaissance thanks largely to the advocacy work of MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

The nonprofit, founded by Rick Doblin, who is Jewish, promotes and funds psychedelic research in the United States and other countries, including Israel, which has become a leading center for this area of study.

As a result, psychedelic-assisted therapy has gained the imprimatur of prestigious research institutions, including Johns Hopkins, Stanford and Yale, which are helping to rebrand substances once thought to

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zap your brain as life-saving medicine.

The investment in psychedelic science has contributed to a softening legal stance on Schedule I drugs, particularly at the state and municipal levels. Across the United States, a handful of bills and ballot measures have passed to decriminalize psychedelics or approve them for use under licensed practitioners.

And pop culture is—once again— digging psychedelics. A recent article in Town & Country magazine declared, “America’s intelligentsia is in the grip of a hallucinogenic fever dream.” The Hulu television series Nine Perfect Strangers was seen as a de facto advertisement for microdosing after a wellness guru played by Nicole Kidman administered psilocybin to her patients.

Though research is ongoing, studies suggest that psychedelic therapy can treat the most stubborn forms of depression and PTSD—and with far more compelling results than traditional treatments such as antidepressants. MDMA, the substance most commonly used in this treatment, has proven so effective at treating PTSD that it’s on track to receive FDA approval for use in therapeutic settings as early as 2023.

and Trauma Research. “Many people report having a spiritual experience with psychedelics, and, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of its therapeutic efficacy.” (See sidebar, page 32.)

Yehuda has focused her clinical work on PTSD and trauma since 1987. She’s worked with veterans and Holocaust survivors, among others, and is considered a pioneer in the study of epigenetics, the effect of environment on gene expression, and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. She became interested in psychedelics after watching veterans suffer from PTSD for decades, even as they were being treated with antidepressants and psychotherapy, which, Yehuda said, yielded only marginal benefits.

After hearing repeated whispers of an “almost miraculous treatment,” Yehuda recalled, she decided to go to Israel to train in psychedelic-assisted therapy. The country has been on the leading edge of MDMA research since 1999, when MAPS hosted a symposium in Israel on using that drug to treat PTSD. With the support of Israel’s Ministry of Health, MAPS

has funded an Israeli research team in evaluating MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, now in phase III trials.

It may be Israel’s unique circumstances that primed it for psychedelic experimentation. “In Israel, PTSD is a real societal challenge because everybody goes to the army and because the conflict is very present for everyone,” said Keren Tzarfaty, executive director of MAPS Israel and a clinical investigator in Israel’s trials.

“Both Palestinians and Israelis exhibit much higher than normal levels of PTSD, which is one of the most difficult conditions we can endure as humans.”

Israel’s clinical trials take place in a hospital setting where every step of the process is overseen by a medical professional. Over the course of several months, patients will undergo three MDMA-assisted sessions, each one bookended by intensive talk therapy, both to prepare patients for the

A psychedelic-assisted therapy session MARCH/APRIL 2022

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SHUTTERSTOCK (TOP); COURTESY OF MAPS

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nd yet, some say that evaluating psychedelic-assisted therapy through a purely clinical lens is to miss something critical about its holistic—or even spiritual— power. “Conventional mental health treatment has done a pretty terrible job of incorporating spirituality into therapy, even though it is so important to most people,” said Rachel Yehuda, an Israeli-born professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the ICAHN School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City and director of its Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy

HEALTH

psychedelic experience and to help them “integrate” their experience afterwards.

“Sixty-eight percent of our participants do not suffer from PTSD a year after treatment is over,” said Tzarfaty. “Those are numbers you cannot find in any other modality of clinical work.”

These recovery rates

explain why the scientific and mental health communities are so excited about these old-new drugs. If clinical trials continue to demonstrate that patients experience relief or recovery with a finite number of sessions rather than depending on a lifetime course of antidepressants, the mental

health field could undergo a radical transformation.

As Yehuda put it, “Participants in this research don’t just say, ‘My symptoms are better.’ They say, ‘I have my life back.’ They talk about being able to function better in the world. That’s more than just symptom reduction and it’s very, very promising.”

COURTESY OF ZAC KAMENETZ

JEWISH ‘PSYCHONAUTS’ TAKE A SPIRITUAL, GUIDED TRIP “Today feels like a coming out,” declared a panelist at the inaugural Jewish Psychedelic Summit—likely the first event of its kind—which was held on Zoom in May of last year.

Organized by Rabbi Zac Kamenetz, journalist Madison Margolin and Natalie Ginsberg, the policy and advocacy director of MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, the summit convened more than 1,500 Jews of varying backgrounds—from Orthodox to Buddhist-leaning “JewBus”— to discuss the connection between Jewish spiritual tradition and mind-altering substances.

Though the atmosphere was celebratory, the subtext was clear: Even though psychedelics have been illegal for personal use in the United States and Israel for nearly half a century, an underground Jewish subculture has been using them anyway, exploring how altered states of consciousness can deepen and diversify Jewish life.

“There’s something about direct religious spiritual experience that I believe is at the heart of Jewish existence,” Kamenetz, founder of

Rabbi Zac Kamenetz at the Johns Hopkins University study

Shefa: Jewish Psychedelic Support, told me during an interview.

Kamenetz, 40, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., wasn’t always a “psychonaut,” a term coined in the 1970s to describe those who induce altered states of consciousness to explore the unconscious mind. He grew up in Southern California in a secular Jewish family in which there was no conversation about spirituality or the Divine.

It wasn’t until Kamenetz attended high school in Israel that a visit to an archaeological site sparked something extraordinary. “I had a very powerful, unexpected, endogenous, overwhelming mystical experience,” he recalled. “I knew God was real.”

He immediately went out and bought a kippah and became an observant Jew. A decade later, Kamenetz was serving as rabbi of the MARCH/APRIL 2022

Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, but the magic of that mystical experience had begun to wear off. He decided to join a Johns Hopkins University study that was seeking clergy to participate in research focused on psychedelics and spiritual leadership.

It was the first time he had tried psychedelics, and the experience changed him. There was only one problem. “The protocols for the experience were created by people who do not necessarily have Jewish cultural, spiritual and psychological needs in mind,” he said.

To meet that need, Kamenetz created Shefa, an organization that offers routine private “integration circles” in which Jews can process psychedelic experiences within a Jewish context that includes storytelling and learning Jewish texts.

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At a time when younger generations of Jews view traditional synagogues as stale or out of touch, proponents of psychedelics say that the drugs offer a way to reclaim the Jewish mystical tradition. For some, psychedelics can imbue Jewish rituals and holidays with enhanced power. For others, they’re a chance to explore collective Jewish trauma or open a portal into a deeper realm of mind, advocates say.

“This is going to inspire a creative, spiritual renaissance that puts the Jewish people back in touch with that burning core that sits at the heart of our mystical tradition,” Kamenetz said.

To that end, Shefa is launching a program to train rabbis in how to talk to congregants about their psychedelic experiences and integrate their insights into Jewish practice.

But what Kamenetz envisions is yet bolder: He sees psychedelicinspired creativity radiating to all aspects of the Jewish experience, producing new rituals, texts and music.

“This is about rewiring ourselves in some essential way,” Kamenetz said. “For increased connectivity, friendship; for a greater sensitivity to existence and our role in it.”

—Danielle Berrin

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espite the promising results, even true believers caution against psychedelics evangelism. “I’m someone who thinks we still have a lot of work to do,” said Yehuda, the trauma specialist. As director of ICAHN’s psychedelics research, she will soon be advancing her own clinical trials, including a study examining the impact of psychedelics on intergenerational trauma.

“People are getting very excited about the trials that are out there, as they should be,” she said. “But before we upend our entire clinical practice, we want to be sure. We want to understand, for example, who shouldn’t be given these treat-

Rachel Yehuda

ments.” Yehuda is also concerned that people will put too much emphasis on taking psychedelics and too little on the therapy. “The process of preparation and integration are critical,” she said.

And then there’s also the hurdle of history and politics: The war on drugs, beginning in the 1970s, badly damaged the reputation of psychedelics. It was around this time, when these substances were designated as Schedule I, that studies came out implying that psychedelics could have negative effects on the brain, such as a link between MDMA and serotonin neurotoxicity, which could impair memory. But more recent studies, including one published in Frontiers in Psychiatry in 2022, show that these negative effects occur when MDMA is used in combination with antidepressants, which can lead to a rapid rise in serotonin concentration in the central nervous system. This is why, Yehuda said, more research is necessary to determine who is at risk.

For Samantha Rose Stein, the tech professional whose life was in ruins after an assault, psychedelics provided salvation.

“At this present moment, I have greater self-acceptance, self-love and self-awareness than I’ve ever had before,” she said, “and that’s something I gained through this healing process.”

MARCH/APRIL 2022

But when I asked Stein if she considers herself cured, she demurred.

“We’re human,” she said. “We’re constantly changing. I don’t want to promise a ‘cure’ and disappoint anyone. Healing isn’t binary; sick or well, healthy or unhealthy. There’s a continuum of these things.”

She did say that she no longer feels the need for MDMA sessions, though she is still pursuing other alternative therapies. Most recently, she has undergone ketamine therapy, another psychoactive experience going mainstream in cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles. Ketamine is a fully legal, FDA-approved anesthetic often used in emergency rooms.

At high doses, and when delivered intravenously, it has been shown to have reparative effects on the brain.

Now, Stein wants to help others access the healing she found so restorative. She is currently at work on a book that she described as a “how-to guide” for psychedelic-assisted therapy. She is also a deeply committed artist and has presented her paintings at Art Basel Miami.

She no longer works in Silicon Valley but said she continues to invest in startups.

“I think of myself as less attached to a particular job or person or place,” she said. “It’s a life mission I’m attached to, and that mission is maximizing people’s ability to access and understand breakthrough therapeutics for healing, for cultivating a whole self.”

Danielle Berrin is an award-winning journalist based in Los Angeles.

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For information on clinical trials in the United States and other countries, visit maps.org/take-action/participate-in-trial.

MOUNT SINAI HEALTH SYSTEM

Tzarfaty said she has already seen a major shift in the perception of psychedelics among the Israeli public.

When clinical trials began in 2011, Tzarfaty said, the stigma associated with both psychedelics and mental health treatment made it difficult to find participants. But as word got out about the effectiveness of the therapy, more and more came seeking treatment.

A decade later, what began with a handful of patients has expanded to a waiting list with hundreds of names.

Public demand for psychedelic care prompted Tzarfaty to propose to the Ministry of Health an expansion of the country’s treatment capacity, and, in 2019, Israel’s government became the first in the world to approve a Compassionate Use Program for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, allowing an additional 50 Israelis to receive treatment outside of clinical trials. Israel’s government is funding half of the program, with additional funds supplied by the United Statesbased Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.

HADASSAH MEDICINE

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Hadassah Medical Organization’s new neuro-angiography suite

Science and Miracles Robotic surgery minimizes risk and improves outcomes

By Wendy Elliman

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF HMO

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ombine medieval stories of miraculous healing of the sick with the banks of monitors, sensors and technological know-how in use at the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem, and what do you get? The cutting-edge operating room of today.

First, the tales of miracles: A 21-year-old construction worker falls from a ladder and breaks his back. He spends 15 minutes in surgery at HMO and walks out of the hospital unaided three days later. An elderly rabbi, confined to a wheelchair for over a year, spends 20 minutes on Hadassah’s operating table. He, too, leaves within days on his own two feet. A stroke paralyzes the right side of a 42-year-old woman and robs her of speech.

Her surgery at Hadassah lasts 14 minutes, and she is discharged later in the week, fully mobile and smiling. An 81-year-old woman from

Bethlehem has spent weeks at home, confined to bed by agonizing pain from a fractured spine. Elsewhere, she had been told that her age and heart condition preclude surgery.

After an operation at Hadassah, she leaves pain free.

“We treat patients like these every week,” said senior surgeon Dr. Josh Schroeder, director of Hadassah’s spinal deformity unit, who performs around 50 surgeries each month, about half of them using robotics.

Less than two decades ago, no such treatment existed for many of these patients. At HMO today, utilizing robot technology and groundbreaking techniques developed at the medical organization as well as the new $6-million neuro-angiography suite in the Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower on Hadassah’s Ein Kerem campus, surgeons are able to minimize risk and perform complex healing techniques.

MARCH/APRIL 2022

f the word “robot” brings to mind science fiction humanoid killers, it’s time for a reset. “Surgical robots aren’t super-smart, sentient, life-sized dolls,” said neurosurgeon Dr. José Cohen, director of interventional neurology at HMO, its endovascular neurosurgery unit and the neuro-angiography suite—the “mission control” of Hadassah’s robot-assisted brain and spinal surgery, with more than $1 million of its equipment donated by the United States Agency for International Development. “They’re machines with dexterous and sensitive mechanical arms built to manipulate cameras and surgical instruments.”

And, he added, “they follow planning software meticulously programmed by surgeons.”

The software that guides the robot minimizes human error and gives surgeons precise real-time control, with the robotic camera transmitting visual information more accurately than the human eye. This means that procedures once considered hazardous can now be performed at minimal risk, and interventions that once required open surgery can be minimally invasive, performed under local anesthetic in less than 20 minutes.

The solution for the 21-year-old man who fell from a ladder and the elderly rabbi in the wheelchair, both of whom asked that their names not be used, was to connect their damaged vertebrae using spinal fusion. “With the robot acting as a kind of GPS, pinpointing the location to the millimeter, and screwing the tiny pedicles [spinal screws] into exactly the right place, we could operate percutaneously”—via minimally invasive needle puncture through the skin—“instead of hours of open surgery followed by weeks of hospitalization,” said Dr. Schroeder.

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‘WITH THE HUGE ADVANCES MADE TODAY, WE’RE ABLE TO PERFORM…PROCEDURES ONCE CONSIDERED UNACCEPTABLY RISKY.’ —DR. JOSÉ COHEN

Dr. José Cohen

The shortened time and greater accuracy in using robots means that elderly or ill patients can more easily undergo surgery than in the past. Seventy-three-year-old Lilyah Altschul was brought to Hadassah last summer, able only to move her head because of an infection that caused inflammation and intense pressure on the nerve sac around her spinal column. She had been rejected elsewhere for surgery because of her age and numerous health problems.

“One doctor after another gave up on mom,” recalled her daughter, Diana Altschul. Drs. Cohen and Schroeder were able to operate successfully on the septuagenarian using local anesthesia. Just 72 hours after surgery, she was able to walk out of the hospital.

While Hadassah’s spinal surgeons are often able to operate percutaneously, their colleagues who work with endovascular patients must use a longer route. In November 2020, Riki Bitton, a 42-year-old social worker and private investigator living in Moshav Tzalfon in central Israel, woke to find she could not speak or move her right arm or leg.

Her husband, Momi Bitton, insisted that the ambulance take them to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem. He suspected a stroke and knew of Hadassah’s specialized cerebrovascular center and stroke unit. Dr. Cohen and his team were scrubbed and waiting. In moments, they cut

a nickel-sized opening in Bitton’s groin and threaded a microcatheter through her vessels to her brain. The images transmitted by the microcatheter’s camera showed a massive blood clot blocking a major cerebral artery.

Using a stent retriever to grab and extract the clot, they restored vital blood flow in the brain before permanent damage was done.

“In the 20 years since we opened the endovascular neurosurgery unit,

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HADASSAH MEDICINE

we’ve seen thousands of patients with clots like Riki’s, with narrowed arteries usually because of atherosclerosis, ischemic stroke, aneurysm or brain hemorrhage,” said Dr. Cohen, a global pioneer in the rapidly developing field of robot-assisted neurosurgery. “And they include hundreds of people over 65, who were typically told that their age put them ‘beyond surgery.’ With the huge advances made today, we’re able to perform neurointerventional procedures once considered unacceptably risky.”

Robot-assisted techniques require special expertise. They involve a steep learning curve for surgeons and costly equipment, and are not, therefore, available everywhere. This is evidenced by patients who come to

Surgical robots at HMO minimize human error and give surgeons precise real-time control.

Hadassah from outside the country, including from neighboring nations such as Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, countries that have no official relationship with Israel. “These patients seek excellence,” said Dr. Cohen, “and our neuro-angiography

suite ranks with the world’s best.”

HMO not only embraces new technologies, noted Dr. Schroeder, “it supports their being taken to the next step.”

One such next step was pioneered

by Dr. Schroeder himself four years ago, when a 2-ton steel wall fell on

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43-year-old factory worker Aaron Schwartz, fracturing six spinal vertebrae and snapping his shinbone, or tibia. “Open surgery would have taken many hours and involved significant blood loss,” said Dr. Schroeder. However, the standard robot-assisted surgery was not the right answer either, because of the patient’s multiple fractures.

The solution that Dr. Schroeder and his team designed was a global first. In a minimally invasive procedure, they positioned an imaging robot, the German-made Siemens Artis Zeego, above the patient to transmit precise real-time, three-dimensional intraoperative images.

They then had the Israeli-made Mazor Robotics Renaissance Guidance System insert 11 pedicle screws and connect them to a rod in the spine. It was the safest, most accurate and most automated spinal implant placement performed in the world at that time. Schwartz was able to walk to rehab a couple of days later.

This reconstructive surgery was groundbreaking because it inter-

Dr. Josh Schroeder (right), mid-surgery

faced two different types of robot, explained Dr. Schroeder: “They were made in different countries, according to different technologies and different computer systems. We had to get them to speak the same language and work together.”

Utilizing this combination of technology and disciplines is a major challenge of robot-assisted surgery, but one that Drs. Schroeder and Cohen are confident will continue to be met. “Taking a difficult case,

Wendy Elliman is a British-born science writer who has lived in Israel for more than four decades.

Celebrate!

LISTEN TO YOUR DOCTOR Go behind the scenes at Hadassah Medical Organization with Hadassah On Call: New Frontiers in Medicine, hosted by Benyamin Cohen. The March podcast explores the detection and treatment of ovarian cancer at Hadassah. And catch up on recent episodes, including a special panel discussion on post-traumatic stress disorder featuring HMO experts Dr. Inbal Reuveni, head of the women’s mental health clinic; Dr.Omer Bonne, head of the department of psychiatry; and Dr. Shlomo Rahmani Zwi-Ran, head​of the psychiatric ward at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem. Watch episodes and sign up for new program updates at hadassah.org/hadassahoncall.

finding a way to treat it and making that treatment the everyday medicine of tomorrow is part of what’s best about being a doctor—and one of the privileges of working in an institution like Hadassah,” said Dr. Schroeder.

“Pushing forward the boundaries of medicine,” added Dr. Cohen, “and sharing what we achieve worldwide, is our moral obligation.”

Hadassah’s Pride, a spectacular tribute

to Hadassah Medical Organization and Youth Aliyah

Hadassah Honors, a star-studded gala with

the presentation of the Henrietta Szold Award DETAILS & REGISTER

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HADASSAH, THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC. ©2022 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. Hadassah, the H logo and Hadassah the Power of Women Who Do are registered trademarks of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc.

MARCH/APRIL 2022

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HADASSAH NEWS

Like-Minded Women in Action Changing lives and finding meaning | Stories compiled by Marlene Post of women—especially Hadassah women!—are desperately needed.

I can’t wait to see how much more we’ll be able to accomplish together.”

VOICE (ADVOCACY) PANEL

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Connecting the Dots Between Power, Purpose and Engagement

GETTY IMAGES

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ow do we find purpose and how do we integrate that purpose into our daily, busy lives? Deriving meaning from something greater than ourselves was explored at Hadassah’s Power of Purpose Conference, held virtually on January 9 and featuring an array of impressive female entrepreneurs, social activists and health workers.

Before the day of panel discussions and workshops kicked off, the nearly 300 participants heard from emcee Lesley Stahl, the pioneering CBS journalist, and NBC TODAY show personality Jenna Hager Bush; Janice Weinman, immediate past CEO of

Hadassah and chair of the Power of Purpose Committee; and Rhoda Smolow, national president of Hadassah. “There are few things I can think of,” Smolow told the audience, “that are more exciting than the feeling of fulfilling one’s purpose and doing so alongside like-minded women.”

That camaraderie was underscored in the conference’s four panels—and in concluding remarks delivered by Naomi Adler, Hadassah’s new CEO/executive director.

“At a time when our world faces so many crises and challenges,” Adler said, “I am convinced that the leadership, intelligence and vision MARCH/APRIL 2022

oderated by attorney Brooke Goldstein, founder of the Lawfare Project, panelists Mandana Dayani and Tamar Manasseh shared their different paths to advocacy and the value they see in their work. Dayani, an Iranian Jewish immigrant, drew on her family’s experience of finding safety and success in America in discussing her interest in encouraging civic participation and voting through her “I am a voter” initiative.

For her part, Manasseh, a newly minted rabbi who lives and works on the South Side of Chicago, recounted how she came up with the idea for Mothers/Men Against Senseless Killings in the wake of neighborhood gun violence, and explored how the Black and Jewish communities can be better allies in the fight against racism and antisemitism.

SOUL (ISRAEL) PANEL

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istorian and israel educator Rachel Fish joined Israeli-born actress and producer Noa Tishby in conversation—led by Israeli tech executive Lee Moser—about how to defend the Jewish state in a world of rising antisemitism, especially in the wake of the May 2021 conflict with Hamas, which sparked a significant rise of anti-Jewish sentiment on

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SAVE THE DATE TO CELEBRATE MARLENE POST! Hadassah will bestow its top prize, the Henrietta Szold Award, on former national president and Hadassah Magazine’s beloved chair, Marlene Post, during the organization’s 100th convention, to be held in Jerusalem from November 14 to 17 (hadassah. org/100th-national-convention).

Post first became active in Hadassah as a young mother raising three daughters in Long Island, N.Y., eventually working her way up through regional leadership positions to the national presidency, where she served from 1995 to 1999.

Long a popular figure in Hadassah, Post, 84, remains indefatigable in her charitable roles beyond Hadassah as well, including with Birthright Israel, the Claims Conference, the Jewish National Fund, the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Mazel tov, Marlene! social media. Both Fish and Tishby, author of Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, stressed the importance of not being afraid to counter online hate.

Fish implored those watching not to shy away from talking about the country. There should be “no more safe spaces, but brave spaces,” Fish said. “Engage bravely and challenge ideas.”

BODY (HEALTH) PANEL

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ew york city criminal court judge Ruchie Freier, the only female Hasidic jurist in the United States and the founder of the all-female volunteer ambulance service Ezras Nashim, moderated a panel that focused on supporting women’s health and equity as a means of creating opportunities

for women to lead. TODAY show nutritionist Joy Bauer; ob-gyn Dr. Anat Walfisch of Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus; and Erin Zaikis, founder of RISE by Sundara, joined Freier to explore how offering women—in America and Israel as well as in developing nations—the chance to improve their access to medical care and hygiene benefits the community at large. As Zaikis, whose nonprofit is tackling water, sanitation and hygiene poverty, told attendees, “When we invest in women’s health, it’s the best possible investment of our time, of our money and of our advocacy. When you’re supporting one woman, you’re supporting her family and you’re supporting her community at large.”

MIND (EMPOWERMENT) PANEL

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arcy syms, former president of the Syms retail chain and today an advocate for the passage of the Equal Rights

ZIONISM…DID YOU KNOW? Visitors to Israel may notice that certain street names appear repeatedly in different cities and towns. Among the leading female figures in Jewish history who are today honored on multiple street signs throughout the Jewish state are these three pioneers: Hannah Senesh was born in Budapest in 1921 and made aliyah to British Mandate Palestine in 1939. As a paratrooper, she was dropped into Yugoslavia in 1944; was captured soon after entering Hungary; and was executed by firing squad. Senesh was also a poet whose most famous work, “Eli, Eli,” became a stirring song that is sung on many occasions, including on Yom Hashoah, which this year begins on April 27.

Amendment through her involvement in the ERA Project at Columbia Law School, spoke with two women who are themselves active in the fight for equal and civil rights. Tiffany Dufu, author of Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less and founder of peer-coaching platform The Cru, exchanged stories with Syms and attorney Amy Spitalnick, executive director of the civil rights group Integrity First for America, which recently won its groundbreaking federal lawsuit against the neo-Nazis, white supremacists and hate groups responsible for the Charlottesville violence in 2017.

Spitalnick’s account of the harrowing courtroom scenes from last year, when the neo-Nazis on trial spewed hate from the witness stand—including making Holocaust jokes—was shocking as well as a reminder, both for her and those watching, that Jews should counter hate when confronted with it. —Libby Barnea

Judea and was the second of only two women to ever reign over Judea, which she did from c. 75 BCE to 67 BCE. She was married first to Aristobulus I and then to Alexander Jannaeus, who named his wife the next ruler on his deathbed. She became instrumental in returning Judaism to Pharisee-rabbinic control.

Bruriah/Bat Hananiah was the daughter of Rabbi Hananiah ben Teradion, one of the Ten Martyrs mentioned on Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av. Bruriah was a Talmudic sage who was known for her great knowledge of Jewish law and legend. In modern times, she was included in artist Judy Chicago’s installation The Dinner Party.

Salome Alexandra/Shlomtzion HaMalka is sometimes referred to as the Queen of MARCH/APRIL 2022

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NOW YOU KNOW… MORE ABOUT JEWISH WOMEN WHOSE NAMES APPEAR ON ISRAELI STREET SIGNS

TRAVEL

Vienna, a Diverse Jewish Mosaic Looking to the future while acknowledging the past

By Liam Hoare

I

t is morning, and the sun rising in the east throws its light upon the Kashmir Gold granite of the Shoah Wall of Names, Vienna’s recently unveiled Holocaust memorial. The monument—composed of around 160 stone walls, each a little under 7 feet in height—stands in parkland before Austria’s National Bank. The slabs run for around 220 yards in an oval shape, encircling a central green space planted with saplings. On the day of my fall visit, the bases of the walls were dotted with pebbles and extinguished candles, while leaves littered the ground. Upon the walls are etched the names of the 64,400 Austrian Jewish men, women and children who died in the Holocaust.

The memorial was officially opened by then-chancellor Alexander Schallenberg in early November 2021 and is one of the newest additions to

the Austrian capital’s collection of monuments and memorials. The city already has two Holocaust memorials invested with Jewish memory: Rachel Whitehead’s depiction of a library whose rows of books have been turned inside out so that their spines are not visible, which sits prominently on Judenplatz; and a pair of railway tracks that mark the site of the former Aspang station from which 47,035 Holocaust victims were deported. The Wall of Names, however, is fundamentally different since it renders the Shoah not in the abstract but according to its human dimensions: as a tragedy affecting the individuals and families whose names are now set in stone for all eternity.

Once the capital of a vast central European land empire, contemporary Vienna is a multinational city of 1.9 million residents and a focal point for A Reimagined Library

SHUTTERSTOCK

Rachel Whitehead’s Holocaust memorial sits prominently on Judenplatz.

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German-speaking culture and international diplomacy. Located at the Eastern end of the Alps and bisected by the Danube River—Europe’s second longest—the city is composed of 23 districts. The hills and forests ringing the city constitute its green lungs and serve as the perfect spot for late summer walks in the woods or a glass of wine in the vineyards. In the fall, winter and spring, the evenings are for the opera or the cozy confines of the coffeehouse.

Vienna is home to the vast majority of Austria’s Jews, a population that currently numbers an estimated

WHAT TO SEE St. Stephen’s Cathedral on Stephansplatz marks the center of Vienna, and it is from here that the city’s main axes branch out: Rotenturmstrasse heading north toward the Danube Canal; Kärntnerstrasse, which will take you south toward the State Opera House; and Graben running roughly eastwest. Take Rotenturmstrasse to get to the Stadttempel (Seitenstettengasse 4). On the other side of the canal is the site of the former Leopoldstädter Tempel (Tempelgasse 6), where an outdoor exhibit details the history of the synagogue that once stood there.

The Jewish Museum Vienna (Dorotheergasse 11; jmw.at), one of Europe’s finest Jewish museums and the ideal starting point for understanding the city’s contemporary Jewish history, is located on a side street off Graben. Highlights include a bicycle that once belonged to Theodor Herzl, which now hangs in the museum’s atrium, and a private collection of Judaica located on the museum’s top floor. The institution’s sister branch, at Judenplatz 8, showcases the Judaism of medieval times in a newly renovated exhibit that includes the foundations of a synagogue destroyed in the 14th century.

The city center is encircled by the Ringstrasse, and a walk around the famed

Human Dimensions The new Shoah Wall

8,000 to 10,000. As the successful initiative to build a wall of victims’ names demonstrates, the community remains central to Austrian political and cultural life, and its stature far exceeds its size. In recent years, the state has tripled its funding to the official Jewish community, the Israel-

Karl Lueger Monument

thoroughfare will put travelers in the footsteps of Vienna’s Jewish history. On its eastern side stands the Karl Lueger Monument (Dr.-KarlLueger-Platz), a statue of the now disgraced antisemitic mayor from the turn of the 20th century with the word “schande” spray-painted all over its base—an act of graffiti that officially has been preserved by Jewish activists and artists. Palais Todesco (Kärntner Strasse 51), Palais Epstein (Dr.-Karl-Renner-Ring 1) and Palais Ephrussi (Universitätsring 14) are former dwellings of prominent Jewish families that showcase the heights to which the Jewish elite ascended in the 19th century.

itische Kultusgemeinde (IKG), led by president Oskar Deutsch, at a time when the community’s Reporting Center for Antisemitism has noted a rise in antisemitic incidents. This funding should liberate the IKG to spend more of its membership dues on religious and cultural projects,

such as the Festival of Jewish Culture, held annually in November. The government has also finalized a new National Strategy Against Antisemitism that includes a plan to strengthen hate speech legislation.

Austria’s continuing efforts to reconcile its Nazi past was also

Be sure to stop in Café Landtmann (Universitätsring 4; landtmann.at) to rest your feet and sip a (nonkosher) coffee in the room where Freud once dined. Once your walk around the Ringstrasse ends, head over to the Sigmund Freud Museum (Berggasse 13; freud-museum.at) to learn more about his life and the practice of psychoanalysis that he pioneered prior to his flight from Vienna after the Anschluss of March 1938.

Away from the city center, the new Shoah Wall of Names (Ostarrichipark; shoahnamensmauern-wien.at) complements Vienna’s existing Holocaust memorials: the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial, in the shape of a library, and the Aspang Train Station Memorial (Leon-Zelman-Park). The Wall of Names and the Aspang memorial are accessible via tram.

wine. If you arrive during Hanukkah, Chabad’s menorah (chabadvienna.com) is hard to miss, standing in the very center of the city at the intersection of Graben and Kärntnerstrasse.

For the latest Covid-19 travel regulations, consult the Austrian Embassy Washington (austria.org/current-travel-information).

Coronavirus testing is currently free and widely available in Vienna.

For general sightseeing information, consult Vienna’s official tourism board (wien.info).

A helpful resource for Jewish tourism is Info Point Jewish Vienna (Rabensteig 3; ikg-wien. at/en/info-point-jewish-vienna), located in Cafe Book Shop Singer. Via the Info Point link, one can arrange participation in guided tours of the Stadttempel, which take place at 10 a.m. on Mondays and Fridays, as well as English-language Jewish walking tours of Vienna.

A full list of kosher hotels, restaurants, grocers and purveyors is available online at the website of Vienna’s Israelistiche Kultusgemeinde (Jewish Community of Vienna; ikg-wien.at).

In recent years, a number of excellent Israeli restaurants have opened in Vienna, the non plus ultra being NENI (Naschmarkt 510; neni. at). Star chef Eyal Shani has a branch of his Tel Aviv-based chain Miznon (Schulerstrasse 4; miznonvienna.com) here, while Maschu Maschu (Rabensteig 8; maschu-maschu.at) is a late-night staple just around the corner from the Stadttempel.

IF YOU GO Vienna holds its public transport network of subways, buses and trams in high regard, and a visitor to the city should never need to call a taxi.

While the best weather in which to visit Vienna arrives in spring and fall, the run-up to the winter holidays brings its own joys, as the lights go up and outdoor markets sell trinkets and steaming mugs of boozy punch and mulled MARCH/APRIL 2022

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LIAM HOARE

of Names memorial lists the 64,400 Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust.

TRAVEL

WHO WILL SAY KADDISH? HADASSAH’S PERPETUAL YAHRZEIT PROGRAM ENSURES THAT KADDISH WILL BE RECITED IN JERUSALEM FOR YOUR LOVED ONES. EVERY YEAR. FOREVER. PERPETUAL YAHRZEIT Kaddish will be recited annually for your loved one in perpetuity in the Fannie and Maxwell Abbell Synagogue at Hadassah Medical Center beneath Marc Chagall’s iconic stained glass windows.

ENHANCED PERPETUAL YAHRZEIT Kaddish will be recited for your loved one daily for 11 months after burial, after which Kaddish will be recited annually.

ADVANCE YAHRZEIT A reservation to ensure Kaddish will be recited for you and your loved ones upon their death. Available in standard and Enhanced Perpetual Yahrzeit.

hadassah.org/yahrzeit For further information, or to establish a Yahrzeit, call 877.212.3321 or email yahrzeit@hadassah.org.

HADASSAH, THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC. ©2022 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., Hadassah, the H logo, and Hadassah the Power of Women Who Do are registered trademarks of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc.

The solicitation disclosure on page 58 is incorporated in this advertisement.

MARCH/APRIL 2022 Yahrzeit Ad_onethird_2022.indd 1

evident in an amendment to the Austrian nationality law that came into effect in 2020. The change means that, for the first time, descendants of victims of National Socialism can apply to reclaim the Austrian citizenship that was taken from their ancestors by Nazi authorities. Within a year, by August 2021, 6,600 eligible persons—among them Anne Frank’s friend and stepsister, Eva Schloss— had received Austrian citizenship.

In Vienna, the central synagogue, the Stadttempel, located in a part of the city known as the Bermuda Triangle for its hectic nightlife, acts as one of the hubs of formal communal life. Set back from the street, as was required by law when the shul was built in the early 19th century, the Biedermeier-period Stadttempel is noteworthy for its oval-shaped interior ringed by 12 classical columns and capped with a cyan-colored domed ceiling. It was the only synagogue in the Austrian capital to survive Kristallnacht. In 2018, a series of star-shaped light fixtures designed by the artist Lukas Maria Kaufmann were installed across Vienna at the sites of the 25 synagogues burnt to the ground during the pogrom.

In all its diversity, the Austrian Jewish community can best be described as a mosaic. Its core is composed of Jews who can trace their roots back to those who rebuilt the community after World War II: Holocaust survivors who were liberated from the concentration camps and elected to rebuild their lives in a country that, after 1945, remained hostile to their very existence. Later, their ranks were augmented by refugees of communism from Central and Eastern Europe, in particular from Poland and Hungary.

Perhaps the most significant change to the face of post-war

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Austrian Jewish life came in the late 1970s, when Jewish emigrants from the former Soviet Union began to arrive in Vienna. Today, the capital is home to a large Bukharian Jewish community, which has its own parallel communal structures and institutions, including the Association

of Bukharian Jews in Austria, known as the VBJ. The city also boasts a small Georgian Jewish community, a Chabad house and a liberal Jewish community named Or Chadasch, led

by Rabbi Lior Bar-Ami. Those who in the coming years are successful in claiming Austrian

citizenship are entitled to become members of the IKG—and in doing so might spur local Jewry to expand and enrich itself yet again.

Liam Hoare is Europe editor for Moment Magazine and author of The Vienna Briefing newsletter. He lives in Vienna.

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ALAMY (LEFT); SHUTTERSTOCK

Viennese Grandeur The neoclassical Stadttempel (left), the only synagogue in the city to survive Kristallnacht; the State Opera House

FOOD

Toward a Grain-Free Flour Pantry Baking with alternative flours for Passover

By Adeena Sussman

A

year’s Zoë Bakes Cakes cookbook and the star of the Magnolia Network television show Zoë Bakes.

“I hadn’t heard of it but learned quickly how to use it to its best effect,” said François, who notes that almond flour formulations have improved over the years. She advises bakers to be aware of the difference between the two almond products widely available in stores: almond meal, which is coarser and is typically ground with the skins on, and almond flour, which is fine and lighter since the skins are usually removed during production.

“If you are going for more of a cakelike result, such as an angel food or sponge, almond flour is the choice,” said François, who uses the flour in her Almond Plum Cake for Passover. For denser desserts like chewy cookies or bars, almond meal works well. “Almond meal has a slightly ‘healthier’ taste, while almond flour is a bit closer to regular

SHUTTERSTOCK

nother passover means another classic flourless chocolate cake for dessert, right?

Not necessarily. This year, flex your baking muscle and make desserts using alternative flours that can up the flavor and fiber. Alternative-grain baking substitutes continue to grow in popularity and availability thanks to wider health trends like gluten-free and ketogenic diets. The result is an unexpected bounty of choices—think cassava, sorghum and tapioca, among others—for Passover bakers looking beyond matzah meal to help satisfy an eight-day, unleavened sweet tooth.

Pastry chef Zoë François remembers her first encounter with almond flour nearly 25 years ago. She was working at a popular catering company in Minneapolis when Passover came around. “As the resident Jew on staff, all the desserts fell to me, and someone mentioned almond flour,” said François, author of last

flour.” In a pinch, almond meal and almond flour can be swapped, but the results will vary.

“When baking with alternative flours, some trial and error is to be expected,” said David Tamarkin, editorial director for King Arthur Baking Company (kingarthurbaking. com), who has noted an increase in requests to the famous Vermontbased company for desserts using grain-free flours.

“Anything gluten-free is hot,” continued Tamarkin, who is adding more grain-free recipes to King Arthur’s recipe archive to meet demand. (This includes flours like buckwheat and teff, which are technically grain-free but often still considered off-limits during Passover for many Ashkenazi Jews since they are kitniyot, or legumes.)

“The main thing to look out for when baking with these alternatives is how much liquid they absorb,” said Tamarkin. “It’s all about hydration. They pretty much all require an infusion of liquid beyond what you would expect.”

Take coconut flour, the latest darling of the grain-free flour pantry.

“It’s extremely thirsty and absorbs a lot more moisture than real flour and even almond flour,” said Tamarkin. To compensate when replacing all-purpose flour in a conventional

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Makes 1 loaf 1/2 cup coconut flour

1 teaspoon kosher for Passover baking powder 6 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa 3/4 cup sugar

Almond Plum Cake

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 6 large eggs

Makes 1, 9-inch cake

CAKE 10 tablespoons butter or

butter substitute, at room temperature 1 cup granulated sugar 2 eggs, at room temperature 1/2 cup whole milk or nondairy substitute 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup matzah cake meal 3/4 cup almond flour 1 teaspoon kosher for Passover baking powder 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 4 plums, cut into 8 slices

TOPPING 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 2 tablespoons unsalted butter or butter substitute, cut into

1/4-inch cubes

1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Gen-

erously grease a 9-inch springform pan, then line the bottom and sides with greased parchment paper.

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.

2. In a food processor, combine

the butter, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla and process until smooth.

Mix in matzah cake meal and almond flour, the baking powder and salt by pulsing several times, just until smooth.

3. Scrape the batter into the

prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Gently tap the pan on the counter several times to release excess air bubbles. Add the plums in a spiral on top of the batter. Set the pan on a baking sheet. Bake for about 45 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, to make the

topping, in a small bowl mix together the sugar and cinnamon.

Carefully sprinkle the topping over the baking cake and then dot with the butter.

5. Continue baking until the

cake is golden-brown and a tester comes out clean, another 15-20 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then remove from the pan and set on a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

Grease an 8 1/2-inch by 4 1/2-inch loaf pan or an 8-inch square cake pan.

2. Sift together the coconut flour and baking powder, mixing to combine; set aside.

3. In a large, microwave-safe

bowl, melt the butter with the cocoa, stirring until well blended.

4. Whisk the sugar, salt, vanilla and eggs into the butter-cocoa mixture.

Add the coconut flour and baking powder, whisking until smooth.

5. Pour the batter into the

prepared pan. Let it rest for 10 minutes.

6. Bake the loaf or cake until set,

and a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean. This will take 35 to 45 minutes for the loaf pan, or 30 to 35 minutes for the square pan.

7. Cool the cake in the pan for

30 minutes before turning it out onto a rack to cool completely. The cake is easiest to slice when it’s completely cool.

ALMOND PLUM CAKE ADAPTED FROM ‘ZOË BAKES CAKES: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE YOUR FAVORITE LAYERS, BUNDTS, LOAVES, AND MORE’ BY ZOË FRANÇOIS © TEN SPEED PRESS 2021. RECIPE AND PHOTO PROVIDED COURTESY OF ZOË FRANÇOIS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (TOP); KING ARTHUR BAKING COMPANY

Chocolate Coconut Quick Bread

FOOD

recipe, Tamarkin recommends either reducing the amount of flour by 20 percent or adding more liquid in the form of water or eggs.

SHUTTERSTOCK

A

nother suggestion from both Tamarkin and François is to blend the alternative flour with some matzah cake meal. “Test a recipe out a few times to arrive at the balance you like the best,” Tamarkin advised.

Many of the new swap-in flours have distinct flavors, so make sure you like the base flavor of your alternative and expect it to play a role in the dessert’s overall taste. Also, these flours often produce chewier results, and for good reason: Almond flour has a whopping 7 grams of dietary

fiber per serving, and coconut flour 5 grams, while conventional all-purpose flour contains only 3 grams.

And coconut flour is extremely low in net carbohydrates (2 grams versus 23 in a cup of almond flour and 76 in a cup of all-purpose flour).

With all those health benefits, you’ll feel

extra virtuous enjoying the Chocolate Coconut Quick Bread courtesy of King Arthur. Dress it up for the seder with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar, berries and whipped topping, or enjoy it during the week toasted with a shmear of cream cheese.

Adeena Sussman is the author of Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen and co-author of Gazoz: The Art of Making Magical, Seasonal Sparkling Drinks. She lives in Tel Aviv.

WHAT IF YOU COULD GIVE 1,000 AT-RISK CHILDREN IN ISRAEL A BRIGHTER FUTURE? You can. Right now, more than 450,000 children in Israel face poverty, neglect, and physical and sexual abuse.

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Donate today. hadassah.org/youthaliyah HADASSAH, THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC. ©2022 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. Hadassah, the H logo, and Hadassah the Power of Women Who Do are registered trademarks of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. The solicitation disclosure on page 58 is incorporated in this advertisement.

Youth Aliyah HalfPage_HadMag_Feb2022.indd 1

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2/3/22 12:23 PM

Rabbinic Pioneers

Rabbinic Pioneers

By Jonathan Schmalzbach

a Peterson's "Mistress "

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Answers on page 62

er?

CROSSWORD

ARTS

A Showcase of Rabbinic Achievement Twenty-four women who redefined Jewish leadership | By Rahel Musleah

S

to Reform Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, the senior spiritual leader of Central Synagogue in Manhattan and the first Asian-American to be ordained as rabbi or cantor (she is both). The blue background is a photograph of the tapestry designed in 2002 for the interior of the ark at Central Synagogue. To reflect Buchdahl’s immersion in Jewish spirituality and her Buddhist roots through her Korean mother, Gross imagined the meditative “sh” sound of the shin floating and vibrating, evoking words connected to spirituality such as the

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE BRAID AND HUC-JIR

even bronze shins, the hebrew letters ascending like a ladder to heaven, spark rays of light against a shifting and shimmering blue background. When the letters reach the top of Shira Hadasha, artist Laurie Gross’s mixed-media piece, they are crowned with a phrase from Psalm 96: “Shiru l’Adonai shir hadash” (Sing a new song to God).

Shira Hadasha is one of two dozen original works in “Holy Sparks: Celebrating Fifty Years of Women in the Rabbinate,” a new traveling exhibition. The piece is Gross’s tribute

Creativity and Commitment Through six images, ‘Orange’ by Penny Wolin captures Rabbi Sharon Brous’s serious and playful sides as well as her commitment to inclusion and change in Jewish tradition.

MARCH/APRIL 2022

Shema prayer and Shechinah, the Divine presence.

“Holy Sparks” is at the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Manhattan through May 8 and is scheduled to move to the Skirball Museum at HUC’s Cincinnati campus from May 19 to September 4. Each of the rabbis featured in the exhibit was paired with a contemporary female Jewish artist. The photographs and artworks on display are accompanied by artist statements as well as short biographies of the rabbis.

The artists and rabbis span a range of ages, denominations, identities and global geographies, illuminating the “creativity, commitment, and vision of 24 women who were ‘firsts’ in their time,” Jean Bloch Rosensaft and Abby Schwartz, directors of the Heller and Skirball museums, respectively, wrote in the exhibition catalog. “From the pulpit to the college campus, from philanthropic foundations to Jewish communal organizations and agencies, from military to healthcare chaplaincy, women rabbis have indelibly redefined Jewish leadership.”

These trailblazers represent the achievements of more than 1,500 women ordained around the world, in all the Jewish streams, since Sally Priesand became the first female rabbi in the United States with her ordination at HUC in 1972.

Photographer Joan Roth sets the stage for the exhibit with her colorful, radiant photograph, Opening Doors: The World Moves Forward Every Day Because Someone Is Willing to Take the Risk. In the

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50 Years

Spiritual Tapestry Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and her paired artwork ‘Shira Hadasha’ by Laurie Gross

image, Priesand stands in front of the ark at Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, N.J., the synagogue she served for over two decades. A text panel near the display pays tribute to a little-known pioneer who preceded Priesand by decades: Berlin-born Regina Jonas, who was ordained by Rabbi Max Dienemann, executive director of the Conference of Liberal Rabbis in Germany, in 1935; Jonas was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.

In another pairing, photographer Penny Wolin’s multi-image study of Sharon Brous captures both the serious and playful sides of the founding and senior rabbi of IKAR, a spiritual community and post-denominational

congregation in Los Angeles. Set as a contact sheet, the six images—five in black-and-white—include one of Brous in her short, bespoke linen tallit, and another with an open volume of Talmud. The final frame pops with an orange-colored backdrop as Brous, dressed in a deep-pink sweater, tosses an orange into the air. The fruit has become a modern symbol of inclusion in Judaism and is today sometimes placed on the seder plate to symbolize those marginalized within the Jewish community. It also gives Wolin’s work its title: Orange.

“The orange shows that, yes, we are an old culture, but it’s one that we can change,” said Wolin, who

‘Holy Flying Sparks’ by Siona Benjamin MARCH/APRIL 2022

called Brous “an iconoclast who is serious but approachable.”

The diversity in the exhibition, Brous said, allows viewers to stretch their preconceived notions of female rabbis in a visceral way.

“There’s a perception that nonOrthodox women rabbis are all of one sort, but in fact we have very different perspectives, approaches and ways of using our platforms,” noted Brous, who was ordained at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001. “The Torah of our IKAR community is serious and heartfelt as well as fluid. I love that Penny captured the motion. She took in the multiple faces of the rabbinate.”

F

ive years in the making, “Holy Sparks” is the brainchild of Ronda Spinak, founder and artistic director of The Braid (formerly Jewish Women’s Theatre) in Los Angeles, which brings stories of contemporary Jewish women to the stage. In 2010, together with board co-chair Lynne Himelstein, Spinak created the Story Archive of Women Rabbis, which grew to include filmed interviews with 190 rabbis from around the world. The interviews feature “intimate, gentle and compel-

Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses

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ARTS

ling conversations,” Spinak said, that tackle rabbinical school experiences; when the rabbis got their “callings”; their understandings of God; and holy moments, greatest obstacles and more.

Edited stories from 75 rabbis are now online at the Jewish Women’s Archive, with 25 more in the works.

Spinak and Himelstein, both Hadassah life members, wanted to

infuse their archive with an artistic vision as well. The Heller museum provided curatorial guidance, identifying leading artists who were charged with creating a work of art inspired by the words and life of their assigned rabbi. About half met the rabbis in person.

The matches were made with intentionality, according to Rosensaft

Ben Foster as boxer Harry Haft

LEO PINTER

‘THE SURVIVOR’ Barry Levinson may have been a Hebrew school dropout, as the famed director has mentioned in interviews about his Jewish background, but he didn’t leave his Yiddishkeit behind. That is obvious in his latest film, The Survivor, based on the real-life story of boxer Harry (Herschel) Haft, which will premiere on HBO Max on April 27 for Yom Hashoah, which begins that evening.

Haft was a Polish survivor of multiple concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and Ben Foster plays him with verisimilitude and a multilayered poignancy.

About half the film is set in the camps, where Harry, at age 16, is trained to box by an SS officer and forced to compete in a series of brutal matches with fellow prisoners for the amusement of the Nazi guards. The losers are shot. Harry

eventually escapes the Nazis in April 1945 during a death march, but not the experience.

After the war, Harry comes to the United States and settles in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, where he becomes a prizefighter.

The film depicts his suffering from what today would likely be called post-traumatic stress disorder.

Plagued by anger and guilt, he lashes out at everyone, including his wife, Miriam (Vickie Krieps), and their children. He also remains resolutely silent about his concentration camp experiences—a familiar theme for those who know survivors.

But what most fascinated me in Levinson’s film is an emotion rarely conveyed in discussions about survivors: the desperate hope they carry that somehow loved ones whom they lost touch with survived. Harry longs to MARCH/APRIL 2022

and Spinak. Mumbai-born Siona Benjamin, for instance, well understands the radical journey of Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses, the first female rabbi from the Syrian community and currently associate rabbi and director of lifelong learning at Romemu, a large progressive and egalitarian Jewish Renewal congregation in Manhattan. Benjamin’s mixed-media

be reunited with his childhood sweetheart, Leah, whom he last saw carted away to the camps. It’s why he continues to box, pressing for a match with popular boxer Rocky Marciano, a future heavyweight champion, convinced that press coverage of the event would let Leah know he is still around.

When Harry and other survivors gather at the film’s end to sing “Gott Bentsch Amerika” (Yiddish for “God Bless America”), there likely won’t be a dry eye in your house.

L

evinson is best known for award-winning films such as Rain Man, Good Morning, Vietnam and Bugsy as well as his television work on shows including Homicide: Life on the Streets.

But in certain circles, his fame comes from his films based on his personal life and background as the descendant of Jewish immigrants.

Among these films is Avalon, inspired by the story of his maternal grandparents, Sam and Eva Krichinsky. They arrived in Baltimore on a July 4 convinced that the fireworks they witnessed were America’s welcome to them. Then there is the coming-of-age film Liberty Heights, in which Levinson recalls his efforts to crash a public pool that barred Blacks and Jews.

In The Survivor, too, the

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director’s memories influence his work. Levinson grew up in Baltimore sharing a house with his extended family. When he was about 5, “this man shows up at the door, and we found out it was my grandmother’s brother,” he said in an interview with Hadassah Magazine. His grandmother had never mentioned that she had a brother named Simcha.

“He stayed with us for two weeks,” Levinson recalled. “They put him on a roll-out cot in my bedroom. On the first night, he started thrashing around in the bed and then, all of a sudden, he’d quiet down. That went on night after night, and I just figured he was having nightmares.

“Then jump ahead to where I’m maybe 16 years old. I’m sitting with my mother in the kitchen and something [prompted her to say], ‘You know Simcha was in the concentration camp.’ That was the first time I heard that…. And we never talked about it again.”

The silence around the Holocaust and the suffering of survivors stayed with him. Like his great uncle, said Levinson, Haft was “haunted.” The question The Survivor asks, the director said, is, “Now that it’s over, how do you go on with your life when the demons keep hanging around in your head?” —Curt Schleier

50 Years work Holy Flying Sparks depicts Cohler-Esses in her tallit, “breaking through the glass ceiling, flying over a geological terrain, soaring between oceans and transcultural terrains symbolizing her two identities,” the artist said in her exhibit statement, adding that Cohler-Esses “is a Jewish woman of color, as am I…and her blue skin reflects the sky and ocean, borderless and beyond boundaries.”

O

verseas, fascinating stories like that of Gesa Ederberg are no less stirring. Born a Lutheran Christian in Germany, Ederberg visited Israel with a church group at the age of 13, fell in love with Judaism, converted in 1995 and was ordained at JTS. The first female rabbi to serve in Berlin since Regina Jonas, she helped found the Masorti (Conservative) movement in Germany in 2006. Yona Verwer, a Dutch-born visual artist who lives in New York, tells Ederberg’s story through her painting of the iconic Neue Synagogue’s dome, which morphs into a scroll that unfurls to reveal the Hebrew letter mem for Masorti. The scroll seems to be lit from within, illustrating how Ederberg has revitalized the German Jewish community in Berlin.

“In highlighting the empowerment of women as Jewish leaders, HUC also made the decision not just to celebrate its own rabbis, but to broaden the scope of the exhibit to all denominations, showcasing pluralism and vitality,” said Rosensaft, another Hadassah life member who also serves as HUC’s assistant vice president for communications and public affairs.

“Putting women’s faces and depictions of the work we do in the public sphere is symbolic of how far we’ve come. It rights a wrong of erasing our faces for so long,” said Rabba Sara

Hurwitz, co-founder and president of Yeshivat Maharat, the first institution to ordain Orthodox women as clergy, and part of the rabbinic staff at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, a Modern Orthodox synagogue. (In 2013, Hurwitz was awarded the Hadassah Foundation’s Bernice S. Tannenbaum Prize.)

Artist Kathryn Jacobi’s painting embeds Hurwitz in her family and community yet embodies her strength to make a courageous change. An image of Hurwitz looms large in front of the ark curtain at the Hebrew Institute. The curtain itself serves as a framework for smaller images of her family—her parents with her at her bat mitzvah in South Africa, where she was born; her maternal grandparents at her wedding; her husband

and children. In the right-hand corner of the painting, Hurwitz is shown embracing a group of newly ordained women at Yeshivat Maharat.

Hurwitz noted that she only added her family to her professional biography a few years ago, representing “an evolution of balancing the work of a community leader with family life.”

Women in the rabbinate are still very new in Orthodox circles, she said, noting how “the fact that they’re women is core to their identities but not the reason they’re becoming rabbis: They want to serve the Jewish people.”

Rahel Musleah leads virtual tours of Jewish India and other cultural events and hopes to lead her first post-pandemic, in-person tour in November 2022 (explorejewishindia.com).

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BOOKS

Old Tales, Fresh Narratives Evoking past and future at the seder | By Leah Finkelshteyn

P

esach comes and goes,” Marcia Falk writes in Night of Beginnings, her new Haggadah, “always bringing with it something new: Although the narrative we tell is the same, the way we view and understand it changes each time we tell it.”

The themes referenced by Falk— change, renewal and the resiliency of Jewish tradition—run through the latest crop of Passover titles. The various picture books explore different periods in Jewish history, from Inquisition-era Spain and 1950s Iran to contemporary times, while Haggadot provide feminist insights into the seder and the expanded Jewish family.

PHOTO BY ZION OZERI/COURTESY OF GEFEN PUBLISHING

Night of Beginnings: A Passover Haggadah

By Marcia Falk (Jewish Publication Society) In her introduction to Night of Beginnings, her decadesin-the-making Haggadah, Marcia Falk reminds us that with “each spring— each Pesach season—we encounter newness in the world.” The acclaimed poet, liturgist and Judaic scholar skillfully traverses that delicate balance between modern perspective and traditional views, inviting readers to explore centuries-old seder night customs as well as her own fresh reflections on hymns, psalms and Passover motifs.

Springtime is evoked throughout Night of Beginnings, in the delicate floral illustrations drawn by Falk, her inclusion of biblical epigraphs like passages from the Song of Songs and the pastel colors of the pages themselves. And while the Haggadah follows the text’s classic structure, in Hebrew with English translations and transliterations, Falk replaces the traditional blessings with egalitarian versions and adds what she calls kavanot (Hebrew for directions or intentions), which take the form of prose poems, biblical phrases and meditations.

Falk, one of the leaders of the early Jewish feminist movement and author of groundbreaking prayer books with alternative and supplementary prayers, brings her distinct sensibilities to the seder night. During Maggid, the storytelling portion of the seder, she includes the full biblical tale of the Exodus, replacing the compressed version found in most Haggadot in a way that uplifts the actions of the female characters, including Yocheved, Miriam, Bat Pharoah, Shifrah and Puah.

As we recount the stories in the Haggadah, Falk writes, “we re-enact with all our senses—tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing, and touching—ushering the past into the present moment.”

Woman making matzah in Uzbekistan, from ‘Pictures Tell’

connection across both time and space.” Ozeri, who has spent decades chronicling far-flung Jewish communities, uses his photos to illustrate the classic Passover text, in Hebrew with English translations, as well as to emphasize the customs and observances that tie Jews together. There is a striking image of a woman making matzah in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, in 2002, and a 2009 photo of a woman teaching children to make matzah at a Detroit Jewish community center.

There are images of Jews engaged with sacred texts, including a photo of a women’s study group in Seattle, Wash., in 2009, and another from

Pictures Tell: A Passover Haggadah

By Zion Ozeri (Gefen Publishing) The seder, notes the preface to Pictures Tell, the new Haggadah from veteran Israeli photographer Zion Ozeri, “is a reflection of Jewish MARCH/APRIL 2022

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ONE BOOK, ONE HADASSAH Join us Thursday, April 7, at 7 p.m. ET, as Hadassah Magazine Executive Editor Lisa Hostein interviews award-winning author Lisa Barr about her latest novel, Woman on Fire. Part thriller and part historical fiction, with more than a touch of romance, the novel follows journalist Jules Roth as she tracks down an elusive masterpiece stolen by the Nazis more than half a century earlier. With its strong female characters and well-researched look into the art world, Barr’s page-turner explores provenance and ownership of Nazi-looted art and asks how far one should go to reclaim a family treasure (see review on page 58). This event is free and open to all. To register, go to hadassahmagazine.org/books.

1992 of children in the mountain town of Haidan A-Sham in Yemen gathering in a cave to study the weekly Torah portion.

Pictures Tell asks readers to use the photographs as jumping-off points for seder discussions. In a sign of the times, Ozeri includes in the Haggadah QR codes that link to additional information. All this is supplemented by short quotes and commentaries from contemporary Torah scholars and Jewish thinkers, such as Israeli writers Daniel Gordis and Yossi Klein Halevi and Mizrahi writer and psychotherapist Rachel Wahba.

Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation

By Daniel C. Matt (Yale University Press) Elijah is a guest at every seder, invited toward the end of the night, given a cup of wine—the kos Eliyahu—and expected to usher in the redemption. But how did the prophet, shown in biblical texts as a zealous, fiery, even angry figure railing against injustice, become a permanent invitee to the Passover table? Why does he have a seat at every bris and a starring role in Jewish folklore? (There are more Elijah stories in The Israeli Folktale Archives, the books notes, than any other Jewish figure.)

Author Daniel C. Matt gives readers a researched, thorough look at the legendary prophet who is thought to have ascended to heaven while still alive. Filled with quotes from biblical

texts, rabbinic commentaries and books of Jewish mysticism, Becoming Elijah explores how the zealot was transformed into a man of compassion and earned his place at Jewish holidays and life-cycle events. The book presents Jewish views of the prophet over the centuries as well as the Christian and Muslim connection to Elijah. Ultimately, Elijah is a figure of hope, the author concludes. “Each generation pours their yearning into him and draws comfort from him,” Matt writes. “The various portraits of the immortal prophet reveal as much about the mind of the people of Israel—their needs and ideals—as about the character of Elijah.”

BOOKS FOR KIDS

A Persian Passover

By Etan Basseri. Illustrated by Rashin Kheiriyeh (Kalaniot Books) Ezra and Roza, siblings in 1950s Iran, are helping with preparation for their family’s Passover celebration when an accident ruins the newly baked matzah. The two take readers through their neighborhood and local marketplace as they rush to find replacement matzah for their seder.

The book is based on the experiences and customs of the author’s father, Jamshied Basseri, who grew up in Kermanshah, a city in western Iran.

Indeed, A Persian Passover shares the distinct sights and traditions of the Iranian Jewish community, such as the building of a matzah oven in the synagogue courtyard and how, for MARCH/APRIL 2022

the seder, Ezra and Roza’s family sit around a large sofreh (ornate cloth) “decorated with a seder plate, scallions, dyed eggs, and green sprouts.”

Alone Together on Dan Street

By Erica Lyons. Illustrated by Jen Jamieson (Apples & Honey Press) A charming only-in-Israel tale of resilience and empathy, Alone Together on Dan Street introduces us to Mira, who misses being with friends and family during Covid. In advance of the seder, Mira decides to practice the Four Questions on the balcony of her Jerusalem apartment and ends up inspiring her lonely neighbors, including elderly Mr. Blum and wheelchair-bound Mrs. Yaso, to sing together on seder night, each from his or her own balcony—“a choir larger and happier than she could have imagined.”

During pandemic lockdowns, news reports noted that thousands of Israelis did indeed take to their balconies to sing traditional tunes on Passover.

Alone Together on Dan Street is an illustrated ode to such joyful acts of solidarity in trying times.

Raquela’s Seder

By Joel Edward Stein. Illustrated by Sara Ugolotti (Kar-Ben Publishing) Young Raquela yearns to experience a seder, but in Spain during the time of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Jewish families like hers are forbidden from practicing their religion. Nevertheless, her parents try to fulfill her

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ILLUSTRATION BY SARA UGOLOTTI/COURTESY OF KAR-BEN PUBLISHING

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request, quietly gathering the ingredients for a seder that they all celebrate in secret on a boat out at sea.

Through descriptive text and appealing illustrations, Raquela’s Seder captures the hopes, fears and sadness experienced by conversos, the term, the book explains in an endnote, for Jews who remained in Spain during the Inquisition and hid their Judaism. “A long time ago, God freed the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt,” Raquela’s papa says as he

NONFICTION

The Remnant: On Burning Wings: To a Displaced Persons Camp and Beyond

By Michael G. Kesler (Vallentine Mitchell)

‘Raquela’s Seder’

fills a wine glass at the secret seder.

“Let us hope that one day we will also be free—free to live as Jews.”

Leah Finkelshteyn is senior editor of Hadassah Magazine.

The title of this poignant Holocaust memoir, The Remnant, is an allusion to the biblical phrase she’erit hapletah.

In Chronicles I 4:43, it refers to the surviving remnant of a group that has almost totally been destroyed. Today, the phrase is used to describe both Holocaust survivors in general as well as those who were gathered into displaced persons camps after the war.

The Remnant is the story of the harrowing journey that author Michael G. Kesler took with his older sister, Luba, after the German invasion of their hometown of Dubno.

From the dynamic CEO of ADL: “IT COULD HAPPEN HERE” In his new book, Jonathan Greenblatt offers an impassioned argument about the terrifying path that America finds itself on today–and how we can strike back against antisemitism and hate. Just because it could happen here, does not mean that the unthinkable is inevitable.

"In this moment, when stubborn, ugly hatreds have again reared their heads, Jonathan Greenblatt offers a superb, clear-eyed snapshot of what is unfolding and why. This book is not just the alarm we need but also a bracing call to action."

Abigail Pogrebin. Author of My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays; One Wondering Jew

MARCH/APRIL 2022

itcouldhappenherebook.org

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Dubno, in eastern Poland (now Ukraine), was one of the most important Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.

Almost all the city’s 8,000 Jews were systematically murdered by the Germans and their local collaborators. At war’s end, only 300 remained.

Most survivor stories have similar beginnings—the Germans come—and the same ending—somehow, they lived. But the middle element, the how and where, makes each story

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different. And Kesler’s experiences are indeed unique.

After the Germans broke through the Russian lines in 1941, Michael and Luba’s parents urged the two to flee eastward toward Russia.

Once they arrive, he serves briefly in the Russian army. In the book, he describes the constant guilt and sadness he felt as a teenager about his abandonment of his parents. It is only the sympathetic guidance of his sister and his good friends that pulls Kesler out of his depression.

The brother and sister keep moving east and eventually arrive in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, some 3,000 miles from home. There he finds work as a veterinary assistant and later as an apprentice weaver, selling

Looking for more Holocaust-related nonfiction for Yom Hashoah? Go to hadassahmagazine.org/books for our reviews of The Letters Project, a memoir of a woman who, after uncovering a hidden cache of letters, searches for the truth about her father, a Holocaust survivor, and The Dressmakers of Auschwitz, about the group of young women who were forced to design and sew fashion clothing for the wives of Nazi elite.

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BOOKS

yarn on the black market. Kesler also has a brief romance with a local girl, but ultimately cannot commit himself to someone outside his faith.

Stories like these, with their dramatic content and crisp characterization, are paradigmatic of the quality of The Remnant and had me eagerly turning pages to find out what would happen next.

The book also describes Kesler and his sister’s journey after the war. The siblings return to Dubno to discover the mass graves of the city’s Jews, including their parents.

They then find refuge in a displaced persons camp in Germany, where they wait for more than a year for a country to open its doors to them.

With each setback and catastrophe,

Kesler describes his struggles with God: “During four years of exile, Luba and I had never celebrated the Sabbath or any other Jewish holiday.

The torrent of conflicts began to tear me apart. I felt myself floating in mid-air without mooring.”

At the camp, he takes a course in radio repair and trains on a kibbutzlike farm. Kesler applies for and, in 1947, wins a scholarship that enables him to study at Colby College in Maine. He later transfers to MIT. (Luba obtained a visa to Uruguay.

After a number of years, she immigrated to the United States.) In the United States, for the first time since the start of the war, he finally experiences the feeling of total freedom.

Kelser passed away in August

2021 at the age of 97, a few months after his memoir was published. His enthralling recollections artistically combine a novelist’s keen insights with a historian’s detailed accounts of an era. —Curt Leviant Curt Leviant recently published a translation of a long-forgotten Sholom Aleichem novel, Moshkeleh the Thief, as well as his 12th novel, Me, Mo, Mu, Ma & Mod; or, Which Will It Be, Me and Mazal or Gila and Me?

FICTION

The Pessimists

By Bethany Ball (Grove Press) Even an optimist will enjoy The Pessimists, Bethany Ball’s engaging and biting satire about three modern-

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day couples raising their children in an affluent and predominantly white Connecticut suburb of New York City.

As in her previous novel, What to Do About the Solomons, the author teases apart the struggles, successes and failures of the families she writes about as well as the secrets that haunt them. There are Tripp and Virginia, the genial hosts of a New Year’s Eve party that opens the book, who are keeping secrets from each other; and Rachel, who is Jewish, and her Swedish husband, Gunter, recent transplants from Manhattan.

The third pair, Richard and Margot, wrestle with questions of fidelity and mental health as well as their grief over a daughter who died in infancy. What unites these privileged

couples—all looking for the best for their offspring—is their embrace of the Petra School, a private, New Agey institution that sometimes forgets to stress subjects like math and science.

Indeed, the families’ lives revolve around the unaccredited and murky Petra School—a sendup of progressive academies—and its cryptic headmistress, Agnes. She sets the tone, issuing streams of surreal memos and proclamations challenging widely accepted pedagogic practices: “Dear Petra School Parents,” she writes in one missive. “Competitive sports are inappropriate for Petra School children. Ours is a school of cooperation.

Chess, however, is encouraged.”

Vaccines and the consumption of gluten are, however, discouraged. As

is dairy, which Agnes links to dyslexia.

There will be “no learning disabilities of any kind” at Petra, she writes in another note.

There will also be no mention of Passover, or any other Jewish holidays, in the classrooms because, Agnes tells parents, “there are no Jewish teachers”—a whiff of antisemitism from the headmaster who herself has possible Nazi connections.

All of this sets the stage for the families’ lives to unravel.

The Art of the Haggadah

Illuminate your Seder table with Haggadahs illustrated by artists including Marc Chagall, Ben Shahn, Mark Podwal, and more.

Every purchase supports the Jewish Museum Shop.TheJewishMuseum.org 5th Ave at 92nd St, NYC 212.423.3333

Photo: Tory Williams Under the auspices of the Jewish Theological Seminary

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BOOKS

Unbeknownst to virtually everyone, including his wife, Tripp has become a doomsday prepper. Among his preparations for the apocalypse is an arms repository that he creates in his basement. Virginia, for her part, is keeping her breast cancer diagnosis

a secret, refusing to treat the cancer despite the concerns of her oncologist.

Rachel, desperate for her children to fit into Petra, ignores the uncomfortable antisemitism. Gunter, originally skeptical—“School is meant to be hated,” he quips. “How

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DC: The Certificate of Registration Number of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. is #40003848, which is valid for the period 9/1/2021-8/31/2023. Registration does not imply endorsement of the solicitation by the District of Columbia, or by any officer or employee of the District. FL: A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION FOR HADASSAH, THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC. (#SC-1298) AND HADASSAH MEDICAL RELIEF ASSOCIATION, INC. (#SC-4603) MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL-FREE 1-800-HELP-FLA, OR ONLINE AT www.FloridaConsumerHelp.com. KS: The official registration and annual financial report of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. is filed with the Kansas Secretary of State. Kansas Registration #237-478-3. MD: A copy of the current financial statement of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. is available by writing 40 Wall Street, 8th Floor, New York, New York 10005, Att: Finance Dept., or by calling (212) 355-7900. Documents and information submitted under the Maryland Charitable Solicitations Act are also available for the cost of postage and copies, from the Maryland Secretary of State, State House, Annapolis, MD 21401. MI: Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. MICS #13005/Hadassah Medical Relief Association, Inc. MICS # 11986/The Hadassah Foundation, Inc. MICS #22965. MS: The official registration and financial information of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. may be obtained from the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office by calling 1(888) 236-6167. NJ: INFORMATION FILED BY HADASSAH, THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC. AND HADASSAH MEDICAL RELIEF ASSOCIATION, INC. WITH THE NEW JERSEY ATTORNEY GENERAL CONCERNING THIS CHARITABLE SOLICITATION AND THE PERCENTAGE OF CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED BY THE CHARITY DURING THE LAST REPORTING PERIOD THAT WERE DEDICATED TO THE CHARITABLE PURPOSE MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY BY CALLING (973) 504-6215 AND IS AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET AT www.njconsumeraffairs.gov/ charity/chardir.htm. NY: You may obtain a copy of Hadassah’s Financial Report by writing to the Hadassah Finance Dept., 40 Wall Street, 8th Floor, New York, New York 10005. NC: FINANCIAL INFORMATION ABOUT HADASSAH, THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC. AND A COPY OF ITS LICENSE ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE NORTH CAROLINA SECRETARY OF STATE, SOLICITATION LICENSING SECTION AT 919-807-2214 OR FOR NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENTS AT 1-888-830-4989. PA: The official registration and financial information of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., Hadassah Medical Relief Association, Inc., and The Hadassah Foundation, Inc. may be obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of State by calling toll free, within Pennsylvania, 1(800) 732-0999. VA: A financial statement of the organization is available from the Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, P.O. Box 1163, Richmond, VA 23218, Phone #1 (800) 552-9963, upon request. WA: Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., Hadassah Medical Relief Association, Inc. and The Hadassah Foundation, Inc. are registered with the Washington Secretary of State. Financial disclosure information is available from the Secretary of State. The toll-free phone number for Washington residents is 800-332-GIVE (800-332-4483), OR 360-725-0378. The website is www.sos.wa.gov/charities. WV: West Virginia residents may obtain a summary of the registration and financial documents of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. from the Secretary of State, State Capitol, Charleston, WV 25305. ALL OTHER STATES: A copy of Hadassah’s latest Financial Report is available by writing to the Hadassah Finance Dept., 40 Wall Street, 8th Floor, New York, New York 10005. REGISTRATION DOES NOT CONSTITUTE OR IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL, SANCTION OR RECOMMENDATION BY ANY STATE. Charitable deductions are allowed to the extent provided by law. Hadassah shall have full dominion, control and discretion over all gifts (and shall be under no legal obligation to transfer any portion of a gift to or for the use or benefit of any other entity or organization). All decisions regarding the use of funds for any purpose, or the transfer of funds to or for the benefit of any other entity or organization, shall be subject to the approval of the Board or other governing body of Hadassah. The Hadassah Foundation, Inc. is a supporting organization of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. and Hadassah Medical Relief Association, Inc. January 2021 MARCH/APRIL 2022

else will children learn to endure hateful things?”—suddenly embraces Agnes’s formula for happiness, including yoga and meditation.

To manage her anxiety, Margot obsessively immerses herself in housework while Richard, who hates his job, engages in serial extramarital liaisons as an escape.

What are we readers to make of all this? These jaded, wealthy suburbanites may seem to lead perfect lives, but, as the author shows, their unmet desires, fears and discontents are relatable and all too real.

Several loose threads remain at the conclusion of this novel, even as it winds down to an unexpected climax and a relatively satisfying ending.

—Stewart Kampel Stewart Kampel was a longtime editor at The New York Times.

Woman on Fire

By Lisa Barr (Harper) In Woman on Fire, Lisa Barr returns to the theme of art under the shadow of Nazi Germany that earned her awards and accolades for her debut novel, Fugitive Colors. Barr, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, is a long-time art lover and journalist who is a former managing editor of Moment Magazine and Today’s Chicago Woman. Now, she brings her passions and life experience to fiction. Woman on Fire combines mystery, thriller and romance along with Barr’s penchant for strong

I 58 I hadassahmagazine.org

female characters and her exhaustive research into Nazi-looted art, giving readers a page-turner that educates as it entertains.

Jules Roth, the novel’s protagonist, is a young journalist on a mission that sends her across the United States and Europe to find a painting stolen by the Nazis 75 years earlier. The object of her pursuit is Woman on Fire, a life-size portrait of a woman consumed by brilliant-colored flames. The painter, fictional German expressionist Ernst Engel, who also appears in Fugitive Colors, was murdered by the Nazis in their purge of avant-garde artists whom they labeled “degenerate,” and the painting disappeared. Jules races to find it, guided by her mentor,

Chicago Chronicle editor Dan Mansfield. This search is personal for Dan, who wants to return the painting to his dying friend, Ellis Baum. Ellis’s mother, Engel’s model, was shot by the Nazis as her son watched.

Ellis wants to see the painting of his mother one last time before he dies.

Every suspense novel needs an enemy, and here Barr gives us the strong, unscrupulous Margaux de Laurent—a Paris art dealer who would do anything to possess the long-lost painting. The twist here is that Margaux believes the painting belongs to her; there is evidence that her grandfather briefly owned the painting during the war.

As Jules uses her investigative skills to track the provenance and

whereabouts of Woman on Fire, we readers are immersed in the painful travails experienced by contemporary families still trying to recover Nazi-confiscated art. Barr forces us to consider whether multiple families or institutions might have a reasonable claim to the same artwork, and is there a difference between coerced sale versus outright theft?

The twists and turns of the story include a little too much hot-andheavy romance for my taste (note Ellis’s “ruggedly handsome” grandson Adam, who joins Jules on her quest). But Barr also gives us more complexity than a genre thriller, delving into secrets of the art market and raising questions of forgeries, forced Continued on page 62

This Passover, connect the exodus to today’s refugees.

Make a gift to help families rebuild their lives in safety.

Zubair and his family were resettled in Pittsburgh after fleeing Afghanistan, thanks to your support and the work of HIAS and JFCS Pittsburgh.

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I 59 I hadassahmagazine.org

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Guide to Jewish Literature Order these books directly through the Hadassah Magazine website!

Just go to Hadassahmagazine.org and click on Guide to Jewish Literature.

WHAT CAN WE REALLY LEARN FROM THE HABITS OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS? Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg

Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg applies years of masterful rabbinical sermons and theology to the contemporary trappings of the lifestyles of the rich and famous and the false idols of celebrities.

You can learn from the highs and lows of the influential while keeping your spirits intact!

Available on Amazon.

REBIRTH OF PLANET EARTH

Gary Michael, Marvin Michael

Almost the entire human and mammal population on Earth dies mysteriously in 2030.

One survivor, Eli, an agnostic who recently made aliya to Israel from the US is compelled to find answers. Hassan, an astronaut on the international space station from the UAE, provides Eli with helpful information. Eli starts his journey driving an Israeli-made solar-powered vehicle and finds survivors and valuable scientific research. Eli studies Torah and is contacted by the Almighty. The Earth is repopulated with an emphasis on protecting the environment. After Eli’s death, the people of another planet need assistance from the people of Earth.

Available on Amazon (318 pp, Free on KindleUnlimited, Kindle $4.95, paperback $14.95). Email the authors at rebirth.of.planet.earth@gmail.com.

THE PASSOVER GUEST Susan Kusel, illustrated by Sean Rubin

A Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner! In this fresh retelling of the classic I.L. Peretz story “The Magician”, Muriel assumes her family is too poor to hold a Passover Seder this year—but an act of kindness and a mysterious guest change everything. This picture book offers a wonderful message about the power of togetherness through difficult times and masterfully encapsulates the spirit of Passover.

Hardcover, 40 pages. Available on Bookshop.org or wherever books are sold. Published by Neal Porter Books / Holiday House Books.

SELLING ETHICALLY: A BUSINESS PARABLE CONNECTING INTEGRITY WITH PROFITS Joel Malkoff

An engaging, thought-provoking, Heavenly Court story about applying Jewish ethics and integrity in life, business and more… Here’s what several Amazon Readers have said, “A relatable coming of wisdom story…”

“Right book at the right moment, underscores the power of ethical behavior, this short book felt like a refreshing drink of water…” “Encourages you to be more ethical not only in business, but in all aspects of your life!”

FREE professionally narrated audiobook (Value: $15.00).

Visit theEthicsGiver.com/offer for FREE Download. Available on Amazon in softcover, e-book, hardcover, audiobook.

PRAIRIE SONATA

Sandy Shefrin Rabin

Named one of the Best Books of 2021 by Kirkus Reviews. “A compelling work… poignant and eloquent.”

(Starred Review). Mira Adler, growing up in a town on the post-WWII Canadian prairies, learns about life and love from her Yiddish and violin teacher, Chaver B, a recent immigrant from Prague. Perfect for Purim, the holiday plays an important role in Mira’s growing consciousness in this coming-of-age novel about music, love, friendship, community, and religion. Winner of the Independent Press Award and a New York City Big Book Award Distinguished Favorite. Ideal for book clubs, Bat/Bar-Mitzvah gifts, adults/young adults.

See www.PrairieSonata.com for more reviews and details on purchasing. Available in hardcover, softcover, and e-book.

RUMORS Stephanie Abrams

Rumors percolate in a Jewish community where gossip is an Olympic sport. RUMORS, boasting 79% five-star ratings, overflows with secrets, lies, love, lust, conspiracies, intrigue, wit, a who-dunnit and people you know, braided together like a challah! An acclaimed author notes: “Not since Rosemary’s Baby have I been given a book I could not stop reading. Gripping plot, well written.” An Israeli-American magazine publisher writes: “My wife devoured this book in record time. She told me: ‘You’d love it.’ Later that night I inhaled the book.”

Read reviews at Amazon.com and dive into RUMORS!.

Available in e-book and print.

HIP SET Michael Fertik

“Fast paced with an original, exotic setting, Hip Set is an unstoppable read from first page to last,” Faye Kellerman, best-selling author. A noir thriller set in modern-day Tel Aviv, Hip Set begins with what appears to the police to be a simple murder but swiftly takes our heroes through the hidden lives of Sudanese refugees and the violent underground economy of Russian gangsters, in search of an ancient mystery, lying untouched in the desert for millennia, that has been troubling scholars since it first appeared in the Old Testament itself.

Available on Amazon.

SHATTERED TRUST: THE DEATH OF MOSES Dr. Larry S. Milner

Milner analyzes when Moses punished the Israelites with a death penalty, not God-approved, that this prohibited him from entering Israel and how this punishment was consistent with the principles of Divine Justice found in the Torah. Then Milner examines when Moses strikes, rather than speaking to the rock at Meribah, the event thought to be the reason Moses couldn’t enter the Land. He presents the view that this reason was a late addition to the Torah, intended to rehabilitate the reputation of Moses.

ISBN 978-1946124-869, 774 pages. Available on Amazon.

SHATTERED FAITH: THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM Dr. Larry S. Milner

Milner takes us to the closing period in Abraham’s life after the Akedah, when told by YHWH to prepare to sacrifice Isaac. It was after this event that Abraham, amazingly, lost faith.

After the Akedah, when it was not Isaac who died, but Sarah, Abraham did the unexpected; he married a pagan. Milner presents Abraham’s story in the format of a play, through dialogue. Ideal for teachers and group leaders, this story can easily be presented in a live format for all ages.

ISBN 978-1946124-883, 148 pages. Available on Amazon.

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THE ASSIGNMENT Liza Wiemer

Inspired by a real-life incident. When a favorite teacher gives an assignment requiring students to pretend they’re Nazis and debate the Final Solution, two brave teens speak up and refuse to participate. The situation explodes, forcing the school and larger community to confront antisemitism and bigotry. What does it take for tolerance, justice, and love to prevail? Find out in this riveting, fast-paced, multi-award-winning novel.

SEEDS OF SCRIPTURE A.D. Levine

Seeds of Scripture weaves together ancient wisdom and modern knowledge.

It is not a reimagination of the Jacob story but an expansion that teases out the inner meaning of the biblical text. In Egypt, Jacob shares his past with his grandchildren as he organizes the writings collected by Abraham.

Available through Amazon Kindle or Amazon.

BLACKS AND JEWS IN AMERICA: AN INVITATION TO DIALOGUE

Available in hardcover, e-book, paperback, and audio wherever books are sold. Free curriculum guide through Penguin Random House. Liza will speak to Hadassah chapters, synagogues, schools, and other groups.

Visit lizawiemer.com for more information.

BETWEEN THESE WALLS Michael Newman

Art curator Daniel Singer, adopted son of Colonel Samuel Singer, receives a mysterious package from Germany. He can’t help but think that there’s something important within the envelope. But what? Daniel’s quest to learn about the package’s contents leads him on a voyage of discovery about his roots, an encounter with the Mossad, Israel’s secret spy agency. As he searches, he unlocks the secrets of three families—one American and two German —following them from the dying days of WWI, to the rise of Adolf Hitler, WWII, the Holocaust, the birth of the State of Israel and three Middle East wars.

Available on Amazon.

YOUR SOUL MATE AWAITS! A MATCHMAKER REVEALS HOW TO FIND LOVE AND HAPPINESS IN 3 SIMPLE STEPS

Judith Gottesman, MSW, with Maria De La O

The owner of Soul Mates Unlimited™, Judith Gottesman, MSW, is a Jewish matchmaker and dating coach. In Your Soul Mate Awaits!

A Matchmaker Reveals How to Find Love and Happiness in 3 Simple Steps, Judith takes on much more than just dating, to illuminate today’s relationship questions. Judith understands how frustration, self-doubt and uncertainty plague those looking for a soul mate connection.

Whether readers are looking to date for the first time, for the first time in a long time, or just need a new approach, Judith reveals the tricks of the trade to find a romantic partner.

Buy her books at www.SoulMatesUnlimited.com.

Terrence L. Johnson and Jacques Berlinerblau

A Black-Jewish dialogue lifts a veil on these groups’ unspoken history, shedding light on the challenges and promises facing American democracy. “This book offers a smart, fresh take not only on the complicated history of a fraught alliance but also on topics like liberalism, intersectionality, and Israel-Palestine that tend to separate the two groups today.”—Maurice Samuels, director, Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism.

Hardcover, 224 pages, $26.95. Available for purchase on press.georgetown.edu.

THE GRAVEL ROAD David Handelman

From a potential waif to the triumphs of wealth, he sees the adventures of his life; loss, love of friends, enemies, of coming close to meeting his own death.....An unloved boy, enterprising auctioneer, unrequited lover – Jonah Knight always looked for things hidden in plain sight that someday save his life.....Knight’s quest for himself leads him to learn what deprived him of the only shelter over his head – the remarkable auctioning skills he learned from Peter Flagstaff.

Available on Amazon.

RICHARD CODOR’S JOYOUS HAGGADAH Richard and Liora Codor

A cartoon haggadah that follows the traditional steps of the seder. Written in a concise, contemporary style, it includes songs, games, recipes and prayers in English, Hebrew and transliterated Hebrew. It makes the seder fun and meaningful for family, guests and even for those “who don’t know how to ask.”

Softcover, 48 pages. Amazon, barnesandnoble.com, $11.95.

THE PARIS PHOTO Jane Gabin

Blending history, mystery, and romance, The Paris Photo is an acclaimed novel depicting the long reach of wartime trauma. Stationed in Paris in 1944, an American soldier, Ben Gordon, assists a Jewish Parisian family. Years later, his daughter finds a photo of her father, taken in Paris, with women and a boy. Why were they in a picture he obviously kept his whole life – but never discussed? She travels to Paris to uncover the story, learning more than she intended. The author, part of the Jewish Book Council network, has given presentations around the country.

Paperback, 494 pages (also an e-book). Available at independent bookstores, Amazon, or at www.theparisphoto.com.

THE R ABBI’S WIFE, THE BISHOP’S WIFE David Jacobson and Chayuta Deutsch

A Jewish woman’s story of faith and betrayal, loyalty and commitment. Spain, 1391. Shlomo Halevi, the city’s Rabbi, converts to Christianity with his five young children. Later, he becomes the Archbishop of his city. Shlomo’s wife Joana is faced with an impossible choice between loyalty to her children and her Jewish heritage. This novel is a tribute to Jewish women and mothers of all generations.

Available on Amazon in softcover print and Kindle editions.

Hebrew version (bestseller) available in all Israeli bookstores and www.ybook.co.il.

STRANGE FIRE Joel Burcat

The frackers have invaded Pennsylvania and Yukon Oil and Gas may have poisoned a residential well and threaten a town’s water supply. Mike Jacobs, a 29-year-old environmental lawyer with Pennsylvania’s environmental agency, is back in this romantically-charged environmental legal thriller. “Burcat writes with an insider’s edge about a dangerous battle over fracking.

Strange Fire is a dark, suspenseful read that ranges from gas fields to the courtroom, all handled with gritty style. A treat for thriller fans.” William Landay (Defending Jacob).

Paperback, 385 pages. Available on Amazon in paperback and e-book. For more info: www.JoelBurcat.com.

To advertise here, please call Randi O’Connor at (212) 451-6221, or email roconnor@hadassah.org.

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Even Margaux, after breaking into an apartment to abscond with a trove of Nazi-looted art, asks: “If I stole from the art robbers—does that

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—Elizabeth Edelglass Elizabeth Edelglass is a fiction writer, poet and book reviewer living in Connecticut.

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1. The Books of Jacob

by Olga Tokarczuk (Riverhead Books) 2. Three Sisters

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4. Our Country Friends

by Gary Shteyngart (Random House) 5. The Cellist

by Daniel Silva (Harper) NONFICTION

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Kings and Queens

Adult Tour: 10 Nights (Wednesday Departure - Sunday Return) May 11, May 18, Oct 19, Nov 2

Connecting David, Esther and Vashti

Family Bar/Bat Mitzvah: 10 Nights

By Joseph Lowin

QUEEN ESTHER, FROM A FRESCO BY ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO, C. 1450. UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE, ITALY

F

rom the big bang theory to today’s conspirQueen Esther acy theories, what we appear to prize most,

by Andrea del Castagno as we seek to explain our world, are origin stories. Take the example of the Hebrew root ‫ך‬-‫ל‬-‫( מ‬mem, lamed, khof), to rule. The word ֶ‫( ֶמל‬melekh), king, when it refers in Scripture to the Israelites, is first mentioned not in a reference to our first king, Saul, or his successor, David, but, in an apparent anachronism in Genesis 36:31, ֶ‫לִ ְפנֵ י ְמלָ ֶמל‬ (lifnei melokh melekh), “before there reigned any king [over the Children of Israel].”

But was Saul truly the first Jewish king? In Judges, a certain Abimelekh rose up to kill 70 of his brothers ‫( לְ ִה ְתּ ַמלֵ ך‬le-hitmalekh), to crown himself, the “first” king of Israel. King David, ֶ‫( ָדוִ ד ָה ֶמּל‬david ha-melekh), is recognized as the founder of our first dynasty; from his promised progeny we eventually come to our Messiah, ‫יח‬ ַ ‫( ֶמלֶ ַה ָמּ ִשׁ‬melekh ha-mashi’ah), literally, “anointed king.” And then there is the Semitic deity known in English as Moloch, to whom parents would offer their children as sacrifices.

In Hebrew, this god is called ‫( מֺלֶ ך‬molekh), a word clearly related to melekh.

But commentators explain the pronunciation change by saying that the vowels of the word ‫( בּ ֶֺשׁת‬boshet), “shame,” were affixed to the name of the deity to show Israel’s horror at the practice of child sacrifice.

Depending on how it is read, the story of the origin of the hymn Eishet Hayil, the Woman of Valor, can be edifying. Was it composed originally by a woman, a ‫( ַמלְ כָּ ה‬malka), queen, even? The late Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, professor of Bible, archaeology and ancient Near Eastern studies at BenGurion University of the Negev, hinted that the “ideal wife,” the eishet hayil in Proverbs 31:10-31, should be read as a corrective to the negative image presented by the Queen Mother of King Lemuel in the first nine verses of that chapter, where she uses our root to warn her son to be wary of giving his strength ‫( לַ ְמח ת ְמלָ כִ ין‬lamhot melakhin), to women who “destroy kings.”

In 1928, David Ben-Gurion prophetically coined a new adjective from our root. In a coming State of Israel, he implied, every government function would be not factional but ‫( ַמ ְמלַ כְ ִתּי‬mamlakhti), run by the entire state, including all its different parties.

Which brings us to three ‫( ְמלָ כ ת‬melakhot), queens, who all threw parties. Maybe this Purim, which begins the evening of March 16, we can, metaphorically, join Queen Esther, Queen Vashti and ‫( ַמלְ כָּ ת ְשׁ ָבא‬malkat sheva), the Queen of Sheba, in a “traditional” Purim masked ball—socially distanced and fully vaccinated, too. In keeping with our theme, during the event, we might play Simon Says, which in Israel is called ‫ַה ֶמּלֶ ָא ַמר‬ (ha-melekh amar), The King Said. And in the topsy-turvy spirit of Purim, we might ask Vashti to be the king.

Joseph Lowin’s columns for Hadassah Magazine are collected in the books HebrewSpeak and HebrewTalk.

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Blu Greenberg Still advocating for that rabbinic will | By Lisa Hostein

B

lu greenberg was sitting in her dentist’s office skimming ladies’ Home Journal in 1972 when she read that Sally Priesand had become the first woman in history to receive ordination from a rabbinical seminary. “I had such a feeling, I felt nauseous. It was so alien to me that a woman would step over the line,” recalls Greenberg, a Modern Orthodox woman who would soon after become one of the founding mothers of Jewish feminism. “I have since apologized many times to Sally and my friends in Reform Judaism.”

In 1973, Greenberg, 86, gave the keynote at the first National Jewish Women’s Conference, and 24 years after that, she founded JOFA, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. She credits Hadassah Magazine for giving her a national platform for her ideas; her articles for the magazine served as the nucleus of her 1981 book, On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition. A Hadassah life member, she also received Hadassah’s Henrietta Szold Award in 2006. She spoke via Zoom from her Jerusalem apartment, where she and her husband, Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, had been living periodically since making aliyah in 2017 and continuously since the pandemic began. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

DEBRA NUSSBAUM COHEN

What do you see as the most profound changes for women in Orthodox Judaism in the past 25 years?

There have been many advances, but the biggest change, affecting a small group, is women in the rabbinate. If you look at the broadest change, it’s women in Jewish learning. Through most of my years of yeshiva education, in the 1940s and 50s, I had only one significant woman teacher. Now you can find women in all these roles—learners, teachers, scholars, heads of educational institutions and rabbis.

You are known for saying, “Where there’s a rabbinic will, there’s a halachic way.” Now that halacha has enabled Orthodox female rabbis, where would you apply that aphorism today?

I want to see it applied to the agunah issue. The problem is in Jewish law and the solution should be in the law for a “chained” wife who is refused a get (Jewish divorce) by her husband. For those in a

halachic community, these systemic solutions need to happen with rabbinic sanctioning. That is what will enable ending the horrible injustice that has existed for too long in Jewish history.

How has the International Beit Din helped address this issue?

The beit din was created after JOFA and New York University’s law school held a conference in 2013 looking for new solutions. If a get is not possible, the beit din can declare the marriage never to have existed at its origins, and therefore release the woman. The beit din (first headed by Rabbi Simcha Krauss, who passed away in January) still prefers a get solution, and it gives more gets than releases, but often they are “leveraged” gets, meaning that if a man knows he’s not going to receive the extortion money he is seeking, for example $250,000, and that his wife is going to obtain a release, he makes a deal for $17,000. It’s still, of course, abhorrent that a wife has to pay anyMARCH/APRIL 2022

thing for her husband to give her a get.

What do you see as your legacy to Jewish feminism?

My legacy, beyond my family (five children, including the late JJ; 23 grandchildren and four great grandchildren) are my two books, On Women and Judaism and How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household.

Also, JOFA and the many conferences I organized.

I did a lot of pioneering things over the last 45 years. I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time and I said, “Yes.” If you were a little younger, would you be enrolled at Yeshivat Maharat, on the path to becoming a rabba?

Yes, I would. It never entered my mind when I was young. My father was a rabbi, I am married to a rabbi.

I think it would have been a natural course.

Lisa Hostein is the executive editor of Hadassah Magazine.

I 64 I hadassahmagazine.org

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