Elana Sztokman

You can learn an incredible amount about different people from language. There are, for example, 27 words for “moustache” in Albanian – including a word for what English-speakers would call “no moustache.” It seems that in Albania, moustaches are pretty important. Similarly, the Inuit are famous for having 30 words for snow – clearly they see things in the snow that most of us don’t.

Unique linguistic forms abound, and provide intriguing insights into cultures. According to Adam Jacot de Boinod, author of 'The Meaning of Tingo', the Khakas people of Siberia have a word for the ring you put in the nose of a calf in order to stop it suckling its mother (“oorxax”); Indonesian has a word for flicking someone with the middle finger on the ear (“nylentik”); Hawaiian has a word for scratching your head in order to remember something forgotten (“pana po’o”); Pascuense in Easter Island has a word for a slight inflammation of the throat caused by screaming too much (“ngaobera”); Persian has a word for looking beautiful after having a disease (“mahj”); and Brazilian Portuguese has a word for the practice of putting a live cricket into a box of newly faked documents, until the insect's excrement makes the paper look convincingly old (“grigalem”).

So what’s Hebrew’s claim to fame?

I would have liked to find a word, perhaps, for that hand gesture of squeezing thumb and middle finger in order to indicate to the viewer, “wait.” But no, we Jews are not quite that lucky. Instead, what distinguishes our culture is that ours is the only language in the world that has the word “agunah.”

An agunah is a woman indefinitely stuck in an unwanted marriage, in which the husband is gone but she is still considered married. It is the word for a woman’s perpetual state of limbo, in which she is chained to a man who has complete freedom to move, marry, produce offspring and live a normal life. The cruelty reflected in a society that enables even one agunah to exist — and accepts this situation as a reality to such an extent that it gives her a name — should bring us all enormous shame.

International Agunah Day is marked on Ta’anit Esther, which this year falls on Thursday February 25. I think it’s fitting but tragic to combine the Esther story with the agunah story. After all, according to the traditional story, Esther was trapped in an unwanted marriage as well, to King Ahasverosh, a man known for murdering disobedient wives and around whom Esther had to completely disguise her identity. In this marriage, Esther sacrificed her own freedom, her own dreams, and her own life, presumably for the sake of the Jewish people — although it takes several chapters of the book and an indeterminate number of years for a threat to surface. I hate to say this but in a way, it’s a good thing Haman came along and gave her enslavement a greater purpose. If not, her sacrifice would have been for naught.

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I would like to dedicate this post to my friend Ariella Zeller, who taught me everything about women, friendship, and love. Despite rumors to the contrary, I am fairly certain that Ruth did not convert to Judaism. At least not by today’s standards. Even though we celebrate Ruth as the quintessential convert, the fact is, she became Jewish without doing any of the things that the rabbis would have demanded of her in the modern state of Israel. The Book of Ruth has no mention of dipping naked into mikva. There is no mention of three haredi men watching, and asking her all kinds of prodding questions. There is no interrogation. No studying of halakha for years. No coming to her house and checking how she makes tea on Shabbat. I mean, chances are she didn’t even keep Shabbat or kashruth. What, you think when Naomi left Israel to be the only Jews in Moab, her sons married Moabite women but she was actually using two sets of dishes and putting a plata on her stove on Shabbat? It’s ridiculous. Elimelech and Naomi left Israel for ten years without ever looking back. They left because there was a famine and bread was more important than heritage. The Jewish people was not important to Elimelech, he let his sons marry local women, and never made plans to go back to Israel. So, really, what are the chances that he kept a kosher home over there in Moab? I’d say between slim and nil. Ruth probably never even heard of Shabbat. Read the rest of this entry →

The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance will be conducting a workshop for educators of Humash on Sunday, May 17, 2009 from 9 am to 2 pm at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education. Through the workshop, JOFA seeks to develop a community of practice among participants, reinforce the approach of its curricula, and provide ongoing peer support for teachers. Read the rest of this entry →

Queen Esther Revealing her True Identity, Mosaic Portrait Lilian Broca, http://mosaicartsource.files.wordpress.com

Purim is undoubtedly a woman's holiday. Not only is the holiday based on one of the few biblical tales in which a woman is the national heroine -- in one of only two biblical books named for women -- and in fact our only religious holiday named for a woman, the holiday itself has also been on the frontier of advancing women's position in Judaism. I am referring of course to women reading megillah, an event that constitutes one of the first areas of ritual practice that opened up to women. Talmudic exegesis puts women's megillah reading clearly in the realm of the "permissible", and even Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef -- not usually known for his sensitivity to women's needs -- surprisingly announced this week that it is permitted for a woman to read even on behalf of men! He added that women may also write a scroll, another of the many jobs generally reserved for men in Yosef's community (along with, say, being a Knesset member), though Yosef added sardonically that if a woman were to write a Scroll of Esther, he doubts anyone would buy it. Read the rest of this entry →

Which comes first, community custom or the dignity of God’s creatures? That is the essence of the question about women having a public voice in synagogue, including reading from the Torah. The view that women’s dignity is paramount may seem like common sense, but that argument is somehow considered radical. Such is the experience of Rabbi Professor Daniel Sperber, whose essay on the subject of Women and Torah Reading published this week on YNet and Kolech has incurred a disproportionate amount of hostility and ridiculous accusations that he is heretical, “Reform” (good heavens!) or a threat to the future of the Jewish people. Read the rest of this post on the Kolech English blog, Jewish Women's Voice Read the rest of this entry →

It’s astounding what smart women have to put up with. Professor Nechama Leibowitz – leading Bible scholar, 1951 Israeli Prize laureate, revered teacher of thousands around the world including rabbis, writers and professors, a woman who is considered an institution for her brilliance in Biblical interpretation and who made history for being the only woman allowed to teach Orthodox men Torah – was scolded by her mother for not wearing lipstick. “Who is going to want to marry you if you dress like that?” her mother would tell her. This story, along with many never-before published anecdotes about Nechama Leibowitz, is revealed in a new biography being released by Yediot Aharonot Publishers. Read the rest of this story on the Kolech blog, Jewish Women's Voice Read the rest of this entry →

I must admit, I find Yom Kippur extremely difficult. Not because of the issue of asking forgiveness – as a woman, that’s the easy part. Women apologize all the time. We apologize for speaking to much, for speaking too loud, for not being helpful enough, for not going out of our way enough, for not being cheery enough, for not serving enough food or for not working hard enough. We apologize when we are angry, when we are upset, and when we see someone else is upset – after all, we assume it’s all somehow our fault. No, apologizing is not the problem. Forgiving is the hard part. Read the rest of this entry →

When some top Israeli journalists were interviewed last week in Yediot about what they want for the following year, answers included typical self-help proclamations such as, “Read more,” “Write more,” “Spend more time with my kids,” or, as Yair Lapid wrote, “Only do what I really feel like doing.” I thought to myself, Oprah has finally reached Israel. We have finally become a society in which each of us can confidently wish ourselves to happiness in our own little bubbles while ignoring our surroundings – and call that success. Read the rest of this post on the Kolech website -- Jewish Women's Voice Read the rest of this entry →

For Tisha B’Av, I’m reviving an article I wrote years ago on in the Jerusalem Report on gender in the book of Eichah. When the people of Israel are in pain, such as when there is destruction and devastation, that should not serve as an excuse for us to scapegoat. The redemption of the Jewish people, as we well know, depends on our ability to treat all human beings with equal dignity -- that means actively and energetically demonstrating respect for humans of every gender, class, age, physiology, ethnic group, intelligence...and on...B’mhera b’yameinu amen….

  Carrie Goller, Sad Woman, www.carriegoller.com Read the rest of this entry →

השפה היא כלי מאד חזק ליצירת היררכיות תרבותיות ולעיצוב מציאות חברתית. לפעמים מילה קטנה אחת יכולה להשפיע בצורה מדהימה על הדרך שבה אנחנו תופסים את העולם. חישבו לשניה על המשפטים הבאים, והדרך שבה מילה אחת משנה את כל משמעות: • אפילו את יודעת איך להשתמש במכשיר • ברור שהוא צודק • השתגעת? אין את זה פה כלומר, מילה אחת [...] Read the rest of this entry →