A view from the women’s section on Orthodox spiritual leadership

by Julie Gruenbaum Fax for JewishJournal

I have a vivid memory of sitting in my yeshiva high school principal’s office, imploring him to start teaching the girls Mishnah and Gemara, to offer a little more respect to our intellects and our souls by giving us access to all the Jewish texts that form the basis of our heritage, of what we were expected to live every day. He said no, for four years. Did he quote sources at me stating that women’s minds are too feeble for it? Say that it wouldn’t interest me anyway? That it’s simply not done? I’ve shut those details out of my memory, but my mission was clear: If I wanted access to the heritage that is rightfully mine, I was going to have to get out of the principal’s office. And I did. After I graduated from yeshiva high school, I started taking adult Gemara classes, and I continue to do so today.

Last week, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) made a proclamation saying that female spiritual leaders are outlawed, and it seems they want to put me back in that principal’s office. They want to sit us down, we renegades who want more than mere wisps of tradition, and to tell us what we can and can’t do.

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The 6 Genders of the Talmud

By Leah Falk for Jewniverse

If you want to smash the gender binary (by, for example, giving transpeople a comfortable place to pee), Judaism can feel like an odd fit. The obligation to observe commandments is traditionally divided along male/female lines: men pray three times daily, while women don’t have to; men put on tefillin, while women do not. Some women’s recent efforts to observe the religious privileges they’re exempt from have made ripples in the Jewish world, and even the news.

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Is It Ethical to Eat Pig Meat?

by Rabbi Goldie Milgram JewishValuesCenter.org

The other day at breakfast five of the six Jews present ordered bacon with their eggs. I was torn about saying something, as it disturbed me. Prosp​ectively speaking, Judaism got it totally right --​ ​it is unethical to eat pig meat. Listen to neuroscientist Lori Marino of Emory University and The Nonhuman Rights Project: “We have shown that pigs share a number of cognitive capacities with other highly intelligent species such as dogs, chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, and even humans. There is good scientific evidence to suggest we need to rethink our overall relationship to them.”

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On Being Jewish

By Erika Davis on RitualWell
If you ask any convert to Judaism, they will likely tell you that as daunting as the conversion process can sometimes be, actually being a Jew can be harder that becoming one.

Picking a rabbi and a community to anchor my conversion was the first step. After several months of shul shopping and ongoing conversations with rabbis about conversion, I settled on the rabbi that made me cry when I left her office. She posed hard questions about my commitment to Judaism, and challenged me to think long and hard about how my relationship with my partner might change after my conversion. After I attended my first conversion class, I knew that I'd made the right decision.

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The Star Symbol

From Jewish Treats

Looking for a nice piece of Judaica? Why not go for something really Jewish, like a Star of David. This ancient symbol of Judaism is...well, actually, although the Star of David is a popular Jewish symbol today, it isn’t an ancient Jewish symbol at all

The Star of David, also known as the Magen David (Shield of David), is supposedly the shape of the shield that was carried by King David. However, there are no Biblical descriptions of King David’s shield, nor have any archeological artifacts of such a shield ever been found. While there have been some ancient Jewish sites discovered with designs similar to a modern day Star of David, interlocked triangles were not an uncommon symbol in the ancient Middle East and North Africa.

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