Am I a Frum Feminist?

Surprising Statement of Purpose

2011-04-13T22:10:00.001-07:00

I used to think that NOW (the National Organization for Women) was a flaming-liberal, anti-male establishment. Then I read this:

"We REJECT the current assumptions

that a man must carry the sole burden of supporting himself, his wife, and family,

and that a woman is automatically entitled to lifelong support by a man upon her marriage,

or that marriage, home and family are primarily woman's world and responsibility -

hers, to dominate - his to support."

"We are similarly opposed to all policies and practices --

in church, state, college, factory, or office --

which, in the guise of protectiveness,

not only deny opportunities

but also foster in women

self-denigration,

dependence,

and evasion of responsibility,

undermine their confidence in their own abilities

and foster contempt for women."

Excerpt from National Organization for Women
Statement of Purpose (1966)

If this is flaming-liberal, anti-male rhetoric, then I'm a flaming-liberal, anti-male feminist.

What do you think?

Great Article

2011-03-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

So sorry I haven't updated in a while. I'm in the "home stretch" of my finish up my BA and am trying to focus on getting through that, which - along with having a job - leaves me with little time to blog. I also know that I haven't answered a bunch of comments and I apologize; I will get to them eventually!

I just wanted to link to an article that I found very interesting. It's not particularly about feminism, but it is about the frum world so I consider it very appropriate.

The article is called "In Search of a Modest Proposal" and discusses many of the intricacies of dating and being single in the frum world. Here's a sample:

"The room was packed, but there’s an unspoken dance that transpires here each week, a kind of subconscious choreography. Men and women aren’t allowed to touch each other, so they must navigate carefully. A woman turned her body just to slide between two men, and they adjusted accordingly."

The only part I didn't like:

"Yet Weissman, while certainly a proponent of women’s education, believes that some women have placed their careers ahead of family life, which makes it harder to find a spouse. “I think feminism is a problem,” he said. “With the opportunity to have a successful career, a woman needs to keep in mind that everything in Judaism centers around the family.”

Yeah. Didn't like that comment.

Anyways, click here to read the rest of the article.

Frum & Colonial Women

2011-02-02T22:17:00.001-08:00

My feminist opinions have taken control of my education. This term, I'm taking a course called, "U.S. Women's History" because I figured, "If I want to change things, I'd better know how they were changed in the past."

I'm only at the very beginning of the history right now and I'm finding similarities between modern frum societies and early Colonial American societies. The patriarchal system that ruled families, called "Domestic Patriarchy", in particular, has a lot in common with expectations in the frum world.

Let's start with education. Like in the frum world, boys and girls growing up in Colonial times received differing educations based on the roles that were set up for them in society. They all received "moral education," like the Jewish studies classes both boys and girls get in the frum world, but when it came to practical studies boys were taught reading, writing, and math, and girls were taught "French, sewing and knitting". (Delegard & Hewitt, p.98)

Granted today in frum society girls are also taught those basic subjects, but we're taught them so that we can care for our husbands and children, which pretty much equates with why Colonial girls were only taught "French, sewing and knitting". It was, "Parents [instructing] their children to take their proper place in [...] society by training them to perform tasks appropriate to their sex." (Delegard & Hewitt, p.97)

As for the life of those girls when they grew up, they were "encouraged to practice submissiveness to authority. [...] Gentlemen insisted that wives be submissive to their husbands, and women tolerated, and even on occasion supported, a subordinate role within the family". (Delegard & Hewitt, p.86)

I read that sentence and said to myself, "That could have been written about frum society today!"

And how about this: "A woman could expect to give birth every two to three years from marriage to menopause". (Delegard & Hewitt, p.89)

Another similarity.

I'm not necessarily writing this as a criticism, although I do find patriarchy appalling; I'm just noticing the similarities and am looking forward to studying how these women progressed in society, because I think the frum world needs a model to work from.

List of Works Cited:

Delegard, Kirsten and Hewitt, Nancy. "Women, Families, and Communities: Readings in American History." 2nd ed. Pearson Longman: New York.

Harry Potter's not Jewish & Snape's not Lubavitch.

2011-01-05T20:43:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a break from the feminism stuff for this post to talk about an article on Time Magazine's website called, "You Didn't Know Harry Potter Was Jewish?"

As a Harry Potter fan and a Jew, I think I'm uniquely qualified to comment on this article.

The author writes about attending a wedding in Israel where he met a man named Adam Melech who said that, "Almost anything you need to know about Jews, you can learn from Harry Potter":

"Jews, he explains, are the wizards. The non-Jews are the muggles. And Israel's wizards are engaged in a kind of invisible spiritual warfare (just like in Rowling's books) that most muggles can't even see, much less understand. Rowling may be a muggle, says Adam, but she knew what she was doing. Why else would a yeshiva like Hogwart's be so central to their lives? Why would the power of naming and names be so important to both Jews and wizards? He offers further corollaries: Harry's spells are talmudic prayers; Hizballah are the Death-eaters; converts to Judaism are muggle-born wizards; and so on."

It's a cute theory, but the parallels clearly do not add up. Allow the fan-girl in me to break it down, piece by piece, and simultaneously showcase how much of a geek I am:

1. In the Harry Potter world, muggles and wizards are completely separate. They live in completely different worlds and muggles have no idea that wizards even exist. The same cannot be said for Jews and non-Jews. We're not only aware of each other, we're often hyper-aware of each other. We make up merely 0.2% of the world's population, yet we're constantly in the news. We're hardly a secret society.

2. Israel's wizards (aka Israeli Jews) engage in an invisible (aka spiritual) war that most muggles (aka non-Jews) can't see or understand? I'm not sure what Israeli wizards Adam is referring to. Do Jews fight spiritual battles? Absolutely. But that is not exclusive to the Jewish people. Non-Jews also fight spiritual battles. So explain to me, Adam, how this battle is invisible to muggles?

3. There is not enough evidence in the Harry Potter books to state, as Adam does, that Hogwarts is central to the lives of wizards. The books are written to follow the lives of three children as they progress through Hogwarts' school system, so obviously Hogwarts is central to their lives. But after they graduate, they move on and there's nothing in the books that

says that Hogwarts remains "central" to their lives.

4. Yes, it's true that names have a power in Judaism and in the Harry Potter books. And in so many other books. Roald Dahl did it with Miss Trunchbull and Miss Honeypot. Tolkein wrote an entire, Guide to the Names in Lord of the Rings, to explain his characters' names. And if you think that Jane Austen named Mr. Knightley coincidentally, you're really missing a lot.

5. Harry Potter's spells are not Talmudic prayers. In fact, what are Talmudic prayers?

6. I have nothing against saying that Hizballah are Death Eaters, though if you're interested in Rowling's original intent, she makes it absolutely clear that the Death Eaters are fashioned after the Nazis.

7. As for converts to Judaism being muggleborn... Well, I can see what he means by that one. There are people who discriminate against converts in Judaism solely because they are converts. It's just as ridiculous as the Malfoys claiming that Draco is smarter than Hermione merely because he's a pureblood.

The author ends the article by comparing a Lubavitcher in a band handing out alcoholic drinks to

the Half Blood Prince, which renders the article completely senseless. Any Harry Potter fan would laugh themselves silly at the imagery of Snape in a band handing out drinks, never mind picturing him as a Lubavitcher! Though maybe... *Runs to Photoshop and creates the following picture*:

Yup. Laughing silly.

Most importantly, even I, a reverent Harry Potter fan, (I speak of the books only! Not the movies!) wouldn't dream of saying that you could find "everything" about Jews in Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a work of fiction. Yes, it is a brilliant work of fiction, (I dare you to challenge that in the comments section!), but it is still just a piece of literature. The complexities and the beauty of being a Jew could never be found in something so mundane.

Why am I still frum?

2010-12-16T20:42:00.000-08:00

I've spent so much time slamming the frum community on this blog that it's probably starting to sound like the answer to my question of, "Am I a frum feminist?" is that I'm more feminist than frum. I admit that I have misgivings about the frum community and my place in it. Why, after all, would I want to be a part of a community that I see so many flaws in?

In short, if I have so many problems with the frum world, why am I still frum?

The answer came to me this past week when I attended the bris ceremony (aka circumcision party) of my friends' 8 day old son.

As I stood in the crowd of people waiting to partake in the ceremony, I thought, "Oh my G-d, this is so barbaric! Crowding around a tiny baby, waiting to do that to him while serving a huge meal to celebrate, and everyone's smiling and laughing with each other..."

Except the celebration and the joy was about bringing this tiny person into a covenant (the real translation of the word, "bris",) - into a bond - with G-d, turning this apparently barbaric ceremony into the greatest sign of loyalty and love to G-d.

In a world where the moral code is based on human understanding, circumcision absolutely is barbaric. But in a world where the moral code comes from G-d, it becomes a sign of devotion.

There's no hope in this world for a moral code based on human understanding. Think back to the Germans pre-World War II. Germany was the birthplace of the Enlightenment. They were considered the most cultured of people, studying the latest sciences and philosophies.

And yet with their sophistication and their philosophies about humanity, they managed to rationalize the most inhumane behavior mankind has ever seen.

Why am I still frum? Because in a world where morality is based on human understanding - in a world without a G-dly moral code, - we are doomed.

I believe in G-d because I know that humanity without G-d allows atrocities like the Holocaust to happen,

I'm frum because I believe in G-d, and all the downfalls of the frum community cannot discredit that belief.

Is the community flawed? Yes. But these flaws are ones made by us puny humans, not by G-d.

So I continue to follow the word of G-d in spite of the flaws in the community, just as I will continue to fight to fix those flaws.

I continue to be frum. I continue to be a feminist. And they needn't be mutually exclusive.

Note: For a thorough, and beautiful explanation on bris milah - circumcision - click here.

Quote Time

2010-12-06T01:29:00.001-08:00

"Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

-Psychiatrist who refused Woodrow Wilson's request that he classify Alice Paul, a suffragette, as insane.

Ultimately, she helped win the fight to pass the 19th Amendment, giving women in the United States the right to vote. Aside from in Jewish community councils. Heaven knows I'd be thought insane if I challenged that norm.

It's on my to-do list.

(I haven't had a "Quote Time" in a while but I came across this one while reading an old post that I wrote and I thought it worth repeating.)

A Women's Revolution

2010-11-30T11:15:00.000-08:00

The story of the upcoming holiday of Chanukah is one of the Jewish people being tyrannized by the Greek Empire. Not an unusual occurrence for the Jewish nation, in this [hi]story, the Jewish people got sick of it, started a military revolution, and won.

Ah, revolution. Music to my ears. And - even better! - I just read that it was a revolution fought for the women:

(The following is an excerpt from an article by Chana Kroll at Chabad.org.)

The hall was packed. This was no ordinary wedding, but the wedding of the daughter of one of Jerusalem’s most prominent families. Leaders in the still quiet and nonviolent rebellion against the Greeks, they were respected and loved by Jews throughout the Land ofIsrael. Not to mention that, as priests in the Temple, the family had been looked up to for generations.

Amidst the elegant flowers, soft music, and the conversations of the guests, the bride suddenly stood up, walked to the center of the room, placed her hand on her chest, and tore open her gown.

Shocked, angry, and embarrassed, her brothers rose to drag her from the room. But she stood firmly in place and addressed the room: “You who are so zealous that you would kill me, are not zealous enough to protect me from the hands of the Greek governor who will come here to assault me tonight.

“Did you not learn from Shimon and Levi, the brothers of Dinah, who, though only two men, killed the entire city of Shechem for her sake? Place your faith in the One Above, and He will help you.”

Her five brothers declared their willingness to go to war, and were answered by a voice emanating from the Holy of Holies promising victory. [...]

The Greeks outlawed Shabbat, the celebration of the New Moon, and Torahstudy. Jews hid in caves and continued to observe all three. The Greeks found hundreds of ways to try to stamp out Judaism. Jews found hundreds of ways to quietly rebel and to remain what they had always been. Then the Greek soldiers started assaulting Jewish women. The governor made a decree—unfortunately, a common one in ancient cultures—called jus primae noctis, “first night rights.” The governor would kidnap and assault every bride on her wedding night.

And then the Jews went to war.

The victory we celebrate on Chanukah is a victory on many levels. It is a victory of the few over the many, of light over darkness, of Jewish continuity in the face of all those who had sought, or would seek to, wipe out Judaism and Jewish history.

The Jewish people—men and women—defied every Greek law with enormous self-sacrifice, yet it was largely by and for the sake of Jewish women that the Maccabees were led to declare war.

The decisive moment occurred when one Jewish woman looked her brothers in the eye and told them, “You cannot let this happen to me.” It was a war, first and foremost, for sanctity—the sanctity of the Temple, the sanctity of Torah, and the sanctity of every human being.

Among the many miracles we acknowledge and commemorate as we kindle the lights of the menorah, we also acknowledge the simple truth of every woman’s sanctity and her right to personal safety and dignity.

I was excited to read this article because, as I was discussing with a colleague of mine recently, there aren't very many stories in modern Jewish history of frum women standing up for themselves. There are biblical and ancient stories, like this one, but even those are rare.

We need more female heroes in the frum community. Of course, I'd prefer killing the Greek bastards who tried to pull that jus primae noctis crap on me myself, instead of letting the guys do it, but - hey! - we've got to start somewhere.

Stop the Hush

2010-11-30T01:32:00.000-08:00

The frum community excels at pretending that life within its borders is perfect. What else could life be in a world that is dedicated to serving G-d?

But evil knows no borders and it exists within the frum community just as surely as it does outside of it. The community is just good at hushing things up. I don't understand how anyone can prefer child (and spousal) abuse to admitting that there is a problem, but there you have it.

In more upbeat news, a book was recently published that tells the story of one of these hush-ups. The book is appropriately titled, "Hush," and is,

"...the story of Gittel, a girl growing up in Hasidic Borough Park, Brooklyn, who witnesses her best friend’s Devory’s sexual abuse at age 9. The perpetrator is Devory’s brother, a promising scholar home from yeshiva. Horror ensues, but the entire community conspires to pretend nothing has happened." (Click here for full book review.)

I applaud the author of this book for being brave enough to stand up and publish her story.

Republicans Winning Women?

2010-11-11T01:41:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting bit of news:

Last week's election results show that women voters, who have traditionally been primarily Democrats, are shifting to the Republican camp. (Like my color-coding?) The Los Angeles Times called it, "a jolting drop in female support this year for House Democrats".

The article went on to say that the drop is mostly because more married women voted Republican this year, but that single women, "historically one of the party's most loyal demographic groups" also voted for Republicans more than previously.

Pollsters blame it on Obama and Democratic leaders for failing to ease their financial stresses.

Thank you, Mr. President. We knew you'd have our backs.

We appreciate your support.

Burkhas in Beverly Hills

2010-10-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

It's a sunny day here in Southern California and I just saw a woman walking down the street in Beverly Hills covered head to toe in black, the only part of her showing: her eyes. She was even wearing gloves. It was obvious that she was Muslim woman wearing the traditional garb that you see in movies and read about in the news but rarely see yourself.

It gave me a bit of a shock. I couldn't help staring and wondering about the woman underneath all that black cloth. About what makes her choose to wear it - or if she even was the one to make the choice to begin with.

And I couldn't help thinking, "For all that I complain about misogyny in the Orthodox Jewish community, these Muslim women have it so much worse."

It isn't very fashionable in the frum community to sympathize with Muslims and believe me, I have no sympathy for those of them who are evil or are terrorists, but I can't help feeling sorry for their women. They are treated worse than dirt in many (if not all) Muslim countries.

It makes me grateful that I'm a Jew. Yes, there are problems in the frum world with how women are treated and, yes, I do write this blog anonymously for fear of what it could do to my "reputation" in the frum community, but those things seem trivial next to the fears that so many Muslim women live with all their lives.

Now there are some women who need a serious dose of feminism.

Study: Orthodox Women Have More Anxiety

2010-10-06T00:25:00.000-07:00

According to a study done at the University of London about Orthodox Jews:

"Quantitatively, severe stress and clinical levels of depression and anxiety were similar among the men and women studied, but women had overall more eventful lives than men, and were more likely to suffer from borderline depression and anxiety..."

Not that this surprises me, but I found it an interesting anecdote nevertheless. Women in the Orthodox community are expected to be mothers and homemakers and, particularly in recent times, also to be breadwinners. Is it any wonder that they're stressed?

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9803687
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9479612

An Opening for Frum Women

2010-09-27T17:16:00.000-07:00

'Tis the season for the High Holidays. We've just gotten through Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur. Those of you who have attended services during these holy days are probably aware of the custom in many synagogues to sell portions of the high holiday services to the highest bidder.

(Side Note: Yes, we hold auctions in our holiest sanctuaries on the holiest days of the year. If that sounds strange to you... Well, join the club. If it doesn't, can you explain it to me?)

The parts of the service that are up for auction are all parts that the men perform. Opening the ark, getting to say a blessing on the Torah when it is brought out, having the honor of lifting the Torah up in the air for everyone to see and make their own blessings on, etc.

I wasn't aware of it when I was a child, but apparently there are some serious politics that take place in the men's section of the shul over these bids. There are certain parts of the service that are favored more than others and the guy who gets them is considered pretty important.

One these parts in the Yom Kippur service is the act of opening the ark for the last prayer of the day - neilah. Even without being aware of men's-section politics, I always knew that this part of the service was considered important because it always sold for a lot more than other parts of the service. Getting "psicha d'neilah" is a big honor for whatever man wins it.

You can't imagine my delight when I was told by a friend last night that she, along with 19 other young women, got together in a shul in Brooklyn and outbid all the men for this part of the service. And not just any women. Single women, who weren't just out bidding for their husbands. They bought it for themselves.

It's an historical event. Unheard of, as far as I know. No, they weren't able to perform the actual service: they had to have a man stand in and open the ark for them. But he did it on their behalf, acting as a stand-in, and all the credit for this age-old honor went to them.

To those young women: I salute you. You are an inspiration to frum women everywhere. I thank you for creating an opening for the rest of us.

American Woman

2010-07-02T00:48:00.000-07:00

"American Woman" song a "slap in the face to American women everywhere!"

It's always Canada's fault.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Women can be Geeks too

2010-05-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

I have no data to back this up, but I think that we can all agree that there are more male geeks than female geeks. As a female geek myself, my personal experience has shown me to be a minority among women.

Take the LOST finale party I attended last week. There were eight guys, and then there was our hostess and me. That's a 1:4 ratio. Not a scientific calculation by any means, but it sounds about right to me. Whatever the numbers are, we are a minority.

You'd think that the mere fact that we were attending a LOST finale party would be enough to prove our geekness, yet still we were treated with suspicion.

"You women over there," our host warned us, "No talking!"

"What?" I asked. "Just because we're women that means we're going to be talking throughout the show? We want to see the finale just as much as you guys! That is so sexist! This is totally going on my blog!"

To be fair, once the show started, the hostess and I did have to be shushed. We couldn't keep from laughing out loud because the guys were all leaning in toward the screen with looks of rapt adoration on their faces. Can you really blame us?

Post dedicated to Holy Hyrax. ;)

Bend over, Israel

2010-03-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

In a recent AP report criticizing Israel:

"Israel annexed east Jerusalem after capturing it from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. But the international community does not recognize the annexation and considers the Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem to be illegal settlements."

Just who is this "international community"? The United Nations? Because they're not anti-semitic. (Sarcasm, there, in case you missed it.)

So the anti-semitic international community considers Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem to be illegal settlements. Better bend over to the anti-Semites, Israel. Don't worry: they promise not to make any, "Final Solution"s.

Hats

2010-02-19T12:19:00.001-08:00

Women in the frum community cover their hair after they get married. It's halacha (Jewish law,) the explanation of which is longer than I want to get into right now, so let's just acknowledge this as fact. Orthodox women cover their hair.

They use scarves, hats, wigs, and (ugly) snoods. Depending on the community, some wear only scarves, only wigs, only hats, and even only wigs with a hat on top. I never understood that one - it seemed kind of deceptive to me to be wearing a hat on top of a wig, which could be mistaken as the real hair that the woman is trying to cover with her hat.

Personally, I like hats. Not for covering my hair (unless you count bad hair days) but just because I like hats.

That doesn't mean that when I get married I'm going to wear hats to cover my hair; in fact, I plan to wear -- very expensive, very authentic-looking -- wigs when I get married.

But you can't say, "I like hats," in the frum community without getting a barrage of comments about covering your hair for marriage.

Case in point: I visited some cousins in Israel during the summer a few years ago and happened to be wearing a hat. It was sunny and the hat was cute, so I wore it. As girls tend to do, I asked my cousin, "So, how does this hat look?" and instead of telling me whether she liked the hat, she said:

"Don't wear it. You look married."

Seriously? I'm supposed to give up wearing hats because someone might mistake me for being a married woman? Oh, the horror.

I haven't given it up, and neither have the double-takes that people I know give me when they see me wearing a hat. Just a few weeks ago I was wearing a hat in the supermarket and bumped into the husband of a friend of mine. It was raining hard that day, which should have been enough to keep him from standing there blinking at me owlishly, but it wasn't.

"Did you get married?" he asked me.

"Nope. It's raining. I like wearing hats," I answered him. "And that's hat discrimination!"

Bring in the Firemen

2010-02-02T08:15:00.001-08:00

We had a bit of a scare last night and wound up calling the fire department to come check out what turned out to be some burning food.

Embarrassing? Very.

But what horrified me even more, as I watched three firetrucks, one ambulance, and about a dozen firefighters invade my neighborhood and home, was the feeling of, "Omg, you really need a guy to deal with things like this."

In retrospect, it seems irrational - there was nothing about the situation that I shouldn't have been able to handle by myself. But in the moment, circumstances (the smell of gas, smoke coming out of the vents, a kitchen full of smoke...) made us women panic and call 911 where a guy would probably have just thrown open every possible source of smoke, careless about the fear that "something" might happen, and discover that it wasn't anything major.

The truth is that, given the circumstances, I know we did the right thing in calling the fire department. Better safe than sorry. But that doesn't make me feel any better knowing that these "circumstances" included the fact that we females were just too panicked to handle it on our own.

I'm left struggling with the question of whether women really are more emotionally fragile than men. My feminist side is yelling, "NO WAY!" while this other voice is poking at me saying, "Um, remember last night?"

Conversation Glimpse

2010-01-25T21:37:00.000-08:00

**Conversation I had recently with a friend on Facebook where we joke about the frum community's attitude about several topics, including having kids and a woman's role in society.
(Wait, aren't those the same thing?)

Friend

look at the pics

9:11pmMe

what pics?

9:13pmFriend

I put up some more

9:13pmMe

i'm looking and commenting now

9:14pmFriend

: )

9:17pmMe

holy moley, that's a lot of kids

8 grandkids?

9:17pmFriend

hmm

let me count

4+2+2+1+1=10 actually

a bunch are babies

9:18pmMe

HOLEY $%^#!

0-10 in, what, 10 years?

less

5 years

how long have you been married? There were no grandkids at your wedding.

9:19pmFriend

almost 6 yrs

9:19pmMe

so, 0-10 kids in 5 years

9:20pmFriend

hmm well yeah

9:20pmMe

it's like a conspiracy to repopulate the world with their own offspring

9:21pmFriend

omg lol

9:22pmMe

conspiring in a back room somewhere “So we have to marry them off - one after the other, after the other, and then tell them that it's their duty to have a kid every 9 months

9:22pmFriend

omg

9:22pmFriend

lmao

9:22pmMe

continues planning "if you can manage two at a time, you'll get a special award!"

9:22pmFriend

What, a third kid?

9:23pmMe

hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

*announcement*** "the award will be... a lifetime supply of caffeine and tylonol!"

9:24pmFriend

(I sense an article)

9:24pmMe

tylenol

"we'll even throw in a free Pesach* experience!"

Succos is available as an alternative

9:25pmFriend

how bout some earplugs?

(a humor piece must be written..)

9:25pmMe

earplugs? var vus i need earplugs? chas v'shalom! the sound of children is the biggest blessing!

besides, my hearing will expire from all the noise on its own

9:26pmFriend

lol

9:26pmMe

alternatively* "NOISE? WHAT NOISE? I CAN"T HEAR YOU!"

9:27pmFriend

“what??? did you say s/t?”

9:27pmMe

"MY HEARING SORT OF WENT AFTER THE 12TH KID"

9:27pmFriend

“oysh, mine went as well… I dont know… I dont remember anything…

my memory went, since the last time i slept 4 consecutive hours was, oysh, maybe 30 yrs ago?”

9:28pmMe

"DO ME A FAVOR? GET ME SOME OF THAT GINKO STUFF FOR THE MEMORY?"

9:28pmFriend

“yes mine neighbor told me about that giko”

“natural”

9:28pmMe

"4 CONSECUTIVE HOURS? YOU GOT FOUR? I ONLY GET 2!"

9:28pmFriend

“safe, much better than going to a doctor”

9:29pmMe

"Scientific studies say it's a hoax, but what do these scientists know? My neigbor? HE knows!"

9:29pmFriend

“yes well not he, we dont talk to people called ‘he’”

of course

9:30pmMe

"Right. I'll talk to his secretary, tell her my symptoms, she'll tell him, he'll ask her some questions for me, she'll come back and get my answers, then she'll go back to him and then he'll prescribe some healthy herbs."

9:30pmFriend

“exception for talking to these ‘he’ creatures: for my new baby boy, my tzaddikel”

“husband - not so much”

9:31pmMe

lol

"I'd go to a lady doctor, but you know ladies don't really have the brains to be doctors..."

9:32pmFriend

oy

especially an ob-gyn

u must go to a man

women are too emotional to make good decisions

9:33pmMe

because men are so much more sensitive to women's issues (i've actually heard people say that about going to male OBs)

9:33pmFriend

(truth- this could a a thread outta imamother- they really truly say that)

9:33pmMe

Daaaaaaamn (excuse my French)

9:35pmMe

i'm gonna copy and paste this into my blog.

take the names out to protect the innocent, of course

Wedding Survival Tips

2009-12-22T15:34:00.000-08:00

So here are the tips for surviving your younger sibling's wedding in the frum community that I promised in my last post:

1. Make sure you look fabulous. It may seem shallow, but it makes a difference when you know you look incredible. The only worst thing than being pitied for being single at your younger sibling's wedding for being single is being pitied for being single and looking bad. Let people see that you're doing fine single.

Put these on your checklist, single ladies: Great dress; hot shoes (heels, a MUST); elegant hairdo; beautiful make-up.

2. Alcohol. I'm not a drinker, and I didn't even drink all that much at my little brother's wedding, but the few drinks that I had made me mellow enough to enjoy the party, and oblivious enough to miss most of the patronizing smiles.

Needless to say, this is only for those of you over 21 (or 18 in Europe and Israel). And I say "needless to say," because if you're younger than 21 and your younger siblings are getting married, it's going to take more than booze to set things straight in your situation.

3. Forget about who's looking, and just do whatever it takes to have a good time. Those old ladies frowning at your style of dancing? They don't exist. The shadchanim (matchmakers) peering over their glasses at your frequent trips to the bar? They don't matter.

Really. They don't.

4. If you can have some of your own friends there, it helps. If, however, your younger sibling drags you across the country for their wedding, (as mine did,) far away from your closest pals who understand what you're going through, add a few more drinks to your evening and it won't matter who's there for have fun with you. You'll manage fine alone.

5. Enjoy the food. If you happen to be on a diet, forget about it for the evening. Chocolate, especially, has amazing healing powers.

Any other tips? Let me know!

Wedding Woes for Singles

2009-11-25T17:55:00.000-08:00

It's traditional in the frum world for older siblings to get married before their younger ones. Sometimes, though, the older siblings pass their 21st year without getting married (a horrible tragedy,) and the younger siblings decide to get married before them.

When this happens, it's usually pretty difficult for the older siblings. Having just experienced it myself, (my baby brother just got married - now you know why I've been AWOL for a good while,) I've gained a little insight into this difficulty.

My brother informed me that he was getting engaged by inching his way into my room and saying, "Would you be excited if I got engaged?"

My immediate response was, "Uh... No!" but seeing his face fall, I quickly added, "But I want you to be happy, so if you're happy, I'll be happy." And that was that.

I smiled and laughed with him and his fiance when they came back from his proposal but soon afterwards starting to feel the hurt that I've heard of so often when people talk about their younger siblings getting married.

I needed to do a little soul-searching to figure out why it was so difficult for me to see my younger brother get married. What I discovered was - and I'm not proud to say this - jealousy. Not of getting married, but of the attention that the community gives to brides and grooms. A wedding is usually the most extravagant celebration in a frum person's life. From the *takes a deep breath* engagement party\ies to the bridal showers, to the groom's Sabbath celebration, to the bride's Sabbath celebration, to the wedding, to the seven days of partying after the wedding *let's out breath* it's a party-palooza with all the focus on the bride and groom.

As for those of us who haven't been married, we have to watch as our contemporaries get married, then our younger friends, then the younger kids who we barely know because they're so much younger, and we have to watch time and time again as they are celebrated just for tying the knot. Meanwhile, we go to these celebrations and, at best, get blessings of, "G-d willing by you very soon!" and at worst get stared and whispered at.

We could get college degrees, go to graduate school, become doctors and lawyers and accomplished musicians, but no matter what we do, as long as we remain single in the frum community, we won't ever get a chance for the spotlight.

Coming up next: Advice for how to survive your younger sibling's wedding in the frum world.

Boys Get Mountains, Girls Get Boys

2009-09-08T18:55:00.001-07:00

"The pursuit of love gets mixed up with the pursuit of life [...] The boys are expected to do. Accomplish something. Seek adventure. Sure, they study for careers now, but what are girls still expected to seek? Boys. Boys get mountains, girls get boys."

I thought that it was only in the frum world that girls' only path of success was through her "man." Apparently not.

"Like it or not, it happens all the time. [...] A man's identity is complete through action, a woman's when she has a man."

I used to joke that I would marry a rabbi and *POOF* instantly get smicha (Rabbinical ordination) by become a Rebbitzen.

I used to talk about going to graduate school without actually making any plans to because I knew might have a husband and family by the time I reached grad school, in which case I probably wouldn't do it.

Frum girls are taught that their success and happiness will be attained through their husband's success. That they will be fulfilled by caring for their husband and children.

I think that that's a dangerous mindset to head into the frum dating scene with. I think that it's important for girls in the frum world to know that:

"Love can come when you're already who you are, when you are filled with you. Not when you look to someone else to fill the empty space."

-Deb Calleti

Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

(Ignore the cover. It's a National Book Award finalist and a brilliant book.)

Blind Dating

2009-06-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

Blind dating is pretty much the only sort of dating that goes on in the frum world. We call the system of matchmaking, "Shidduchim". The process consists of being set up on dates, whether through friends, family, or the good old shadchan (matchmaker) in order to find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. You've never met or talked to him (or her, as the case may be) before, making them blind dates, yet you're supposed to figure out within a couple of weeks whether you want to marry them and bear their children.

I haven't talked much about my dating experiences on this blog, mostly because there's another blog out there, http://badforshidduchim.wordpress.com/, who seems to say everything that needs to be said, but since it's a pretty prominent part of my life, I figure it's time for me to put my own two cents in.

For now, all I'm going to say is that there are times when you almost wish you were blind. You're supposed to be deep and spiritual and not care about their looks, but when you go on a date and the guy's hair is greasy, or he's wearing ridiculous clothing, or he's just plain, erm, not very good looking, what are you supposed to do? Tell the shadchan (matchmaker), "Well, I couldn't look at him during the entire date but I'll go out with him again because I don't want to judge someone too quickly based on their physical appearance"?

That happens to be precisely what is expected of us ladies. When I came home from a date recently and told my family that the guy I'd gone out with wasn't very good looking, to put it kindly, I got every response from, "Well, you need to give it time," to, "You're being so mean! How could you judge a person by their looks?"

Is it really so shallow to want to be attracted to the man you mean to marry?

Secret Handshake

2009-06-05T09:56:00.001-07:00

There's a secret to handshaking in the frum world. An unspoken arrangement in which handshaking is (no pun intended) handled. To outsiders looking in it probably looks like we just don't bother with handshaking at all, but there's method to our madness.

It starts with the Halachic prohibition forbidding physical contact between members of the opposite sex. This prevents handshaking between the sexes in the frum community. Then once we're all accustomed to the "no handshaking with men\women," rule, we often just forego handshaking altogether.

It's all pretty simple until you take it out of the frum world where no one else is aware of this "secret" to handshaking. When a frum person is out in the secular world, they're faced with the decision of how to avoid handshaking with member of the opposite sex without appearing rude or insulting.

Most guys are fine when I tell them that I don't shake hands with men. I've only had a few instances where people have taken offense to my "no handshake" deal. I've heard of people getting highly insulted and I've never understood it. So I don't shake your hand - what's the big deal?

My sister was scolded by an employee in a store she was patronizing for not shaking hands with him. Needless to say, she hasn't gone back to that store.

I had a black guy reply, "I'm a person too, you know," when I excused myself from shaking his hand. But when I explained to him that it was for religious reasons, he seemed to feel better about it.

It occurs to me that some people might find my, "Sorry, I don't shake hands with men," thing sexist. What do you think?

The Latest Obamaism

2009-05-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

"AP - President Barack Obama plans to propose the first-ever national emission limits for cars and trucks as well as average mileage requirements of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 all costing consumers an extra $1,300 per vehicle."

Genius. Let's charge people more money for cars. That'll save the auto industry.

Quote Time

2009-04-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

-Ronald Reagan

There's so much that I feel like saying about the Obama administration right now. About all the ridiculous moves they've been making, including flying an airplane through Manhattan's restricted airspace, scaring the wits out of people whose last memory of such an event was on 9/11, but I'm not going to waste my energy on whining.

This quote from Reagan, however, seems to sum my feelings up very nicely. I'd like to say that the Obama administration is just plain stupid, because sometimes when I read or hear the news these days that's exactly what I think, but doing so would show my own ignorance. Obama is not stupid, and neither are the people in his administration. But what they do know and the conclusions that they come to based on that knowledge are looking like supremely bad moves to me.

Stop crying about water boarding terrorists. Think before you send a plane that looks just like (and is used as a secondary) Air Force One into Manhattan airspace. Stop giving money away like it grows on trees.

Anyone have any other "dumb moves" that they'd like to add to the list?

Human Trafficking

2009-04-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

Speaking of slavery, (as I did in my last post,) I have a comment\retraction that I'd like to make about my previous post, "Slavery Today."

In that post I wrote about celebrities trying to build awareness of modern-day slavery, and I demonstrated my ignorance by saying, (ironically - or, perhaps egotistically,) "Call me ignorant but, well, I'm really not - and still I'm not sure what they're referring to."

I guessed, in that post, that the celebrities were referring to slavery in Sudan or Rwanda, and didn't take much notice of the comment from aztecqueen2000 that, "In the United States, human beings are the third most trafficked commodity behind drugs and weapons. They are used for domestic service, sweatshop labor and prositution."

I should have taken notice, because that's a seriously frightening statistic, but it was just words to me... Until I got a view of it for myself. So to speak. It was while babysitting last week, with the child asleep, that I was doing what babysitters tend to do - watching television. (Oy gevalt! A frum girl watching television! What is the world coming to? Yada yada yada. Get over it.)

And the movie that I wound up watching was about human trafficking. Googling it now, in fact, it turns out that the title of the movie is, "Human Trafficking."

"It follows the fictional cases of young women around the world, lured or abducted, sometimes right off the street, into a world of unspeakable brutality--which the filmmakers show in almost overwhelming detail at times.[...] And while sometimes almost unbearably harsh, the film serves as a reminder this terrible situation still exists and thrives; and told through the characters, is also a well-paced thriller." (-A.T. Hurley, Amazon.com Review)

I believe in divine providence to the extent that I believe that everything that happens to me happens because G-d wants it to. I believe that there is no such thing as coincidence, and that if I see something, I saw it for a reason. That's why I believe that G-d wanted me to see this movie.

It's scandalous to say so in the frum community, where movies are considered evil, but I think that this movie needs to be seen. I imagine that it was censored for television, and am glad of that, but it nevertheless showed the pain and horror of human trafficking in a way that just talking about it doesn't.

That's why I'm posting the trailer for the movie here. But when I say, VIEWER DISCRESSION ADVISED, I really mean it. Don't watch this if you will be bothered by images of, "Young women around the world being lured and abducted" into horrible situations. When I say that this movie needs to be seen, I'm not saying that everyone needs to see it. If you're under 18, or are very frum and haven't been exposed to such things, DO NOT watch this.

Having said that, I still believe that people need to see this. People need to know that this is going on. In the world of politics in this country, nothing gets done unless the People desire for it to get done: publicizing this issue until we refuse to ignore it anymore is the only way that we can end it. And in the spirit of Pesach, (Passover) the holiday where we celebrate our freedom from captivity, we should remember those who are not so fortunate.

No Christianity, No Islam, No America

2009-03-30T22:36:00.000-07:00

Pesach (Passover) is coming and along with it comes chaos. For Orthodox Jews Passover means more just family and celebrating. It means removing every crumb of bread (rice, pretzels, bagels, popcorn - food in general) from every corner of your house. That means everything from vacuuming under (and inside) every piece of furniture to cleaning out any books that you may have gotten a crumb inside of at any time during the year.

Yes, we Orthodox Jews are crazy.

I'm taking a moment, now, to remember that this holiday is not just about that craziness. It's about the miracles that G-d did when He freed the "Children of Israel" (we weren't "Jews" then - we were just "Israel's kids") from Egyptian slavery.

Stop, for a moment, and think about what the world would be like if G-d had not taken us out of Egypt. There would be no Jewish nation. Chances are we would have, after another couple hundred years, have just lost our identity in Egypt and, at best, would have become lower-class Egyptian citizens. Worst case, we would have died out. Pharoah was killing all male "Israelite" babies, and without any "Jewish" boys, there would be no more Jewish families.

Kaput. Our story would have ended before it began.

Forget about the Land of Israel. It would never have been started.

Forget about Christianity. Jesus would never have been born.

Forget about Islam. Mohammed would never have met those Jews in the desert who inspired him to start his own religion.

Would the American Revolution have been possible without its Jewish sponsors?

No Christianity. No Islam. No America. Where the heck would the world be without the Jews?

Domestic Terrorism

2009-03-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

If you're a Republican, you've got to love Gary Sinese.

An Emmy-award winner, Golden Globe winner, Oscar nominee, and well-respected actor in Hollywood, Sinese is also an outspoken Republican who contributed both monetarily and professionally (by narrating a biography of a Navy Seal and Medal of Honor recipient at the Republican National Convention) to John McCain's presidential campaign.

Gary's most famous role, today, is the part of Detective Mac Taylor on CSI: NY. Aside from the massive American flag that waves at the end of the opening credits, and the knowledge that Mac's wife was killed on 9/11, (both symbols that the Republican party consider to be incredibly important) there's not really any mention of political leanings.

And then there was, "Green Piece," a recent episode of CSI: NY which opens with a scene of a house exploding in New York. The scene, with a building exploding and debris flying through the air haphazardly, automatically brought me back to the horrible pictures of the Twin Towers on 9/11. I figured, though, that I was just being too sensitive.

The episode made it clear soon after, however, that its intention was to herald the audience back to the horrors of terrorism that we experienced on 9/11.

For instance: The image of an FBI agent coming over to NYPD Detective Flack and offering his help in the investigation, and the NYPD detective’s skepticism that he’d actually follow through, was clearly a reference to the “Wall” that existed between security agencies prior to 9/11 that prevented agencies from stopping the 9/11 attacks.

The CSI (Crime Scene Investigator) agents’ first overt reference to terrorism in their investigation surprised me:

Mac: In 1970 the Weathermen were using a townhouse in the Village as a bomb factory. Bomb went off accidentally, took the whole place down. Two of their members who were inside walked away. Weren't found for ten years.

The mention of the Weathermen, a domestic terrorist group whose leader, Bill Ayers, was a supporter of Barack Obama, was brief, but it caught my attention. And when the rest of the episode turned out to be about domestic eco-terrorists, it was clear, at least to me, that there was a political message in this episode.

The eco-terrorists in this episode, much like the Weathermen, claimed to be using terror as a necessary tool to stop horrors taking place in the United States. During the recent Presidential election, the discussion surrounding Bill Ayers on the part of the Democrats often led to claims that he did what was necessary in the face of a government perpetrating evil (with the Vietnam War). In this episode, the eco-terrorists similarly claimed that they needed to force Americans, through any means possibly, to recognize the harm that they were doing to the environment.

From beginning to end, the episode showed the horrors of terrorism, including the evil of the eco-terrorists’ actions, despite their “good intentions”. This message, alongside the line about the Weathermen, gave a clear message that even if Bill Ayers, and the Weathermen, had good intentions, that can never excuse the horrors that they perpetrated.

It was a brave statement to make in today’s political climate, where Barack Obama is viewed almost as a god whose friends and alliances no one would dare to question/

Good thing it came out of Sinese’s mouth.

Question: Am I no longer allowed to call myself "frum" now that I've mentioned I watched a TV show?

Don't Give Up

2009-03-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

Here's the video that goes along with my last post, "Bad News is Everywhere." Except here, let's focus on the "Don't Give Up" part.

(Fast forward to a minute or so in for the start of the song.)

Bad News is Everywhere

2009-03-20T08:17:00.001-07:00

"Bad news is everywhere, shut my eyes, shut my ears and mouth; cause I know there's a better day coming blowing in from the North and the South."

-Moshav Band

It's a terrible truth that bad things are everywhere. It was news of one of these bad things that made me question, as I tend to do, the the frum community's practice of marrying of their children when they're extremely young.

The "news" was of a very young married girl who suffered a miscarriage. A horrible thing to happen under any circumstances, but when I heard of this particular case (not that it was the first that I'd heard) I found myself thinking about how horrible it was for this girl, who really is still a child herself, to have suffered such a tragedy. I asked myself, "Why are parents so eager to throw their children into the 'real world' by marrying them off so young? Yes, the wedding is a great simcha and it's a wonderful thing to celebrate, but what about after the wedding? Once married, these young children cannot be protected from the evils of the world anymore."

With bad news being everywhere, yesterday I heard another piece of "news" that broke my heart. Without going into details, a young girl in the frum community got married and almost immediately found out that her new husband was not who she thought he was. They are now discussing divorce.

This girl is still practically a child yet she is already faced with a failing marriage. She, who was sheltered in the frum community all her life, has been intimately exposed to a person and a situation that she could have been protected from if her parents had just let her have a few more years to grow up. Maybe if she'd had a little more life experience she would have been able to recognize the signs in the man who is now her husband, and the marriage could have been prevented.

Her wedding was a great and joyous occasion, and as long as it was all lace and chocolate decadence everything was wonderful, but the "honeymoon" ended all too soon, and now the wedding is being seen as a tragedy for this girl who now has to deal with things that no child should have to deal with.

In some frum communities there is, "a better day coming, blowing in from the North and the South," where getting married a little later (at 22, or 23 - young, huh?) is becoming more acceptable, but there are still so many communities that run to marry off their children in their teens.

Parents, I'm begging you to look ahead for your child and consider that maybe they need to be eased into real life, instead of thrown into it abruptly with marriage. A beautiful wedding, while wonderful, is not enough to ease that transition. Children need a chance to grow up a little bit before they are married off and are immediately expected to act like adults. Think past the simcha of the engagement and the wedding (no, I'm not talking about grandchildren) and consider whether your child could use a little more time as a child before they have to start having children of their own.

Modern Day Haman

2009-03-11T01:58:00.000-07:00

It is tradition on the Jewish holiday of Purim to read the story\history of the holiday from a book called Megillat Esther. The story talks about the Jewish people being in exhile in Persia and about how the vizier to the Persian emperor, a man named Haman, planned to kill the entire Jewish people.

It's a familiar story to us Jews. Evil man planning to kill us. Nothing new there.

When we read the story of Purim, every time the 'storyteller' mentions the name, "Haman," it is customary for those listening to "boo" him. It's great fun, especially for the kids. This year, however, while I was listening to the Megillah, everyone booed at something else. It was when the 'storyteller' told about the Persian emperor levying a "mas" on his country.

I wasn't familiar with the Hebrew word, "mas," so I quickly looked over at the English translation only to find the the word means, "tax."

I think I giggled till the end of the reading after that. Only because laughing out loud would have bothered the other listeners.

How appropriate is it that Purim comes right in the thick of tax season? Taxes are our modern-day Haman. They come to conquer us. They come to destroy us.

G-d save us from the evil tax-man.

Bringing BY to the streets of BH

2009-03-09T06:42:00.000-07:00

Never again. No more alcohol. Ever. Even for (erev*) Purim.

Purim is the Jewish holiday on which it is a mitzvah** to get drunk until the point that you don't know the difference between the holidays hero, Mordechai, and it's villain, Haman.

That's what I decided to do at the pre-Purim party I went to. It didn't work out so well, for me. I got my first hangover ever and it has inspired me to never, ever, drink like that again.

The good news is that, as the Jewish sages teach, "When the wine goes in, the secrets come out," and that the secrets that I had to share proved that I definitely am a frum feminist.

That I'm frum I proved by informing a fella' that I would not be giving him my number because I'm Orthodox and only date Orthodox guys, and by refusing to touch any of the male guests at the party who stuck out their hand for me to shake.

That I'm a feminist I proved through my snarling answer to a guy who tried to tell me that polygamy is not only halachically*** sanctioned, but is actually good for the Jewish people.

Here's a little bit of how the conversation went...

Idiot: "So, like, did you girls graduate from, like, a Bais Yaakov kind of school?"

My Friends and Me: "Like, yeah."

(For some reason, the idiot doesn't take the hint that that means that he should bugger off and bother some other girls who might be interested in his idiocy...)

Idiot's Friend: "Tell them your theory about polygamy."

Idiot: "According to halacha, not only is it allowed but actually it's required."

What I should have said: "You're an idiot. Goodbye."

What I actually said: "Um, that's a retarded thing to say."

Idiot: "Seriously! The gezeira of Rabbeinu Gershom (prohibition of polygamy from a 10th Century rabbi) ended 50 years ago. And there's a great Rabbi in Israel who preaches that it's allowed, and even necessary, now.

Me: Do you really want to argue with me about this? I'm a graduate of a BY (Bais Yaakov) type school, remember? You will not win this argument."

Idiot: (Idiotically ignores my warning)

Me: If you insist...

First I pointed out the precept of Jewish law of, "Maaseh avos siman la'banim," which means that something that has become a custom for the Jewish people because the Rabbis collectively decided to follow it, (such as the prohibition against polygamy,) becomes Jewish law by default.This is because, "Torah lo bashamayim hee," which means that when G-d gave the Torah to the Jewish people, he gave the authority over it to the Rabbis who, by majority rule, are supposed to make decisions regarding Jewish law.

Me: "Besides, the prohibition against polygamy was renewed by the rabbis." (Just for idiots like you.)

Idiot: "But this rabbi in Israel is a great scholar, and he says that considering the situation today, where there are more single Jewish women than single Jewish men, it's actually a kindness to allow a man to have more than one wife because it allows more women to get married and have children."

Oh boy. That one really set me off.

I nastilly informed him that his "rabbi" was just one amongst thousands, so his opinion really didn't matter. And that just because he was a Torah scholar that didn't mean that he knew what he was talking about because, "Chochma ba'goyim taamin, Torah ba'goyim al taamin," which is a teaching of the sages that means that even non-Jews have wisdom, but they don't have the wisdom of Torah, so his rabbi could be a brilliant scholar, but that didn't mean that he was scholarly enough to make decisions in Jewish law.

Me: "You just believe this rabbi because you're pro-polygamy. It's a man's mitzvah to get married, not a woman's, and I guarantee that there isn't a single Jewish female out there who so bemoans her fate of being single that she'll willingly marry a man who already has a wife. "

Idiot: "Actually, there are women in Israel who are married to men who have multiple wives - "

Me: "Those women are obviously ill. Polygamy is sexist and abusive and no woman with any self-respect or any sense of self-esteem would degrade herself by allowing another woman into her marriage."

I finished off by advising him to never mention his pro-polygamy opinions again if he ever wanted to impress a girl, refused his invitation to go and get something to eat with him, and walked away without saying goodbye.

You've learned a very important lesson today, chauvinists. Don't mess with a frum feminist. She's highly educated, highly intelligent, and won't take any crap (pardon my French) from you. So don't bother. You'll only end up looking like an idiot.

*erev - in this context, the word means that it's in the time leading up to Purim.

**mitzvah - commandment from G-d, also translated sometimes as, "a good deed".

***halachically - according to halacha, Jewish law

The Man Works Harder

2009-03-05T19:35:00.001-08:00

Tonight my five year old niece explained to me that the reason why girls change their name to their husband's when they get married is because "the man works harder."

"Where'd you hear that from?" I asked her, trying not to frown. "Did someone tell you that or did you figure that out by yourself?"

She just shrugged and moved on to something more interesting, leaving me wondering where she got that idea from. Did someone in her class tell her that, or did she figure it out from her (limited) life experience?

Why do we women take our husband's names, anyways? I'm not questioning it, nor am I saying that I want to keep my own last name when I get married, but I'm suddenly curious about where the custom came from.

Does anyone know?

Jewlicious!

2009-03-01T20:59:00.000-08:00

Israeli dancing to rap music by Y-Love.

Club dancing in flip-flops.

A Breslov chassid dancing with modern Orthodox and non-religious guys.

It's the Jewlicious Festival, and it's nothing if not fascinating to watch.

For a "Jewish Woodstock," as LA Blueprint website called it, it was a lot smaller than I expected. The crowd in front of the stage was maybe 10 or 15 rows of people thick, with the rest of the room consisting of people just meandering about, dancing, or just watching.

Some group (or maybe it was just one performer - I couldn't tell) named "Kosher Dillz" was rapping away on stage and I wasn't especially impressed with the cries of, "Oy vey all day!"

Dov Rosenblatt, of the band Blue Fringe, came up, and things started to get much better. Dov has a nice voice, plays guitar really well, and gave a very good performance. When the Moshav Band came on and sang a song with him, you could feel the excitement in the room growing.

Then Moshav came on. The room was packed full and when Moshav started playing the crowd started moving together for the first time in the evening. Their music and charisma made it impossible not to be drawn in. The audience was so involved in the performance that they were practically breathing together. Without a doubt, they were the highlight of the evening.

It seemed to go downhill from there. After Moshav left the stage, the room emptied out. The next performer, a German-Jewish pop singer, had a depressingly small audience, and when I wandered outside I found out it was because most of the crowd went to join a drum circle.

My first drum circle. I was so NOT excited. But with the choice between a Jewish-German Britney Spears, dancing provacatively with a guy wearing a kippah who she called on stage, and a drum circle, I decided to just sit on the side and watch.

The drummer wearing the, "60 Years of Getting Chai" did freak me out, but it was when the shofar came out that I knew it was time to leave.

A dreadlocked-hippy playing a shofar in a drum circle fueled by the fumes of weed wafting through the air... That was just too much for me. Call me intollerant but it was so far out of my realm of normal that I didn't know what to do with myself.

In spite of the scary parts, I had a pretty good time and I'm glad that I went, if only to see all different kinds of Jews coming together to dance and sing.

Next time, though, can we do it without the drugs and alcohol, please?

The Great Busing Experiment

2009-02-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

I did an experiment today: I took the bus to work.

My sister's car died really dead a few weeks ago, so I've been sharing mine with her. Because she drives a lot more than I do, I usually don't have a car during the day. I was planning on catching a ride to work today but my ride left without me. I tried to get a ride with someone else, but that person wasn't going in to work until late, so that didn't work out either.

In despair, (oy!), I layed down on the couch and stared at the ceiling as I tried to figure out how I could get to work.

Could I walk?

Not in these boots. And not with my laptop.

Could I get someone to drive me as a favor?

I couldn't think of anyone who'd be available at that time of the day.

As I lay there wondering, "How on earth do people get around without cars?" it suddenly came to me:

The Bus!

It only occurred to me because at the wedding I mentioned in my last post, a friend of mine who used to lived in New York mentioned taking the bus when she moved to this city.

No one takes the bus around here. Well, obviously some people do, but the majority of my city's population have cars. The bus is generally seen as a mode of transportation for people who have no other choice. (In other words, they're too poor.) More than anything, I think it's a cultural thing. In New York, everyone takes public transportation. Out here, it's embarrassing to take it.

If celebrities want to help the country, like they say they do in their "Pledge to Obama" video, what they really should do is promote public transportation in their own city. Buying hybrids doesn't help the environment nearly as much as popular public transportation could.

Note: The photograph above is of the original busing experiment.

Feeling Old

2009-02-19T07:10:00.000-08:00

I've talked a few times before - here and here - about going to weddings as a single young woman in the frum community and about the looks and comments you get because you're still single at the devastatingly old age of 23 (now 24.)

I went to another one of these weddings last night. It was a huge, gorgeous wedding with hundreds of people and plenty of older women to whisper while staring at you, so I started out feeling just as disgruntled as I usually do at these events. Over the evening, however, I noticed that many of the young married women who I went to school with are looking decidedly older than their ages. There were a number of these women who I didn't even recognize at first because they look so altered.

It's no wonder the frum women think 24 is old: when you get married at 18 and have your first kid at 19, (and just keep on having them,) by the time you're 24 you really feel old. And look it too, unfortunately.

On the brighter side, some of my married high school friends looked great. After I commented that the high school students at the wedding (the bride is their teacher) looked really small, one of these friends said to me, "Yeah, Frum-Fem, and they think that I'm an old lady! The way that they look at me just because I've got this wig on my head..."

Imagine that. There I was, feeling bothered at the looks I was getting for not wearing a wig, and my friend bothered because she was getting looks for wearing a wig.

Money money money money

2009-02-11T23:36:00.000-08:00

Holy moley! A $790B stimulus bill!

I don't even know what to say. I'll borrow a few words from some friends of mine:

Pintel: "Criminey!"

Ragetti: "Oddsbodkins!"

Howard Shore: DRAMATIC MUSIC

Echoing in the background:

Obama Administration: "We pillage, we plunder and don't give a hoot..."

Congress: "We extort, we pilfer, we filch and we sack..."

All together...

You all know the words!

Manly Masculine Women

2009-02-04T22:31:00.000-08:00

My brother called me, "manly," a month or so ago. After gasping, "I can't believe you just called me that!" I told him that he had his vocabulary wrong and suggested that maybe the word he was looking for was, "masculine."

Calling me, "manly," makes me sound like I'm tall, broad, and really need to wax my eyebrows.

"Masculine" doesn't sound like much of a more flattering description, but being masculine is about characteristics, rather than physical attributes. To say that I have, "qualities traditionally ascribed to men, [such] as strength and boldness," (Dictionary.com) isn't insulting at all.

In fact, it's a compliment. I have no intention of behaving in the manner traditionally ascribed to women, (screeching, fainting, being-seen-and-not-heard) so I might as well try those traditionally ascribed to men. I'll be strong and I'll be bold.

I'll even kill the bugs, occasionally.

Let's "Pledge" Ourselves to Obama Video

2009-02-01T23:20:00.000-08:00

Here's the "Pledge" video I wrote about in my last post, called by some, the "Wealthy Celebrities Pledge Wealth-Distribution-Socialism" video.

I can't believe I'm posting an Obama video on my blog... But then, I confess that I do think that one good thing has come from this "Obamaism" AKA "Obamianity," AKA, "Obamantology," and that is that there are significant numbers of Americans who now know that there's an electoral process in this country. It's a big difference from the, "Coming of Age in Mississippi," America that Anne Moody wrote about, where Blacks in America were either unaware that they were allowed to vote in elections or too scared to do so.

See? I'm trying to look at the positive side of the picture. Like I'm looking for that check in the mail that Obama promised to send me...

Slavery Today

2009-01-28T13:20:00.001-08:00

A bunch of celebrities got together recently to tell Obama that he's not alone. They wanted to reassure him after he got, "the loneliest job in the world." Poor guy.

They all pledged to take steps to help Obama in his lonely job. Some of the pledges were pretty good. I especially liked the one where some celebrity, who I didn't recognize, pledged, "to consider myself an American, not an African-American." What a great goal for a nation that really needs to let itself get past its history of slavery. Come on - do we really need affirmative action when a black man just managed to get the most powerful job in the country?

It was slavery, more than any other issue, that was emphasized in this video. I quote:

Some lady with an accent and a smoker's voice: "I pledge"

Some woman in a white jacket: "To work to make good the 200 year old promise to end slavery"

Ashton Kutcher: "To the abolition of 21st century slavery"

Demi Moore: "To free one million people from slavery in the next five years"

Call me ignorant but, well, I'm really not - and still I'm not sure what they're referring to. Because I'm not completely ignorant, I'm going to venture a guess that this "slavery" that they're talking about is taking place in Sudan or Rwanda, (Uganda? Western Sahara? Kenya?) or something, an inference I make from,

1. A video I came across a year or so ago that told the story of children in Africa kidnapped and forced to fight for their captor's army, (which kind of sounds like the stories of Jews in Russia being kidnapped and forced to join the Czar's army,) and,

2. From the fact that modern-day slavery stemmed from Africa when warring African tribes sold their prisoners-of-war to European slave traders.

If someone knows what the real story is, please do tell, but in the meantime I really have to wonder how these celebrities expect their audience to know what they're talking about when most Americans (and I don't say this in a boastful manner - it's just a fact,) are not nearly as aware of world issues as I am, and even I'm not sure what they're talking about.

Freeing slaves -- that I know a lot about. In the daily prayers that Jews (are supposed to) say every day we are reminded about the fact that G-d freed us from slavery in Egypt a while back. As I was saying them today I was thinking about the fact that, like the Passover prayer says, if G-d had not brought our ancestors out of Egypt, we - and our children, and our grandchildren - would still be slaves to some guy with the title, "Pharaoh," in Egypt. Pretty spooky.

From my knowledge of slaves being freed, it's gonna take a heck of a lot more than just a mention in a celebrity video to free these 21st century slaves. Try 12 plagues.

Oh wait, no - that won't work. Destroying enemy land (Locust) and property (Pestilence, Hail), torturing the enemy (No water! Bugs everywhere! Boils! Turning out the lights!), and killing the enemy (Death of the Firstborn) would all be deemed unusable as tactics for freeing a suffering people.

Okay, so we don't free them the way G-d did - we free them the way Lincoln did. Nope - that won't work either. It took a war with more American casualties than any other war fought by America to free those slaves. Besides, Lincoln was a Republican and we can't do anything the way that he did it.

How about in the way that we freed Afghanis from the Taliban's cruel reign and Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's oppression?

Right...

How, exactly, are these celebrities expecting us to end slavery, then?

Armed & Feminine

2009-01-21T21:59:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I wanted to show off a new hat to a friend of mine, an American soldier (Hooah!) recently returned from Iraq. Here's the hat:

Yes, I'm an NRA member.

Cue: Shadchanim run away screaming

My friend responded, "That's funny. I thought that religious women don't have the right to bare arms."

For a second I stared at her, mentally running through all the Jewish laws that I could think of which might prohibit women from using guns... Until I realized she was talking about the Jewish laws of modesty, (which I talk about here.)

Boy, was I relieved.

In the latest issue of "America's 1st Freedom" magazine (published by the NRA), there's an article that cites the growing numbers of women interested in guns. "Of our 54% growth rate in 2007, 66% of that represented people new to shooting. And 40% of the 54% were women," says a shooting range owner in the article.

Apparently women want to be able to defend themselves. I know that's why I'm an NRA member.

I can admit that here on this anonymous blog, where only a VERY few of my viewers know who I really am. I wasn't completely kidding when I cued the shadchanim running away screaming. It's dangerous to be a feminist who likes guns in frum society. I told my mom today, after reading the article about women and guns, that we could eliminate (from the shiddichim business, not literally,) great numbers of guys if we told shadchanim that I'm a member of the NRA.

She was not amused.

I have to keep my gun enthusiasm quiet if I want to be accepted in frum society. So if you're out there reading this and you know who I am, keep quiet about it, will ya?

The Dancing Idealist

2009-01-14T07:04:00.000-08:00

I used to be an idealist.

A blog under the name Hasidic-Feminist (you can imagine that I was excited to find that one) recently wrote about how her Hasidic community marries off their children when they're young and idealistic in order to keep them, "entrenched within the community, tied down by obligations and red tape."

I used to be one of those idealistic kids who, if I'd been "married off" when I was still in that idealistic phase, could have ended up as one of those women who I write about in my blog -- the young married girls without dreams or ambitions beyond their own little families.

As the idealist I used to be, I would have been happy to enter into that kind of life. I would have done the whole dance of the young Orthodox girl who gets engaged, giggles over her fiance with her friends, happily makes wedding and new-home plans, goes on to have her own children and lives to keep her husband and children happy.

Would I have remained happy, though?

Ay, there's the rub.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil

Must give us pause

(Hamlet Act III, Scene I)

Feminists who are Scared of Babies

2009-01-10T22:04:00.000-08:00

Google loves to feed you ads when you use their products based on the words that they think you're interested in. So while checking my "frum feminist" email account, Google fed me an ad for, "Feminist T-Shirts" on Cafe Press, and I decided to check it out. Those T-shirts reminded me why people have such an aversion to feminists.

There were the okay ones that read things like, "Feminism: The Radical notion that women are PEOPLE," and great ones that say, "Violence against women will not be tolerated".

Then there were the obnoxious ones like, "I'll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy," and, "FEMINIST and not afraid to say it!"

And then there were the abortion ones. The ones that make it sound like only evil, selfish, biggotted, racist men could possibly be anti-abortion. The, "Against abortion? Get a vasectomy" one. The, "Hell hath no fury like a woman denied her right to choose by a handful of greedy, self-important, white men." And the horrifying, "If I want a baby inside me, I'LL EAT IT!" one, which I can't even begin to understand.

Why must someone who is anti-abortion be evil? Can't a woman, or a man, be pro-life without being woman-haters?

If a woman doesn't want to have a baby - fine. That's her choice, and in that case, I am pro-choice. But abortion just because a woman doesn't want a child takes a woman from, "I don't want a baby," to, "I care more about myself than about the life inside of me."

It sounds to me like these women have a problem with people who are anti-abortion because when they hear, "Abortion is murder!" they hear, "You care more about yourself than about your baby and that makes you selfish and uncaring." Not wanting to be the bad "guy," they go and find someone else to blame for their "choice".

If a woman wants to care more about herself than about her baby, she should just admit that she doesn't want a baby instead of blaming the people who care about the life inside of her. She needs to get over that complex that tells her, "They're out to get me because I don't want a baby and they say that I have to have one!" and realize that no one wants her to have a baby. They just don't want her destroying any.

How about this T-shirt logo: "Against abortion? DON'T GET PREGNANT!"

If you don't want a baby, crazy-feminists, just don't get pregnant. Then the pro-lifers won't bother you and you can live your life in peace without fear of evil monsters who are "out to get you."

Couples Banquet

2009-01-07T20:29:00.000-08:00

I've written a number of times (here's one, here's another one, and there are more, I'm sure) about how the frum community tends to see their young women only as important if they're married. I got another reminder of this sweet attitude today in the mail.

It came in the form of an invitation to a banquet that the high school that I graduated from is making.

My first thought was, "What the heck? Why am I being invited to their banquet? I've never been invited before."

My second thought was, "Oh, because they're honoring (former classmate of mine)... I should really go."

My third thought was, "Wait a second... The only price they have here is for couples."

My thoughts went kablooie from there.

To have an attitude of, "We don't take singles too seriously," is bad enough. To have it written out officially for everyone to see on an invitation... That's wrong.

You would think that they would write a price for people attending on their own because it's a fundraiser and they'll take money from whoever they can get it from, yet somehow they can't conceive of a person being capable of attending an event without a significant other.

It's just as well, I suppose. If I attended by myself I'd probably be miserable, my head aching from all the, "Oy, poor thing, she's still single" looks pointed in my direction.

Feminists for Negiah

2008-12-30T01:07:00.000-08:00

I don't remember exactly when I learned what the term, "shomer negiah" meant, but I do know I was probably in middle school and that it was lobbed at me as an accusation:

"You're shomer negiah?" in a tone of, "Oh, you're one of those weirdos..."

"Negiah" is the concept in Jewish Law that forbids physical contact with members of the opposite sex, other than certain close relatives.

It's a hard concept for many people. After all, what's the big deal about shaking a guy's hand? It's not like a little hug is going to hurt anyone, right?

I'm not going to go into the "to shake or not to shake hands" argument now because it's long, tedious, and subject to many personal and halachic opinions. What I want to talk about right now is why women should be pro-negiah.

I know plenty of girls\women who are not shomer negiah (meaning, they do touch members of the opposite sex) and sometimes I just feel like yelling at them, "What the heck is wrong with you? You're giving him the milk when he should be buying the cow!" (Yeah, that's a bad analogy, visually, but I'm going to stick to it because it works.)

In Judaism, touch between a man and a woman is something sacred, to be preserved and cherished within a marriage. But what farmer is going to buy a cow when he can get milk for free, without the worries of all the expenses and maintenance that come with it? What guy is going to marry a girl if she'll give him that sacred touch without having to buy her a ring?

Honestly, girls, if he really loves and respects you, don't you think that he should value you enough to marry you? You can argue, "But we're too young," or, "We're saving up until we have enough money to get married," but when it all comes down to it, it's about commitment.

Tell him that he can only have that kiss after he's put that ring on your finger and signed the kesubah (Jewish pre-nuptial agreement) and I guarantee that if he really does love you, he'll be on his way out to buy that ring.

So have some respect for yourselves, ladies, and demand what you're worth. You're worth the price of the whole cow, not just the price of the milk.

Quote Time, for a Time of Tragedy

2008-12-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

"why is everybody always chasing We? ... ain't no one gonna break My stride; ain't no one gonna hold Me down. oh no. I got to keep on moving, stay Alive."

-Matisyahu, "Jerusalem"

In the aftermath of the recent horrifying tragedies in Mumbai, this song really struck a chord with me.

These lines kind of represent the Big Question that we all automatically ask when such a tragedy occurs:

Why?

Why does G-d allow such evil to be perpetrated?
Why were these wonderful, caring, incredible people killed?
Why is there so much brutality in the world?
And, ultimately:
Why hasn't G-d delivered us from this brutal Exile yet? Haven't we suffered enough?

There are no satisfactory answers out there and the second line in my quote is the only response that we can come up with:

We will go on. We will not allow those who hate us to hold us down. We will Live to fight another day, in spite of these tragedies.

And, ultimately, we will be the last ones standing.

The U.S.A. is an Obama-Nation

2008-11-11T02:19:00.000-08:00

As his (relatively) landslide victory shows, Barak Obama is well-loved by this country. The numbers make it pretty clear that the majority of this country are Obama fans, making this an, "Obama-Nation."

"Obama-Nation" is a term I heard somewhere during the election and it stuck in my head ever since. In the context that I heard it in it was a positive title but to me, its double-meaning is telling.

Image is everything in our society today, and Obama was exactly the image that America was looking for. He had the right slogan, the right logo, the right speeches, and even, (dare I say,) the right coloring. He was a product perfectly marketed to the American people, who accepted him with open arms.

Unfortunately, this particular product wasn't tested before being put to use. Obama got this job with less than a decade of legislative experience and Zero executive experience. The people who voted for him chose him because he said all the right things and they decided to believe him without him having to prove anything.

A thoughtless way to choose a President, based wholly on his packaging. Americans being unable to use logic and reason to choose their highest representative...

I call that a true abomination.

Can we please get a third-party candidate?

2008-10-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

Election, election, election. It's all anyone's talking about and it seems like it's all we're hearing about these days. Even the regular TV shows are sneaking in election plotlines.

What I find interesting is that of the three shows that I'm aware of who've recently featured election plotlines, (and there are probably more than just the ones I'm aware of,) two of them had a third candidate win by write-in. Ther original two candidates in these plots were just too radical and too involved in the politics of the election to consider what the population voting for them really needed and wanted.

This third-party feature is no coincidence, I'm sure. I've heard so many people say that they don't like either candidate, and while a third candidate in this election wouldn't work because there's no room for a third party in National American politics*, there are probably a lot of people who wish that they had someone other than Obama or McCain to vote for.

In the American History course that I'm currently taking, in which I'm the only Conservative in the room**, I've had both the professor and classmates challenge my vote for McCain and all I can say to them is, "I don't like McCain either; I'm just voting for him because he's not Obama."

It bothers me terribly that I'm going to be voting this coming Tuesday for a candidate I neither like nor trust, but I dislike and distrust Obama so much more that I just don't feel like I have a choice.

Maybe I'll write-in my own third-party candidate; it's not like a vote for McCain really count in California anyways.

*Third-party candidates in previous elections have only ever made a difference by taking votes from one of the major candidates, such as when Ross Perot took votes that George Bush Sr. would have gotten, possibly ruining the election for him, or when Ralph Nader takes away votes that the Democratic candidate would be getting otherwise.

**There might be other Conservatives in the classroom, but if they are, they're keeping quiet. When the course just began I was sure, based on his facial reactions to some of the professor's liberal rants, that one guy was Conservative, but he stopped coming to class after the first two weeks or so. Maybe because he couldn't take it anymore.

Me? I've become pals with the professor, who think that he's going to crush all of my Conservative beliefs with his liberal logic. Apparently, though, (according to one of my classmates,) the two weeks of class that I missed due to the Jewish holiday season were really boring. All liberalism and no logic can get a bit stale, I suppose.

Potter Magic Comes to Life

2008-10-06T23:51:00.000-07:00

This post is for any Harry Potter fans out there.

Remember the "Decoy Detonator," one of Fred and George Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes? If you don't, here's a brief description:

"Decoy Detonators are [...] small devices which scurry off into shadows and then make a noise, thus decoying people away."

They become an important plot device in the 7th book when Harry is trying to get one of the Horcruxes at the Ministry of Magic. (If you don't know what a horcrux is, this post is obviously not for you.)

In any case, I was just reading through the most recent issue of Wired Magazine, (yes, I'm a geek,) when I read a description of a new-and-improved stun grenade that sounds remarkably similar to the Decoy Detonators:

Decoy Detonator Description: When Harry sets off a Decoy Detonator in "Deathly Hallows," it, scuttles silently to the far side of the room, then blows itself up, making a sharp noise and a cloud of smoke. There's no explanation for how this product works, aside from the given assumption that it's done by magic. But maybe Wired can give us an idea...

Fuel/Air Distraction Device Description: "Yank the pin on the new stunner and a gas starts combusting, which pushes out and ignite a cloud of powdered aluminum. The result is [...] a blinding burst of light accompanied by a boom of up to 170 decibels - about as loud as a shotgun". (Wired Magazine, 16.10)

Science and Potter magic coming together... Wonder how much Rowling knows about defense industry inventions. Or maybe they got the idea from her? Which came first, the decoy detonator or the stun grenade?

Rock the Women's Right to Vote

2008-10-06T00:09:00.000-07:00

This is an email going around and I thought it very appropriate that I post it here. It is especially important for women voters to vote this coming election in California with initiatives important to women on the ballot such as requiring parental notification before giving a minor an abortion.

Register to vote at http://www.rockthevote.com/

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE.

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.

Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because -- why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry.

She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think
a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so
hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.

Palin Power

2008-09-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly two weeks since John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate, so this post is long overdue.

I confess that I've been almost entirely cut off from this presidential campaign, especially compared to the last one where I campaigned for George W. As a conservative, I don't like Obama but, - also as a conservative, - I don't like John McCain either. His record in the senate is entirely too liberal for my taste. So I've been sitting out this election; disliking Obama wasn't enough of an incentive to get me to campaign for another man I don't like.

As I wrote previously, in a race where it was McCain running against Hillary, I would have voted for Hillary because I considered them to be equals politically and at least with her we'd finally have a woman in the White House.

So how do you think I felt when I woke up on August 29 to hear that John McCain had chosen a woman as his vice-president?

"That is awesome!" I said as I read the news reports, laughing out loud to myself.

And the news just got better and better: she's a mom of five kids; her youngest has Down's Syndrome (I've always admired the parents of children with special needs); she's a lifetime member of the NRA; she started out as governor of Alaska and was now being considered for the position for vice-president of the United States... She was where I've dreamed of being myself. (Well, my dream is to become governor of California and then run for President, but it's almost the same.)

It was the first time that I felt excited about this election and determined that I would definitely be voting for McCain. (Not that I would have voted for Obama; I would have just abstained.)

It was the smartest move - or, possibly, the only smart move - that McCain has made during this entire campaign. My (very) liberal history professor claims that she's just a dumb redneck woman who I'm smarter than (that's what he said) who doesn't have the experience necessary to run this country. He says he can't understand for the life of him why McCain chose her as his VP. I suggested that maybe he was trying to get more conservatives to support his campaign, and though he disagreed, that's still what I think.

It definitely got me on board.

For the Sake of Your Spouse

2008-08-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

I asked a question in my last post and G-d decided to answer me when I was browsing a Jewish website today.

My question was: When a man cheats on his wife, whose fault is it - his own for breaking his oath of fidelity, or his wife's for not keeping him happy?

The answer that I found was written by Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (aka "the Shelah"), a renowned rabbi and mystic who lived from 1565-1630.

The Shelah writes that all human beings have two kinds of desires: desires of the soul, and desires of the flesh. Both are good, writes the Shelah, since both were given to us by G-d; but they have to be used correctly.

Following the desires of the soul, a person will do good deeds, following the path that G-d wants us to follow.

Following the desires of the flesh, however, often leads a person to selfishly chase objects of their own pleasure.

The desires of the flesh were not created for a person's own selfish use, says the Zohar, (the most important work of Kabbalah); rather they were given to each person for the sake of their spouse.

"Therefore," writes the Shelah, "a man should not indulge in any pleasure except that which beautifies and benefits his wife."

The explanation goes into more Kabbalistic (and more complicated) detail, which I won't go into here, but the practical lesson here answers the question that I asked by telling us that a man is only given "desires of the flesh" for the sake of his wife, so if he decides to take them elsewhere, he's using those desires for entirely the wrong purpose.

Clearly, according to the Shelah and Kabbalah (and, thus, according to Torah and G-d,) a man who cheats on his wife (or, conversely, a woman who cheats on her husband,) is in the wrong.

Cheater Cheater

2008-08-11T23:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice attitude that I've recently discovered some people in the frum community hold: If a man cheats on his wife, it's because his wife was doing something wrong.

So, just so we're clear, the guy breaks the sacred bond of marriage and it's the woman who gets blamed.

I hope that the fact that I heard this from people in the frum community doesn't mean that it's a common attitude in the frum community.

How many frum people out there agree with this statement?

Sexist Shidduchim

2008-07-27T17:09:00.000-07:00

I was a accused of being sexist a few weeks ago.

It happened when I was talking to someone about the shidduch (Orthodox Jewish system of matchmaking) system and mentioned that I believed that it was the job of the man to pursue the woman. The man I was speaking to immediately accused me of being sexist against men by suggesting that the man should do the difficult part.

It took me slightly by surprise, probably because I'm not accustomed to hearing people speak about sexism against men, but I automatically answered, "Of course it's not sexist! The Torah (Bible) says that the man should pursue the woman, the Torah is written by G-d, and G-d isn't sexist; so obviously, it's not sexist."

It's the truth. The Talmud teaches that a man is supposed to search for his soulmate, "as a person seeks an object that he has lost." (Kiddushin 2b; Niddah, 31b) Frankly, it makes perfect sense to me. After all, the mitzvah (G-d's commandment) of marriage is for men. Men are the ones who are obligated to get married, according to the Torah; not women. So why should the woman pursue the man if he's the one who's required to get married?

In the Orthodox community today, it's the absolute opposite. Theory has it that there are more Orthodox single women than Orthodox single men, which means that women need to "fight" to get a good guy. Ultimately, that means that women need to work hard to find a match whereas the men can sit back and wait to be pursued by the girls.

And they do. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard from girlfriends about guys who will date a girl and just automatically "throw her away" because he knows that there are plenty of other girls who want to go out with him. Random dating is not how the shidduch system was ever meant to work. The system is based on the idea that men and women only date for marriage and dating numerous girls carelessly just because they're available doesn't really fit the bill of, "dating for marriage."

Yet it happens time after time that girls - wonderful, sweet, pretty girls - get passed up for another girl because the guy can say, "Well, she was fine, but there might be something better out there..." And Orthodox girls keep taking it - being treated by guys as objects in a store that are picked up, examined, and then abandoned, - because they want to get married and are willing to do what it takes to make that happen, even if it means being treated like trash over and over again.

It has to stop. Single women in the Orthodox community need to start putting their collective feet down and demand that the men stop this silliness; if the men want to get married, then they need to start taking dating seriously.

A Royal Code of Conduct

2008-07-04T06:28:00.000-07:00

I've spoken about Tznius (the Orthodox modest dress code) before, here and here. I've written that since I believe (with perfect faith, as Maimonides wrote,) that the dress code is based on G-d's commandments, that I don't have a problem with questions of sexism. G-d is not a sexist and therefore the dress code that He created cannot be sexist.

Tznius (or Tzniut) is more than just a dress code, though. It also includes a code of modest conduct. I choose to think of it as a royal code of conduct. G-d chose the Jewish people to be His chosen Nation, His firstborn child, and since G-d is the King of all Creation, that makes us all royal children. Along with the privileges of being the children of royalty come serious responsibilities, and that includes a strict code of conduct.

Not that I would compare the Jewish People's spiritual royal dynasty to theirs, but for the sake of discussion, let's take a look at the British royal family. Most people, when they think of the Queen of England, recall seeing her in suits and hats at all times, following a royal dress code that commands respect for her majesty based on her royal position rather than on how trendy her outfit is.

The same goes for her demeanor. She does not demand respect through a loud voice and outlandish publicity stunts (can you say, "Paris Hilton"?). She keeps a calm and collected persona in public because that is what is expected of a woman whose social position itself commands respect and veneration.

It is similar with the Jewish people. Our social status and existence is not based on the opinions of others. If it was, these "others" would have finished us off a long, long, time ago.

Rather, our status in the world is based on the fact that G-d chose us to be His nation. We have survived all this time with our dignity intact solely as a result of G-d's will.

Based on modern psychology, the way that the Jewish people have been treated for thousands of years - as dirt beneath the feet of the gentiles, - one would expect us to have serious self-esteem problems. How often do we hear about how African Americans have less chances in our society because they were treated as slaves for hundreds of years? Yet we, the Jewish people, who were treated worse than slaves for thousands of years, don't seem to have a problem climbing the ladder of success in the secular, gentile world. Why is that?

Because we have known throughout the years of torture, denigration and murder that no matter what the nations of the world think of us that we are still G-d's chosen nation. Like the Queen of England's position, society's opinion of the Jewish people cannot change our royal status. They could treat us like vermin all the wanted; in the end, we rose from the extermination camps and built new lives, new communities, new shuls (synagogues), and new personas of beauty despite what they thought of us and all that they did to us.

Like the Queen of England, then, we should remember that we don't need to show off our bodies - whether by taking off our clothes or by running down the street yelling, - to gain the respect of others. We can carry ourselves with dignity because we know that no matter what that person driving by in the fancy German car sees when they look at us, their opinion cannot change who we really are.

Seeing us as vermin didn't stop us before and it won't stop us now.

Back to Feminism

2008-06-06T00:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since I last talked about the question that got this blog started: whether or not I'm a frum feminist. It's mostly because I haven't had anything new to add to the subject, but lately that's changed.

I've recently found myself getting eerily interested in cooking and baking. Two cupcake books (not to mention the cupcake-decorating *GULP* gadgets) and online Food Channel videos in the last two to three weeks. Today, I bought a recipe keeper, which is basically a folder in which you can write and organize recipes that you find, and I bought it because I've been finding recipes, using them, and wishing I had a place to keep them.

Does that as sound 'housewivey' to you as it does to me? It's making me feel like I'm related to Bree Hodge, and that's seriously creepy. (Does the fact that I know who Bree Hodge is make me less frum, nevermind the feminist part?)

What it doesn't sound like is feminist.

It's not that my feminist views have changed. For example:

In addition to cooking and backing, I've also recently become interested in a show called Army Wives, which presents wives of U.S. Army personnel and shows them, (from what I can tell -- I haven't really watched the show,) almost exclusively as housewives. In true feminist fashion, I've found this a bit disconcerting. I read a comment about the show on the internet which said, "Why don't these women have their own careers?" and I agreed with it. I found it disturbing to see these women relegated to staying at home and taking care of the kids while their husbands went off to war.

Clearly I still have feminist views, but all this recent cooking-and-baking-enjoyment has got me questioning where exactly I stand on the feminist scale. So here I am again, faced with the question of:

Am I a Frum Feminist?

Protecting Air, Space, and Cyberspace

2008-05-14T23:48:00.000-07:00

You can call me a geek, but occasionally I find myself on Wikipedia, reading information just for the heck of it. Tonight I found myself reading about the United States Air Force when I came upon the following text:

The stated mission of the USAF today is "to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests — to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace".

"Ha ha!" I thought to myself. "That's hilarious!" I was sure that it was a joke, which some Wikipedia (which can be edited by anyone) user decided to put in. But I was curious to see if anyone else had ever commented on it so I googled, "USAF Cyberspace," and found out that it's actually true.

Apparently, "the Air Force has begun reorganizing itself to conduct cyberspace operations."

We've all heard of cyber-crime and most recently in a course I've been taking on terrorism the question of cyber-terrorism and the need to prevent cyber-terrorist attacks came up. I realized that a government institution would have to be set up for that defense, but it never occurred to me that it would be the air force.

I find it "blooodee fasinaitin'," personally.

Note: The awesome graphic is not mine; it belongs to the U.S. Military. I just spruced it up a bit.

1787 Prediction of Outsourcing. in... Quote Time!

2008-04-25T12:30:00.001-07:00

"Shall domestic manufactures be encourages, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes".

James Madison, Federalist No 10

Looks like James Madison predicted the outsourcing crisis and argument being faced today. These is exactly the problem being faced today, though you might substitute, "are questions which would be differently decided by the [...] classes," with, "are questions which would be differently decided by the Democrats and the Republicans."

There are those who say that the Democratic Party stands for the poor people (one class) and the Republican party for the rich (another class,) but that's not actually true. There are poor people in the Republican party, and rich people (say, "Hollywood!") in the Democratic party.

Quote Time on Practical Women

2008-04-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

“In wartime women are much more capable of keeping things together [...] because they are practical."

-Christian Lochte

This from the same Library of Congress report on the Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism that I last quoted from.

This is similar to some of the points that DeeDee Myers made in book, "Why Women Should Rule the World," and discussed at her book signing that I wrote about here.

As I wrote there, I didn't like DeeDee and the atmosphere at the book signing, (i.e. Clinton-Worship) but, as mentioned, I do think that she had some good points.

And while I don't like Hillary, the arguments that she couldn't handle the pressures of the presidency because she's a woman... I would have to say I disagree with, even if it's because, as this Library of Congress Report that I keep quoting from mentions, often these female leaders have male gender-tendencies.

[I don't know enough about Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir to comment on whether they had male gender-tendencies, by which I mean that they thought and acted like men. Anyone else know?]

"Lochte also considered female terrorists to be stronger, more dedicated, faster, and more ruthless than male terrorists, as well as more capable of withstanding suffering because 'They have better nerves than men, and they can be both passive and active at the same time.'"

Looks like I can finally, with terrorists as my guinea pigs, prove that what I've long believed is actually true: men can't handle blood or pain nearly as much as women can. Biologically it makes sense, since women are the ones who've had go through the most painful and bloody process to keep humanity in existence.

Anyone interested in checking out this Library of Congress report, click here. Warning: It's a PDF.

Quote Time with a Question

2008-04-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

Seems that all I have time for these days is quote time...

"While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer,
nothing is more difficult than to understand him."

– Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

There are those who argue about terrorists that we should just, "kill 'em all!" Then there are those with this mindset, who say that we should try to understand them.

Anyone out there think that we need to try to understand evildoers? Anyone know what the Torah perspective might be on this?

It might be interesting to know, in considering this questions, that studies on the history of terrorism state that while the term, "terrorism," comes from the "Reign of Terror," (in France following the French Revolution,) that the first record of terrorism (according to the official historical record) says that it was perpetrated by *gasp* Jews:

"Beginning in 48 A.D., a Jewish sect called the Zealots carried out terrorist campaigns to force insurrection against the Romans in Judea. These campaigns included the use of assassins (sicarii, or dagger-men), who would infiltrate Roman-controlled cities and stab Jewish collaborators or Roman legionnaires with a sica (dagger), kidnap members of the Staff of the Temple Guard to hold for ransom, or use poison on a large scale. The Zealots’ justification for their killing of other Jews was that these killings demonstrated the consequences of the immorality of collaborating with the Roman invaders, and that the Romans could not protect their Jewish collaborators."

(Source: Library of Congress Report on the Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism)

Hm. Does that wrinkle any foreheads?

(Any Rabbis out there who want to do an, "Ask the Rabbi," type of post in reply, feel free to contact me.)

Quote Time + Correction

2008-03-27T23:04:00.001-07:00

"Which is better -- runs the endless question -- a republic or a monarchy? The dispute always resolves itself into an agreement that it is a very difficult business to govern men. The Jews had G-d Himself for their master, and see what has happened to them as a result: nearly always have they been oppressed and enslaved and even today they do not appear to cut a very pretty figure."

-Francois-Maries Arouet de Voltaire

So even with G-d Himself "governing" the Jews, we still ended up being screwed? And that's because it's so hard to govern men? Is that what Voltaire is saying? Guess he didn't believe in G-d as much as he claimed he did, considering he didn't think "G-d Himself" could take care of things...

It was the, "even today they do not appear to cut a very pretty figure," part that cracked me up.

Corrections from my, "W - The President" post:

1) The Jewish Journal apparently is not affiliated with the Jewish Federation, as someone with the name, "JewishJournal.com" mentioned in the comment section.

2) The, "Olmert's popularity ratings go up - to 3%" headline was on the Jewish Journal's Purim cover, so it might not be a correct statistic.

W - The President

2008-03-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

I'm in the library right now doing some work and I'm wearing one of my, "W - The President" baseball caps. The one I'm wearing now is the less "obnoxious" one; it's black and says, "W" on the front and, "The President" on the back. I bought it during the 2004 election, when I was helping with the Bush campaign.

My other "W" hat says, "W - STILL the President," on it. I bought that one after Bush won. It was a, "Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah, we won!" hat. I wore it for Purim that first year and got maybe one look in shul.

Right now, I'm getting tons of them. Every person who walks by is eying me like I'm a child of the devil.

I know I'm one of the last remaining few who still likes Dubya. Especially here in Democrat-blue-country California. I haven't looked at his popularity ratings in a while, but I know they're in the dregs.

They are better than Olmert's, though that's not saying much. I picked up a copy of, "The Jewish Journal," today, a truly awful excuse for a newspaper here in LA put out by the Jewish Federation, and on the cover it announced, "OLMERT'S APPROVAL RATING GOES UP -- TO 3%"

But Olmert truly deserves his ratings. He's a terrible Prime Minister. Bush, however... If I were to say this aloud I'd likely be stoned with rotten vegetables, but he really hasn't done such a bad job as President. That's just a fact.

But people don't care about facts when it comes to Bush. They just plain hate him. "He's dumb and evil!" they declare. "Bush is today's Hitler!" liberals scream.

How is it that everyone has forgotten Saddam Hussein? How he gassed and tortured his own people? Does that sound familiar to anyone else?

And then everyone whines and cries about Bush going into Iraq. Forget the fact that he went in with Congressional approval so every member of Congress who voted to go to war is just as liable as him; how can any Jewish person in the world not rejoice in the downfall of Saddam Hussein, the mini-Hitler of our time?

Or, since Purim just passed, the true Haman of our time. Didn't anyone else see the picture of Jewish U.S. troops celebrating Purim in the palace of Saddam Hussein, of cursed memory?

Jewish philosophy teaches that it's our job to take the sparks of negative energy into the world and turn them into sparks of positive, G-dly energy. If celebrating Purim in Saddam Hussein's palace isn't flipping the evil sparks of Saddam's reign onto their collective backs, throwing them into G-dliness, I don't know what is.

How can a Jew still hate Bush, seeing this? Seriously; I know I have readers who dislike Bush -- explain it to me!

Seven Kids...

2008-03-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

Easier than one? Check out this video that a reader sent to me:

Mommy Duty

2008-03-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while. I've been incredibly busy lately; it's got something to do with babysitting a toddler and an infant. A lot.

I assure you, my awe of full-time mothers has grown from this experience. So has my determination that I don't know if I could ever be one.

Maybe it's different when it's your own child and when I have children, G-d willing, I will want to stay home taking care of them all day. As of now, though, I really don't know if I have the right temperament. I was exhausted just from watching these kids for a few hours a day and it threw my schedule off because I wasn't used to:

a) Having to wake up so early
b) Having a hard time taking care of all my other responsibilities because I was so exhausted

I adore these kids, (and I'm not just saying that in case their parents read this blog - I really do,) and appreciated the time that I had with them, but it was not easy. I only had to do it for a few hours a day for a week and a half; I can't imagine doing it all day permanently.

That's not to say that I couldn't do it. I worked in a preschool for two years and, though it was excruciatingly hard work, really loved the kids and, (without sounding too egotistical,) know that did a pretty good job taking care of them. I also know that I took excellent care of the children in my charge over the past week and a half.

But it was so hard! How anyone could do that all day, I really don't know. At the same time, I do believe that if you're going to have kids, you'd better be ready and willing to do everything that you have to to take care of their best interests.

I just wonder whether it would really be in the best interest of my children for me to be a full-time mother. Isn't it possible that I would be a better mother if I wasn't completely exhausted all the time from taking care of a home and children?

I know that this isn't an opinion valued in the frum community, but could there be any validity in it?

Quote Time

2008-03-05T23:22:00.000-08:00

"Fish have large heads, but these are void of sense, like the heads of many men."

-Julien Offray de la Mettrie

In the midst of my rather boring textbook reading, there was this little gem. Ain't it quaint?

The 'Clinton-Worship-Fest' Book Signing

2008-03-05T18:05:00.000-08:00

I went to the Dee Dee Myers book signing that I mentioned in an earlier post. You know, the, "Why Women Should Rule the World," book.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I should have expected it to be a liberal-fest but for some reason I didn't expect people to be so incredibly partisan that they couldn't see past the noses on their faces.

It was Clinton (mostly Hillary, but not exclusively,) worship all around. I felt like a squirrel in a room full of resting dogs; as long as I stayed quiet, I would be fine, but the second I made a peep, they'd pounce.

I arrived early because I wanted to get a seat. There were only two other people there when I got there and they were talking up a storm about hating Republicans and loving the Clintons while I sat quietly and read one of my textbooks. I was interrupted by a woman asking me:

"Would you like a Hillary bumper sticker?"

I almost laughed but managed to make it just a smile when I replied, "No thanks." I was the only one in the growing crowd who refused.

Let's forget the crowd, among which I'm pretty sure were a few lesbian women, (I've never quite been looked at by a woman the way a few of those ladies looked at me,) and at least one gay man, (his, "Wow, those are great boots, though they wouldn't look good on me," comment when he sat down next to me clued me in.)

It was not a scene I, as a frum woman was in any way accustomed to, but I stayed because I wanted to see what Dee Dee had to say.

Her opening was a joke. A Rush Limbaugh joke. A little girl saying her mom is gonna kill her because she saved Rush Limbaugh's life joke.

It got a hearty laugh from the crowd and Dee Dee admitted, "This has nothing to do with what I'm going to talk about today but any chance I get to bash Rush Limbaugh, I do."

A disparaging George W. Bush came a few seconds later.

Again, I shouldn't have been surprised by the partisanship of it all, considering Dee Dee worked for the Clinton administration; I guess I was naive to think that a book signing would be about the book there to be signed.

Needless to say, I left early. Dee Dee made some good points, (which I'll talk about another time,) but the Q&A session was all about Hillary v. Obama, why people hate the Clintons, (they all seemed so shocked by it, somehow,) and life working for Bill Clinton, and I'd really had enough.

It took hours for me to get over the sickened feeling I had when I left. You need a strong stomach to handle one, let alone a room full of, people who love the Clintons.

Photo Credit: Me.

In My Defense

2008-02-29T15:03:00.000-08:00

I've gotten plenty of flak for the views that I write about on this blog. Even if I'm not a feminist, just associating myself with the term, "feminist," seems to irk people in the frum community.

While I did expect such a response, it still bothers me sometimes because when people in the frum community hear the word, "feminist," they automatically throw up defenses because they identify feminists as rabid, anti-religious, heartless women who hate men, love abortions and think that working in the home horrible.

When I talk about feminism, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about supporting the notion of women being treated with as much respect as men are treated. I'm talking about women being allowed to succeed in areas in their lives other than just housekeeping and cooking; not that they have to, but that they are given the option of having other ambitions.

I'm not a "rabid feminist." I'm frum, I don't think that abortion should be used as birth control and actually enjoy cooking.

In fact, when I went to Barnes & Noble, as I mentioned in my last post, I didn't buy the, "Why Women Should Rule the World Book." I bought a cookbook. I used it. I enjoyed using it.

So do me a favor; don't discount everything that I have to say just because I say I might be a feminist.

I have to go and fold some laundry.

Why Women Should Rule the World

2008-02-28T19:40:00.000-08:00

Calm down. It's not as bad as it sounds.

"Why Women Should Rule the World" is actually a book title I came across when I was in Barnes & Noble the other day. They had a big poster with the title in bold letters to announce a book signing that they will be having with the author.

My automatic reaction to the poster was a smile crawling across my face. "Women ruling the world? Sounds good to me!" However, I was simultaneously thinking, "Well, that's pushing it a little..."

I reached my destination, the top floor of the store, (where the Starbucks is!) and, seeing a pile of copies of said book, I picked one up to get a better idea of what it was about.

The first thing I read was that the author, Dee Dee Myers (Jewish? Yes? No?) was the first female press secretary at the White House.

I liked the sound of that.

Then I read, "...for the Clinton administration," and I felt disappointed. I'm a Republican, as I've mentioned before, and have a really poor opinion of the "Clinton years," so I wasn't sure whether I was interested in reading from one of Clinton's employees. But I pride myself in being able to hear from opposing viewpoints without being judgmental, so I continued reading:

What would happen if women ruled the world?

Everything could change. [...] Empowering women would make the world a better place—not because women are the same as men, but precisely because they are different.

"Women tend to be better communicators, better listeners, better at forming consensus," Myers argues. In a highly competitive and increasingly fractious world, women possess the kind of critical problem-solving skills that are urgently needed to break down barriers, build understanding, and create the best conditions for peace.

I was glad that I continued reading, because this was really interesting. It sounded suspiciously like a prophesy, based on Jeremiah 31:21, that says that in the time of Moshiach (the ultimate redemption), the power of women will be equal to, if not greater than, the power of men.

(Don't believe me? Read this article.)

I couldn't help but think, "Is the fact that women are becoming more powerful today than they ever were in the history of mankind - emphasis on the 'man' part - a sign that the Messiah is coming?"

Chew on that, all you critics out there who think I'm a crazy liberal for having a penchant for feminism.

Open Letter to 'Dubya' Bush

2008-02-20T15:09:00.000-08:00

I received an email the other day entitled, "An Open Letter to President George W. Bush." It was written by Ruth Mater of "Women in Green," and basically consisted of an accusation that the biggest mistake that Bush has made during his presidency is promising a state to the Palestinian people.

I'm not going to argue about what the greatest mistake of Bush's presidency has been, but the majority of Americans believe it to have been the War in Iraq. Promising the Palestinians a state is hardly on the minds of most Americans as the greatest mistake of Bush's presidency.

Emails, or other forms of communication, with messages like these are a pet peeve of mine. It really annoys me when people blame President Bush for Israel's problems. How self-centered\ethnocentric do you have to be to consider the biggest problem of Bush's presidency to be about something that doesn't really affect his country?

Bush has his own political agendas to attend to, which include promoting peace in the Middle East. He, and America, have seen that tyranny and horror in Middle East have led to terrorism that has hurt Americans and therefore it is in his country's best interest promote peace in the Middle East.

Politically speaking, promoting peace in the Middle East includes trying to keep Muslims from despising America. So what does Bush do? He tries to placate them with promises of a state for the Palestinians (once they achieve a democratic system of government - something unlikely to ever happen.)

[NOTE: When I say "politically speaking," I'm referring to the science of politics within the United States, which includes the fact that the President can't do anything without considering the ramifications that his actions will have. Not to mention that the President doesn't create Middle East foreign policy on his own; he has to consider the views and stances of his cabinet, Congress and the public who elected him. That's how a democracy works.]

Can we really expect the President of the United States to work for anything other than his own country's best interest? Can we really condemn his for working toward that goal?

Personally, I think that the people we should be angry at is the Israeli government. Is blaming Bush and sending him long letters\emails with, "A History of the Middle East," to prove that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews, (as this email included) - something that, as an Evangelical Christian, Bush is well aware of already, - really going to help Israel?

I think it's a waste of time and energy.

Women in Green, focus your anger at the government of Israel, not at President Bush, who is only doing his job.

Moving this blog along...

2008-02-19T00:50:00.001-08:00

In one of the comments on one of my blog posts, someone pointed out that while it's true that the community looks down on women going to college and having ambitions in the business marketplace and wants them to marry young, the frum community's attitude is not limited to women. It frowns on men going to college and working in the secular world and on men who don't marry young as well.

While there are different frum communities with different takes on this issue, I think that this commenter might be right. I can't say that I know enough about the issue to make an absolute statement, but I know that it is true of some sects within the Orthodox world.

That doesn't mean that it's okay, but if it's true that many of my complaints about how women are treated within the frum world goes for men as well then I can't really blame it on misogyny.

Most of this blog, so far, has been about the frum community's attitudes toward women. With the exclusivity of that attitude being towards women being questioned, I'm finding that I might have to change the direction of this blog.

I still believe in women's rights, and if that makes me a feminist, then I am one. Since I am also frum, that would also make me a frum feminist. So now that the question of whether I'm a frum feminist has been answered, I think it's time to move on to bigger and better things.

Thus, my ongoing tirade against the frum community's attitude toward women will no longer be the sole subject line of this blog, though I doubt that I'll drop it completely.

Some people see feminists as outspoken, opinionated women; I'm definitely opinionated and might be considered, by some, to be outspoken. So from now on, the "frum feminist" aspect of this blog will be the fact that I'm a frum, outspoken, opinionated woman speaking my piece.

Stick around. It's sure to get interesting.

A Woman's Place

2008-02-14T12:40:00.000-08:00

"Women belong in the House... and the Senate." -Author Unknown

While this is my latest favorite quote, I'm not sure how it fits in with frumology (the science of being frum - yes, I created this word.)

I thoroughly believe that women can be excellent members of Congress as much as any man and even have a little dream of my own about becoming a Senator one day (it sits somewhere next to my dream of being President) but whether it's okay for a frum woman to have such ambitions "out of the house," is a question on my mind.

I don't believe that Judaism has a problem with women being leaders. Devorah the Prophetess rode out to war and no one criticizes her. I think that the issue is less about women in a position of strength and more about what they're using that strength for.

As a frum woman I believe that being a mother is the most spiritually and physically important job that a woman could have (I'll get into the "spiritually and physically" part another time.) If a woman has children, her children need to be her priority. I think that this is true of any woman, not just a frum woman; I don't like Dr. Laura that much but I tend to agree with her opinion that if you're gonna have kids, you'd darn well better be ready to give your all for them. Though, of course, that holds true for dads just as much as moms.

However, I don't think that motherhood is the sole important job that a woman could have. I think that it's possible for a woman to have more than one mission in life. I do think that her children have to be a mother's top priority, but not all women are mothers, and not all mothers are cut out to be full-time housewives. [Please note that I didn't say "full-time mother"; I think that any person who has kids has to be a full-time parent, whether they have other jobs or not.]

So is it okay for a woman who isn't a mother or who isn't cut-out to be a full-time housewife to have ambitions out of the kitchen? I believe it is.

Now I can already hear frum people shouting over me that a mother needs to be a mother, first and foremost, and I am not arguing with that. If a woman is a mother and her ambitions will hurt her children, she has to fix those ambitions so that her children aren't hurt. But first of all, that's not exclusive to women; men who are fathers also need to make sure that their careers don't impede on their ability to father their children.

Second of all, I don't think that it's an "all or nothing" situation. I think that it's possible to be an excellent mother even while having other - though not top priority - ambitions.

This is a controversial position to hold in the frum community, but I stand by it.

I now await the criticism that I know is going to come from all the people who disagree with me... I know you're out there and I know what you're thinking. Feel free to drop me a line (those of you who have my number) or a comment (those of you to whom I'm just a random lady in cyberspace.)

Maybe Not a Woman in Office...

2008-02-11T19:29:00.000-08:00

It seems I spoke too soon in my last post. Obama hasn't given up the fight, despite Hillary taking the lead on Super Tuesday, so Hillary might not get the Democratic nomination.

Obama versus McCain... I don't know if I can vote for someone with the name, "Barak Hussein Obama." Maybe I'll abstain from this election? It would go very much against my principles; I collect those, "I voted!" stickers that they give out at the polls after you vote, you know.

I mean, for goodness sakes, do you know what it took to pass the 19th amendment (Women's Suffrage)? All that fighting and then I don't vote? That just wouldn't be right, now would it?

Women in Office

2008-02-08T00:41:00.000-08:00

"I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there."

-Maureen Reagan (Daughter of former President Ronald Reagan with his first wife)

With Super Tuesday behind us, we now know that the next presidential race is going to be Hillary Clinton versus John McCain. (Correction here.)

As I've said before, I am a Conservative, so you can be assured that I did not vote for McCain and was very disappointed (to put it mildly) to hear that he'd won the Republican nomination.

I am not an Ann Coulter fan, but when I heard that she'd said that if McCain won the Republican nomination that she would campaign for Hillary, I had to agree. In Coulter's words:

"She is more conservative than McCain. [...] She is not going to be a weak woman. Compared to John McCain, she will be better. [...] She's running in a Democratic primary and he's running in a Republican primary and their position are about that far apart. [...] Moreover, she lies less than John McCain; she's smarter than John McCain so that when she is caught lying, at least the Clintons know when they've been caught lying. McCain is so stupid, he doesn't even know he's been caught. [...] John McCain is not only bad for Republicanism, he is bad for the country." (Hannity & Colmes)

I can't put my thoughts any more simply than that. I do not trust McCain and while I don't trust Hillary either, at least she doesn't pretend to be a Republican. John McCain is really a hidden Democrat and I'd rather vote for someone who's upfront about what party they support.

And then, of course, there's the fact that if I have to choose between an incompetent man and an incompetent woman, I'll definitely choose the woman. I'm with Maureen Reagan on this point: at least with an incompetent woman as president we'll know that equality has arrived. I mean, how much more equal can you get than having an incompetent Hillary in office to replace an incompetent Bill?

Here's the video of Ann Coulter for those who are interested:

Checking out "Bubby's Burkha"

2008-02-04T23:43:00.000-08:00

When I spoke previously about tzniut, (referring to the Orthodox Jewish dress code) I mentioned that I didn't find the dress code degrading or chauvinistic because I believe that it comes from G-d directly and I don't question G-d (it's the community attitudes, instead, that I tend to question.) You can see that post here.

Now, however, we've got Jewish women in Israel wearing burkhas, and that's definitely not coming from G-d. (For the full article, click here.)

Apparently some woman named "Bruria Keren," who considers herself a "Rabbanit," has decided to tell a bunch of Jewish women who look to her for guidance that they should wear burkhas whenever they leave their homes for reasons of modesty. That way, men won't look at them.

I'm convinced that this "Bruria" must not "have all the lights on upstairs." No sane Jewish woman would turn to Islam for fashion tips or, more specifically in this case, religion tips. We've got 613 commandments in the Torah, which break down into much more than 613 laws in halacha (Jewish law) and these women are looking for more?

Just off the top of my head I can think of two of the 613 commandments that this new trend of "Bruria's" violates:

1) "Like the practice of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelled, you shall not do, and like the practice of the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you, you shall not do, and you shall not follow their statutes." (Leviticus, 18:3)

2) "Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it." (Deuteronomy, 13:1)

#1 commands us not to follow any of the practices of non-Jewish nations, such as wearing burkhas.

#2 commands us to follow G-d's commandments as He tells us to, and we're not supposed to add or subtract from His commandments according to what we feel is better. You can't one-up G-d; once you start being more strict than G-d, you've stopped serving Him. He never asked us to be more strict than Him; in fact, He specifically tells us not to be. If He wanted us to wear burkhas, He would have told us about it.

These women have got a bee in their burkhas about something though I'm not quite sure what that is. Why are these women so desperate to hide from men? I think that there's something more disturbing than just Jewish women wearing burkhas going on here...

Thanks to Seraphic Secret for bringing this article to my attention.

Addendum to "In this Patriarchal Society"

2008-02-01T15:45:00.000-08:00

I want to add an important note to my, "In this Patriarchal Society" post.

Not all Orthodox Jewish men are as I described in my last post. While I have noticed a pattern in it, I also know that there are many Orthodox men who are perfectly respectful.

And to be fair, it's not only the Orthodox men who treat single women differently than they do married women. There are plenty of Orthodox women who do as well.

My apologies to anyone out there reading this blog who may have been offended by my characterization of all Orthodox men being "patriarchal."

Revised: "In this patriarchal society..."

2008-01-31T16:04:00.000-08:00

Something happened to me today that really ticked me off: I was dealing with a situation and found myself saying, "I could really use a husband right now."

Here's how it happened:

I was on the phone with an Orthodox man who dented my parked car when he backed up into it, trying to settle the accident with him without involving the insurance company. It had already been a few months of haggling where I tried my best to settle without having to ruin his insurance rates but it had come to a point where he was only offering me enough money to fix the paint job.

That's how it happened that today I called him and told him that I couldn't fix my car with the amount that he was offering and I was going to have to go to my insurance company. He tried to offer me more, asking me how much he would have to pay me to cover the expenses and I named a price for him.

Now, if he had said right then, "Okay, I'll send you a check with that amount and I appreciate that you aren't going to the insurance company," then I would have been happy to leave it at that.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened.

Instead, he began to tell me off for haggling with him, telling me that he would show me, midat hadin, which roughly means "G-d's attribute of justice" but in this context meant, "You'll get what's coming to you for making me pay this much."

Now I don't know who he thought he was talking to, but there was no way that I was going to let him talk to me that way. I immediately told him that and said that I was going to go through my insurance company. He tried to wheedle me into changing my mind, saying, "Oh, it's nothing personal against you; I just know how people like you work..." but I was done. I told him that I had done nothing wrong here and did not deserve to be talked to in the way he had just talked to me, that I was calling my insurance company, and I hung up over his protests.

That's when I said, "I could really use a husband right now," because I knew instinctively that this man thought that he could talk to me that way because he knew I was a single, frum woman and assumed that, like the community expects, I'd respect him as an Orthodox man and wouldn't dare defy him. (He'd actually mentioned it to me a few times, telling me that he could have walked away without taking responsibility for backing into my car but that would be gneiva - stealing - and he, as a frum man, couldn't do that and I should darn well appreciate that.) If I had a husband then maybe I could stand up to him, but without one I wouldn't have the guts.

This is a serious problem in the frum community, which is often very patriarchal. Too often men in the community don't respect women as much as they respect men so that their attitude toward women is not as respectful when they don't have a husband around to back them up.

Before revising this post I had written that these frum men's attitudes were detrimental specifically to single women, but the truth is that the same goes for married women as long as their husband is not with them.

For example, one of my former bosses hired women specifically because he felt he could push them around more than he could push around men.

It's got something to do with women not being able to defy a man without another man to back them up. And, unfortunately, all too often women in the frum do not defy the men even when they have reason to. Doing so is considered chutzpa - an act of disrespect.

Ironically, the when the men don't t treat women respectfully, that doesn't seem to count as chutzpa.

The fact that I suddenly felt like I needed a man in order to handle business, - in order to be respected, - that's what ticked me off.

Luckily for me, but unluckily for the "car-smasher," I'm not one of those timid frum women who put up with patriarchal males who think that the fact that they're male means that they can push women around. With my former boss I eventually got the courage to stand up to him (and, ultimately, to leave the job,) because of the way he did not respect me. I wasn't about to let another chauvinistic man push me around.

So on the question of, "Am I a frum feminist"? Well, today I am. Not the type of feminist who argues that women should be able to do everything that men do, (like so many people have assumed, reading this blog, scoffing at me,) but the type of feminist who argues that women should be respected just as much as men are.

The Wedding Saga Continues...

2008-01-22T21:27:00.000-08:00

In my post entitled, "I (Do or Don't) Wanna Grow Up" I mentioned that I had a wedding to go to this week, didn't want to go, and wasn't quite sure why. I discussed what I didn't think was the reason for not wanting to go tothe wedding (jealousy) but didn't get to what the reason actually was.

The reason why I didn't get to the reason why I didn't want to go to the wedding is because I still didn't know why. It took me until after I got home from the wedding to figure it out.

Yes, I went to the wedding despite the fact that I really, really, didn't want to. And I smiled and danced even though I didn't want to do those things either. That was after a margarita and half an apple martini. I'm not a drinker, but I thought it would help me be a bit more freilich (Yiddish: joyous). I really wanted to be happy at the wedding; it's a big mitzvah (generally translated as, "good deed") to make the bride and groom happy on their wedding day, and there's no way that you're going to do that if you yourself aren't happy.

I did my best, honest. And I think I managed pretty well up until I left. Which was early. I'm blaming it a headache from the music, which was so loud it had babies screaming, and possibly on the alcohol. Subconsciously, however, it was more than that.

It took me a little while to figure out why I was so uncomfortable about going to and being at the wedding. It wasn't the fact that I was among the top five oldest single girls there. (At 23!) It wasn't that I was jealous of the bride, because I most definitely (as I mentioned in my earlier post) was not.

It was the older women staring at me that clued me to what all my negative feelings about this event were really about:

It wasn't about me being unhappy with myself; with me being single or "old". It was the community's attitude about me being single that was bothering me. At an event celebrating a wonderful simcha (joyous occasion) where everyone was thrilled for the 19 year old bride (including me), there I was, being pitied for not being married yet.

The looks I got as women said to me, "G-d willing you should get married very soon too," irked me terribly because they spoke volumes about the attitude of the community that being single at 23 is a tragedy.

I've written about this before so it shouldn't have taken me so long to figure out what it was about this wedding that upset me; it was being in a place where I am looked at as a tragic case because I'm not married, which is, after all, the only thing I'm good for, right?

Wrong! The attitude of these women that I must be so unhappy because I'm not married points to a general community attitude of marriage being the only way a woman can go for happiness. A dangerous attitude, in my perspective, because as I've said before, it's better to be single than sorry.

Being at a wedding celebrating a 19 year old girl getting married, where everyone is thrilled for her while I'm considered a tragedy is what I was subconsciously dreading. I, thank G-d, am happy with where I am in life. I'm not jealous of the bride, in fact I'm very happy for her. But in a community where getting married at 19 is considered the best thing that could happen to a girl, being at an event celebrating that "best thing" wasn't easy.

Quote Time

2008-01-21T14:28:00.000-08:00

I love quotes. As a student of writing I have learned that you can learn a lot from reading the words of other people. So I've decided to start posting quotes periodically. Here's my first one, from Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, who was President of the United States, a brilliant man, and a great writer. (Ain't it typical that I'm quoting a woman but know more about her husband than her?) Please note that Abigail Adams lived long before the women's liberation movement was officially started...

"If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation."

It's pretty amazing to note that Abigail Adams must have said this sometimes around when her husband was writing his famous documents about the rebellion he was involved in: The American Revolution. Two of a kind, eh?

I - Do or Don't? - Wanna Grow Up

2008-01-20T12:22:00.000-08:00

I have a wedding to go to this week. I say "have" because I don't really want to go. The bride is 19 and somehow that bothers me, though I can't decide why.

It's either because I'm slightly afraid for her that she's too young and has no idea what she's getting herself into or because I'm subconsciously jealous that she met her soul mate so young. I'm admitting to the latter because I'm trying to be honest here, but I don't really think it's true because...

I'm so happy that I didn't get married at 19. While there are pressures in the Orthodox Jewish community to get married young and most of my high school classmates are married, many with children, by now, I can't help but feel a sense of relief that I'm not one of them. Call me selfish and self-centered, but I'm glad for the time that I've had to myself without the responsibilities of a husband, children and home.

Maybe some people don't need that time to grow up and mature as much as I have. Maybe some people don't feel the need to perfect themselves before they start perfecting a family. Personally, I'd prefer to grow up before I start having kids; to learn how to take care of myself before I have to take care of others.

There are those in the frum community who argue that you should marry young and grow together with your spouse; well, that sounds all sweet and romantic but I think that there's something to be said for personal growth. How about growing into your own skin, finding out what makes you who you are - and what makes you happy - before going out and looking for a guy who'll make you happy?

Barnes & Noble Wisdom

2008-01-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

I'm a Barnes & Noble junkie: I hang out in their stores, am a member, and buy from them online. I was at one of their stores tonight and came upon a book with a title that caught my eye: "Better Single than Sorry."

I didn't read the book but from what I could see from the back cover, the basic idea that the author discusses in the book is that it's better to be single than to be stuck in a relationship with the wrong person.

It seems like a pretty reasonable idea, and it's one I've had independently long before I read the book title, yet it's not a concept often discussed in the frum community. As I've mentioned before, marriage is a top priority in the Orthodox world, and the younger the better. The state of being single is not encouraged, so "Better Single than Sorry" isn't a piece of advice you'll find common in the Orthodox community.

But it should be. Not because some woman wrote a book about it, but because while marriage is put up on a pedestal in the frum world, it doesn't always turn out so great. Too often young people get married because it's what they've always been taught is the right thing to do and because it's so exciting to be in the center of attention and they don't realize what, exactly, they're getting themselves into.

There needs to be an equal emphasis in the frum world on how being single is better than being in a bad marriage. The state of being single is so deplored that people will marry just to get away from being single, and that's a bad reason to get married.

Better single than sorry -- I have to agree with that one.

Does Clothing Make the Man\Woman? PART II

2007-12-31T22:44:00.000-08:00

I ended my last post with the following question, which I am going to respond to now:

But there are plenty of other things that G-d commands that I have questions about. The very fact that I wonder if I'm a feminist in the frum world is based on questions that I have about a woman's place in the Orthodox community. So why didn't I question the dress code?

So why don't I question the Orthodox women's dress-code if I have other problems with "Orthodox women" issues? I'd have to say that it's because I know without question, as a Jew who believes in G-d and in the divinity of the Torah (i.e. Bible), that it comes directly from G-d. And while I might take issue with some of the attitudes within the Orthodox community, I don't take issue with G-d.

One of the struggles that I have over being a feminist in the frum world is that I know that living life according to the Torah - in other words, being Orthodox, - is the right thing to do but at the same time I question a number of the community's attitudes towards women.

[In other words, I want to be frum, but there's a part of me that has very feminist-tendencies and having those tendencies conflicts with things in the frum world - conflicts with being frum, thereby causing a problem if I want to be frum. Which I do. ]

So when I know that the Torah says something, such as, "A woman must not put on a man's apparel, nor shall a man wear woman's clothing; for whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord, your God." (Deuteronomy 22:5) I don't argue with it. If the Torah says that I shouldn't wear men's clothing - i.e. pants - then I won't, and I won't question it.

But when the community has, what I see as, a sexist attitude toward women, I question it a lot more easily than I question something written in the Torah.

And that's why I don't have a problem with following the frum dress-code: because I see it as something divinely inspired, rather than less-than-flattering-towards-women inspired.

I hope that this makes sense. It does to me. If you disagree, feel free to post a comment letting me know.

Caio for now.