Jezebel 
Enter your username and password.
-
posts about #africanamericanjews more → 
L'Chaim! Woman Becomes First African-American Female Rabbi
New York, 6:49 AM
Wed Dec 9
67 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Anna Holmes
| Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Dodai Stewart
| Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor:
Tracie Egan
| Twitter
Contributing Editors:
Anna North
| Twitter
Sadie Stein
| Twitter
Reporter:
Irin Carmon
| Twitter
Editorial Assistant:
Margaret Hartmann
| Twitter
Contributors:
Rich Juzwiak
Email | Twitter
Latoya Peterson
Email
Jenna Sauers
Lizzie Skurnick
Interns:
Katy Kelleher
Twitter
Weekends/Commenter Moderator:
Hortense
| Twitter
| posts about #africanamericanjews more → |
L'Chaim! Woman Becomes First African-American Female Rabbi |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
05/22/09
Also: REFORM JEWS RULE!
(That's just my reform pride peekin' through...)
05/22/09
My congregation has people of all races, I feel so fortunate to have grown up that way.
I want to move to Greenville now, though!
05/22/09
05/22/09
Mazel Tov on your conversion, and welcome the cockroach religion!
05/22/09
05/22/09
05/22/09
The rabbi of Chicago's Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, Rabbi Capers C. Funnye (to which I can only say: Really? That's quite a name!) is Michelle Obama's cousin.
For real!
[www.jewishjournal.com]
[www.nytimes.com]
05/22/09
Sadie, one semantic quibble, one that I struggle with myself after 14 years in Israel, where the synagogue everyone doesn't go to is Orthodox: Let's not say "more religious," let's say "more traditional." I have a feeling that almost-Rabbi Stanton and other female rabbis are very religious -- they're just not terribly traditional. Orthodoxy has no monopoly on faith or religiousity.
05/22/09
05/22/09
Conversion is really interesting. Everyone I've asked had some kind of trigger, someone in their life who kind of inspired the process. Coverts do tend to be the most hardcore, but a lot of the converts I know have kind of left the faith they converted to.
05/22/09
05/22/09
The real reason? Sexism.
05/22/09
The original reason was primarily division of labor. It's very easy for us to stand on a feminist high-horse with all our modern medicine and conveniences, but birthing and raising healthy babies was some pretty time and labor intesive shit back in the day. Who was going to do that and go to the church/temple all day and squabble over spiritual law vs. secular law?
I mean, it's 25 AD, you've got two nursing infants, no breast pump, no antibiotics, no Zoloft...yes you're too emotional and weak to take on another job! And I don't know if there are any Pastors or Rabbis here to back me up, but being the leader of an entire congregation is not easy work.
I guess we can argue about how much of that is still true today, but most denominations other than the Catholic Church have figured out that it's doable and given women the green light.
05/22/09
(Not to mention there have been, historically, religions with female priestesses. So it was clearly feasible.)
05/22/09
After all: "A pious man had been married to a pious woman but, being childless, they were divorced. He then went and married a wicked woman, and she made him wicked. The divorced woman proceeded and married a wicked man and she made a good man out of him. It thus follows that everything depends upon the woman." (Genesis Rabbah 17:7)
Proverbs 31:10-31 is frequently read at weddings, and that is about the ideal woman, which includes (NIV) "She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard." Pretty high praise, yes.
05/22/09
The religious center may be a home, but who centered women in the home? Some women may naturally gravitate to that role; many don't but are pushed into it. I don't want to be praised for my gentle ways, or my nurturing aspects, or my ability to prop somebody else up. (As so many religions do.) Why should a woman be responsible for a man's character? I'm an adult, he's an adult, we should each be able to care for ourselves.
I could go on, but I genuinely don't want to be offensive. I just don't see the point in being an apologist for religions that have patted women on the head and told them "but you're so sweet!!" for millennia.
05/22/09
@Laulau: I wasn't talking about modern times...we've made it possible for women to do a lot of things outside of the home now. And ancient religions that had priestesses did not have the same type of organizational structure or demand the same things as church leadership in most major organized religions today.
As for sexism...well that's a debate that goes way beyond the scope of this thread but I still think you're over-simplifying. Nothing about it is plain and simple.
05/22/09
Again, I'm certainly not trying to argue that all religion is bad, but certainly the leading religions seem sexist to me.
05/22/09
05/22/09
05/22/09
05/22/09
05/22/09
Interfaith marriage, on the other hand, is a whole other deal...
05/22/09
I think the spirit of that was meant to include converts! In fact, I've heard it said that a convert is dearer to God than the Israelites at Sinai because the Israelites had a whole lot of convincing (what with being recently led from slavery through a parted sea and all), but a person who independently pledges to accept the burden/responsiblity of following all those rules is something special.
Eh? How'm I doing Jewzebels? Either way, Mazel Tov Sister Jones!
05/23/09
05/22/09
After my adult bat mitzvah a couple of years ago, I was secretly on fire to do this. But now I wouldn't be the first!
05/22/09
05/22/09
National Geographic has a pretty nice one with photos of children celebrating Hanukkah all over the world.
05/22/09
It's just one of those things that bugs me that it still needs to be explained. It should be a no-brainer: Judaism is not an ethnicity. Anyone can be Jewish. You don't have to look like me (I do fit the stereotype pretty well). It goes hand-in-hand with how I have to explain to people that all Jews don't talk like Linda Richman.
05/22/09
05/22/09
05/22/09
05/22/09
Me: "Yeah, I can understand how the two eyes, one nose and bipedalism might throw you off."
05/23/09
Also: my cousins are Semitic, and therefore look Arab, and whenever we're together we get the double whammy of 'you don't look Jewish'/'you guys aren't related; you're not even the same colour'. Ah, people.
05/22/09
That's a lot of awesome right there.
05/22/09
05/22/09
[en.wikipedia.org]
05/22/09
05/22/09
The interesting thing, though, is that many of them didn't consider themselves "jewish" as we define it today. It was through study of their culture that people realized they were an older for of Judaism, more biblical, which is why they are thought to be the lost tribe.
05/22/09
05/22/09
05/22/09
05/22/09