Jezebel 
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New York, 5:33 AM
Sat Nov 21
67 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/19/09
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But being arrested? Bullshit. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled many years ago that women are legally entitled to wear tallitot. The problem is with the religious fanatics who the Israeli goverment allows to run the holy sites.
11/19/09
Are there some places I can read nice things about this communty and kind of balance out all the negative things I read about them?
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A few Ultra-Orthodox movements like the Lubas encourage women to be strong, independent, well-educated...wives and mothers. Not scholars, not community leaders, not religious leaders, not political leaders. Just wives and mothers. Hasidic women can be strong and smart, provided they stay in their place and be subservient to their husbands and fathers.
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#tips
11/19/09
I could read Torah from the bimah of a Lubavich congregation? Or I could be on the bimah and read haftorah or a drash or something that's not actually Torah? I didn't think any of the haredim would allow women to read Torah.
11/19/09
#tips
11/19/09
I am an ultra orthodox woman, and I do not support arresting a woman based on her wearing a tallis. I have many, many wonderful stories I can share with you, about how my community has done incredible things to help people.
I work for Bikur Cholim, and organization that pays for people's medical bills. And they don't discriminate between orthodox and non-orthodox, but they were founded by the orthodox. A woman came in with a brain tumor, no insurance. ALL EXPENSES PAID. No questions asked.
People in my community have lost their houses, their ability to buy food, their ability to sustain medical insurance. Bam. Orthodox Jews started a charity (PM me for the details) that paid people's rent, bought back people's houses, gave people meals every week, and pays for your insurance premiums.
And that's just for starters.
11/19/09
I guess that's why I'm an ultra-orthodox woman with a Ph.D in the hard sciences, married and using birth control, which my Rabbi has no problem with. I guess that's also why I'm on the board of a major charity - you know, being socially inferior and all. Good to know!
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11/19/09
As an aside, I'm sorry you've been harrassed by people at the wall. You should be able to wear your tallit where you want. It's frustrating to encounter anti-women sentiments, which are unfortunately present in every religion and ethnic group. I'm happy that this post went up in Jezebel, to hopefully further tolerance of women's rights, but not to bash a segment of a population.
#tips
11/19/09
I even had haredi women throw stones at me for wearing jeans and a turtleneck in West Jerusalem (and no, I wasn't in Me'ah Shearim, I was walking out of the Machane Yehuda). If they're going to treat me with that kind of overt hostility and their rabbis are going tell me I'm spiritually inferior, I'm going to bash them. Woman-haters and harassers don't get a free pass just because they're the same religion as me.
#tips
11/19/09
Please tell me which orthodox community you live in that gives you first hand knowledge of what goes on in them.
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11/19/09
Well, Boro Park is fraction of the Orthodox community. There's one on the southern shore of Long Island, towns all over New Jersey, Connecticut, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami etc etc. filled with Orthodox Jews who are nothing like the Jews who live in one town in Brooklyn. They are by far the minority within the Orthodox minority.
11/19/09
And if you read back in this thread, you'll realize I'm talking about the Haredim/Ultra-Orthodox specifically, not the Orthodox. Haredi in the US live mostly in the NYC area, and the Satmars in Borough Park are one of the largest and most prominent Haredi communities in the world.
#tips
11/19/09
At least I can tell you that I'm Orthodox, Ive studied in yeshivot in America and Israel, yalmuka, tefillin etc... and if i saw women in tellesim at the Kotel I wouldnt care less. Do what makes you happy. I would cringe if I saw someone yelling at the Women of the Wall members.
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I had a teacher in high school who was Orthodox and kept very strictly to the rules, etc. He was very nice but an impossible teacher. He basically just ignored the girls.
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Stuff like this is a large part of why I am not religious. The organized hypocrisy just gets me.
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That Orthodox man's quote about men's and women's respective responsibilities told me basically: "It's the woman's job to do all the hard stuff. Men get to read and discuss what they read."
It reminds me of Proverbs 31 -- this woman is strong and capable and basically running a household and business while her husband sits around with other men at the city gates all day. And yet she's still lesser than men are somehow and doesn't deserve direct access to the word of god?
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IMO, as someone who's lived in both countries, it's actually easier to be a secular Jew in Israel than in the U.S., because being Jewish is considered a default rather than something you constantly have to reassert or risk fading into the Gentile background.
11/19/09
I'm involved right now in a nightly Torah learning program. Also, there's the highly popular "Partners in Torah", (google for more info) where women across states and even countries get to learn Torah with each other over the phone. Feel free to sign up! You might be surprised how many people DO NOT subscribe to the "torah is for the men".
11/19/09
#tips
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#tips
11/15/09
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on the other hand, i find it interesting how the same phenomenon rarely happens on the other side of the fence to their "rivals" on the left. how many liberal leaders are caught secretly picketing planned parenthood or bashing their gay neighbors? not so much it seems and thus the label of hypocrisy falls where it deserves. #religion
11/14/09
When I point out the hypocrisy of the world's Carrie Prejean's and Ted Haggard's and a million others, I want the response to be "Aw, well, perhaps we should realize that we're all human, that we make mistakes, and even that many of the things we hold as bad- like sex- are possibly natural and normal. Let's stop holding folks up to the limelight and demanding they live impossible lives, and instead let Jesus be the best representative of our religion.".
And I'm still completely naive, because that's never the response. It's always to condemn, to push down harder and try to find someone even squeakier clean (or sanitized and ready for media presentation, rather) to say that same thing until it all happens again.
I think I'm rambling, but yeah. I never know how to respond to these things, because I'm hoping for a revolution towards more liberal Christianity that isn't going to come ... #religion
11/14/09
11/14/09
People who are more liberal in their beliefs (the primary aspect of which is *not* taking holy scriptures literally) have less reason to be judgy and less reason to try to save people's souls for eternity.
You're pretty much not going to find evangelicals getting more liberal en masse because in their view that is backsliding or losing faith or some other very bad thing, but you can find a different group of Christians who are more liberal.
-ex-evangelical atheist #religion
11/14/09
I remember thinking that if their faith couldn't stand up to a solid education in reason and logic, then I should be more fearful of staying in the church than leaving for school.
There is no room for learning and growing or applying new ideas within the evangelical faith. Anything beyond the literal word of the Bible (of course, only the verses they like), is a one-way highway to hell. #religion
11/15/09
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After all the sex tapes and such, I doubt any school would hire her. #religion
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The fact that Carrie Prejean attempts to speak for evangelical Christianity when she isn't such a great representative is a minor problem compared to the fact that she takes that further and attempts to speak for ALL Christians, when there are plenty of Christians (like my dad, who is a pastor and has a Ph.D. in Christian theology) who are supportive of gay marriage and reproductive rights, and appalled by Sarah Palin. Oh, and who also realize they're not a persecuted minority in this country and who take responsibility for their own actions rather than cry "religious discrimination!" every time someone looks at them funny.
Since Christianity Today is a pretty conservative publication, it would be interesting to compare the comments here with ones on a similar article by, say, the Christian Century or Sojourners (though that'll be the day when either of those magazines decides to run an interview with Prejean). Only then would you maybe get a true snapshot of the "Christian community."
11/14/09
My mom, who isn't even an active christian said to me one day "You know, christians are the only groups its ok the discriminate against these days. In fact, for liberals, its encouraged." She didn't use to be like this. She used to just be a normal conservative, but shes been all foxized and thinks that white christian businessmen are the most oppressed people in the nation. #religion
11/15/09
And I think that's a group of people who could use a lot MORE criticism.
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But I also don't think it was Christians who set her up as a role model. I think those who were appalled by her decided she represented the voice of Christianity. But there is no one voice of Christianity, as you all have pointed out. It's just that the most extreme voices are the ones people listen to.
And @voteforme, if I disagree with someone, I think it's worth an effort to try to tell them why. It's better to lead the horse to the water than to just let it sit in the desert.
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What a bizarrely (Freudian?) slip? #religion
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I've always thought he looked like a raw sausage. #religion