Feminism & faith
Last night, I drove like mad to get from Nyack to the very bottom-most point of Manhattan, Battery Park City. It's approximately 40 miles as the crow flies, but during NYC's late rush hour, it feels like 140! The purpose of my reckless traffic experience was to visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage for the first time, to attend a program titled "Feminism and Faith."
I'd just learned about this panel conversation a mere 24 hours earlier, courtesy of an email from Kate Anne Brennan, convenor of FOR's NYC chapter, and the topic intrigued me — especially with it being Women's History Month. Plus, I knew two of the panelists, neither of whom I'd seen in years. (The personal connection always helps.)
I was especially looking forward to seeing the Rt. Rev. Jane Holmes Dixon, currently senior advisor for interreligious affairs at The Interfaith Alliance. A few years ago, when I worked for The Witness magazine, Bishop Dixon chaired our board of directors, and has been a good friend and supporter of my work ever since. The other person I knew was author and journalist Asra Nomani, whose books Tantrika and Standing Alone (in Mecca): An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam I have found to be both thoughtful and provocative. Asra is incredibly personable as well as courageous — she has traveled the world looking at the role of modern Islam, and has helped organize a couple significant events which have challenged Muslim orthodoxy's commitment to male-only leadership.
The third speaker was author Blu Greenberg, the founder of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and author of On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition. The panel was skillfully moderated by writer Kathryn Joyce, who recently published Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement.
It was particularly interesting to hear their reflections on the nature of "feminism," a word that still seems to have negative triggers for some women (not to mention shuddering men) — and based on their responses, this is particularly the case with older women who lived through the 1960s and '70s feminist movement era. It was intriguing that, on the one hand, Bishop Dixon (in her early 70s) would not define herself as a feminist, and that Ms. Greenberg (also a grandmother) acknowledged that it took her decades to do so — yet both of them spoke pointedly to younger women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s of the need to honor the gains made by that movement. They expressed concern that some of today's women leaders — especially those who "sit in corner offices on Park Avenue in Manhattan or on K Street in Washington" — appear to discount any need for a feminist movement today.
Unfortunately, the fact that the panelists responded so deeply to the several themes that Ms. Joyce outlined left little time for audience questions, and my hand was one of a number still waving when the program ended. I had looked forward to letting these "daughters of Abraham" and the audience members know about the delegation I'd co-led to Iran last year, along with Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb. Given the focus of this conversation, much of which addressed the myriad of ways that women are breaking down barriers in their religious traditions, I knew they would have been intrigued by the fact that a woman rabbi not only traveled to the Islamic Republic of Iran, but was invited to speak on the bima altar in a synagogue there — and called on the Iranian Jewish community to ordain women to the rabbinicate! Click here for a short reflection I wrote in Iran on the experience, and click here for an article that Rabbi Lynn wrote about her ongoing work with regard to peacemaking between Iran and the U.S.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation will continue to honor Women's History Month with an evening program on Saturday, March 28th launching the book release of Marked for Life: The Story of Hildegard Goss-Mayr. Click here for more information about the book and the event. Please join us if you can, and whether or not you can attend, be sure to get a copy of this excellent new book by FOR leader Richard Deats!
