The Women’s Passover Companion

A groundbreaking conversation in the voices of Jewish women-rabbis, scholars, activists, artists-about the themes of the Exodus and exile, oppression and liberation, history and memory, as they relate to contemporary women's lives.

Foreword, Paula E. Hyman xi Preface xvii Acknowledgments xxi Introduction xxv Part 1: Why Women's Seders? 1 For Women Only 4 Esther Broner The Continuing Value of Separatism 9 Judith Plaskow Creating the Ma'yan Women's Seder: Balancing Comfort, Challenge, and Community 14 Tamara Cohen and Erika Katske Miriam and Our Dance of Freedom: Seder in Prison 22 Judith Clark Every Voice Matters: Community and Dialogue at a Women's Seder 26 Catherine Spector God's Redemption: Memory and Gender on Passover 32 Norma Baumel Joseph An Embrace of Tradition 38 Tara Mohr Part 2: Reclaiming and Re-creating Passover Rituals for Women 45 Thoughts on Cleaning for Pesach 49 Haviva Ner-David We Can't Be Free Until All Women Are Important 54 Leah Shakdiel Setting a Cup for Miriam 59 Vanessa L. Ochs The Celebration of Challenge: Reclaiming the Four Children 65 Leora Eisenstadt Orange on the Seder Plate 70 Susannah Heschel The Open Door: The Tale of Idit and the Passover Paradox 78 Sandy Eisenberg Sasso A New Song for a Different Night: Sephardic Women's Musical Repertoire 84 Judith Wachs I Will Be with You: The Divine Presence on Passover 99 Carol Ochs Part 3: Women of Exodus 105 Shiru l'Adonai: Widening the Circle of Memory and History 108 Judith Rosenbaum Miriam's Leadership: A Reconstruction 113 Lori Lefkovitz Their Lives a Page Plucked from a Holy Book 119 Margaret Moers Wenig With Strong Hands and Outstretched Arms 128 Sharon Cohen Anisfeld The Secret of Redemption: A Tale of Mirrors 135 Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg "Fixing" Liberation, or How Rebecca Initiates the Passover Seder 142 Bonna Devora Haberman }Part 4: Telling Our Stories 149 A Story for the Second Night of Passover 153 Ruth Behar Jephthah's Daughter: A Feminist Midrash 159 Letty Cottin Pogrebin Memory and Revolution 165 Dianne Cohler-Esses Leaving on Purpose: The Questions of Women's Tefillah 171 Chavi Karkowsky Of Nursing, in the Desert 177 Janna Kaplan On Matzah, Questions, and Becoming a Nation 182 Leah Haber God's Bride on Pesach 188 Kim Chernin The Matzah Set-Up 196 Jenya Zolot-Gassko Women Re-creating the Passover Seder: Bella Rosenfeld Chagall and the Resonance of Female Memory 202 Judith R. Baskin Part 5: Visions and Challenges for the Future 209 Sanctified by Ritual 213 Phyllis Chesler Reflections on the Feminist Seder as an Entry Point into Jewish Life 220 Lilly Rivlin Placing Our Bettes: Keepin' It Real at the Seder Table 225 Ophira Edut Pluralism in Feminist Settings 229 Martha Ackelsberg Conflict and Community: The Common Ground of Judaism and Feminism 235 Ruth Kaplan What Now? After the Exodus, the Wilderness 240 Sharon Kleinbaum Letting Pharaoh Go: A Biblical Study of Internalized Oppression 246 Ela Thier Reflections on Exodus in Light of Palestinian Suffering 251 Lynn Gottlieb Walking the Way as Women 256 Merle Feld Notes 263 Glossary 283 Bibliography 293 Index 297 About Jewish Lights 307