From the Editor
We were all daughters once
As we shape each issue of LILITH, there’s always a moment, as we sit at the library table in the office, surrounded by manuscripts (a strange word to describe computer printouts of articles, I suppose), when we worry about the “voices” speaking out from these pages. Too many first-person articles? A broad enough age range? Illustrations and headlines that will entice our readers (you!) into each story?
I have to tell you that for the issue you have in your hands, the process felt smoother than usual. I love the art, the photos, and the text. We retrieve unknown Jewish women from the history of the Spanish Civil War, explore the widespread (and utterly new) acceptance of women mohels, and glimpse what life for Jewish women was like under totalitarian regimes in Latin America.
Several very different pieces here are told from the same perspective—the daughter’s. We hear from the daughter of a silent father (she moves half a world away from him before they reconcile); the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who cherishes her mother’s unusual story; an ambivalent daughter, brought up in the maelstrom of her parents’ political activism in the 1960s; and a grown-up Londoner still treated like a youngster because she’s unattached to a male. We didn’t plan to feature daughters’ voices in this way, but the stories invited themselves together into this issue, as sometimes happens. Please let us know if they trigger “daughter” memories for you.
And now for a moment of gratitude. The names that appear at right are those of women and men without whose support the magazine you’re reading could not exist. Read through the list. If you know people on it, please thank them when you see them. If your name is there, please know how much your generosity is appreciated by LILITH’s readers.
If you would like to have the pleasure of adding your name, or that of your foundation, to the list of our supporters for next time, it’s simple. Just send your tax-deductible contribution to LILITH at 250 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10107. If you prefer to contribute via credit card, you can fax details to (212) 757-5705, or e-mail us at lilithmag@aol.com.
