Happening

RESPONSES TO VIOLENCE

The Awareness Center addresses sexual abuse in Jewish communities around the world. It provides the Jewish community, rabbis and other authority figures, and the news media with information relating to sexual abuse, offenders, healing and treatment issues. They also have created an online Jewish survivors group. www.TheAwarenessCenter.org

Violence against women is a form of social control which has wide-ranging effects on women’s poverty. The Trapped by Poverty/Trapped by Abuse research conference—October 17-19, 2003 in Austin, Texas—will bring together researchers, policymakers, service providers, advocates, and elected officials. Organizers are taking nominations for the first Sheila and Paul Wellstone Award for Advocacy in Work, Welfare, and Domestic Violence, to be presented at the conference. www.ssw.umich.edu/trapped/nominations.html

Violence against women and human rights activists—an essay contest. Practitioners and scholars are invited to submit essays up to 1200 words for Human Rights Dialogue’s fall 2003 issue. Essays should explore the effectiveness of the human rights framework in defining and eradicating violence against women. Guidelines ask provocative questions, such as “Does your organization find it preferable to conned violence against women to issues of children, family or motherhood?” Submissions should be in an engaging, informal, and testimonial style. Inquiries to: Erin Mahoney, (212)838-4120; emahoney@cceia.org. www.cceia.org

IS THIS YOUR STORY?

Children of non-Holocaust survivor Jewish parents are needed for a study analyzing their responses compared to those of children of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Respondents should have at least one European Jewish ancestor: mother, father, grandparent, great-grand-parent. If you are willing to complete a questionnaire, contact Roni Woolrich (516)877-3999×750021; Roniwool@aol.com

“The potent cocktail of ritual, acne, insecurity and hormones” that was the bar/bat mitzvah experience for many Jewish adolescents from the 1960s to the early ’90s is the subject of a website (and eventually a book) created by Nick Kroll, Jules Shell and Roger Bennett. Send stories, archival photos, T-shirts, centerpieces, “themes” and other memorabilia to www.barmitzvahdisco.com

Interfaith Families Essay Contest. Tell your personal story of involvement in Jewish life, what you do, what it means to you, what has helped you get involved and what obstacles you’ve overcome. First prize is $1000. E-mail your 500-800-wordes says by June 20 to contest@interfaithfamily.com. www.interfaithfamily.com

Seeking relatives or lost friends Down Under.

Browse Jewish Australia, peruse the notice board pages, and perhaps you can help to make it “a small world after all,” suggests Aura Levin Lipski. www.jewishcaistralia.com

HAPPENINGS

Anne Frank, the writer, an unfinished story. Original pages from Anne Frank’s last diary note book along with other writings and her photo album will be on display June12 to September 12, 2003 at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. www.ushmm.gov

Kfar Jewish Arts Center.

Hebrew for “village,” Kfar bills itself as “the next generation of Jewish expression, “bringing together a community of Jewish musicians, writers, performers, artists and audiences to celebrate contemporary Jewish culture, fo receive a bimonthly e-mail of Jewish cultural events in Chicago, contact Adam Davis, (773)550-1543; www.kfarcenter.com

The Women Cantors’ Network, organized in 1982, is a resource for working, aspiring, or retired women cantors. It provides professional, educational and practical support for women in—or interested in—the cantorate. An annual conference, this year held June 15-18, includes workshops on vocal health, children’s choir music, choral singing and conducting, a cabaret featuring women cantors, and a marketplace selling music and Judaica provided by members. For membership or conference info: (203)438-5609; www.womencantors.net.

Transforming the Jewish World: a Feminist View, a conference sponsored by the Eleanor Leff Jewish Women’s Research Center, National Council of Jewish Women New York Center—held Nov 2 at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan—will celebrate the accomplishments of Jewish Feminism. Speakers include Blu Greenberg, Franeine Klags brun. Elizabeth Swados, Alice Shalvi. Infofrom Annette Landau, aland@ncjwny.org

“The Postwoman,” directed by Dina Zvi-Riklis, “All I’ve Got,” directed by Karen Margalit, and ” 1000 Calories,” directed by Dalia Mevorach are among the women-centered features, documentaries, student shorts and made-for-TV films playing at the 19thannual Israel Film Festival in New York June 19-July 3 and in Miami November 13-20. (877)966-5566; www.Israelfilmfestivcd.com; israfest@earthlink.net

Jewish mothers on display.

The Jewish Museum of Maryland is planning an exhibition on Jewish mothers, tentatively set to open September 2005. If you have anecdotes, bibliography ideas, objects, photos, or thoughts on what should be included or emphasized, contact research historian Deborah Weiner, Jewish Museum of Maryland,15 Lloyd St., Baltimore, MD,21202; dweiner@jewishmuseummd.org

ARCHIVAL RESOURCES

Women in Daily Life, the first selective bibliography posted on the Center for Jewish History website, was created by partners AJHS(American Jewish Historical Society); ASF (American Sephardi Federation); LBI(Leo Baeck Institute); and YIVO (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research) and the Yeshiva University Museum(YUM) www.cjh.org

Scholar & Feminist Online, a biannual, multimedia, online-only journal of feminist theories and women’s movements, provides public access to the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s Programming, making available written transcripts, audio and visual recordings, and links to relevant intellectual and social action networks. A forum for scholars, activists, and artists, recent guest editors have included Marjorie Agosin (Writing Towards Hope: Literature, Art, & the Struggle for Human Rights) and Laura Levitt (Changing Focus: Family Photography &American Jewish Identity:) www.barnard.edu/sfonline

Feeding an identity: gender food, and survival is the theme of an issue of Nashim guest-edited by Norma Baumel Joseph. Among the offerings: essays by Carol Meyers on “Bread Production and Female Power in Ancient Israelite Households,” “Eating ‘Out’: Food and the Boundaries of Jewish Community and Home in Germany and the United States,” and Paulette Kershenovich on the construction of identity through food in the Syrian Jewish community in Mexico. Nashim@schechter org.il; hirijw@brandeis.edu

ROE AT THIRTY

Being a clinic escort or sending postcards of appreciation are a few ways to to help stop the isolation and create a positive climate for abortion providers across the country. Remember and honor Dr. David Gunn the first provider murdered, and others who put their lives on the line daily to make choice possible. Without abortion providers, there can be no “choice.” And without choice women cannot be free to live and plan their lives. www.refuseandresist.org/ab/march10/2003/pdf/what-you-can-do.pdf

Judicial appointments.

Keep informed and participate in a campaign to communicate to your legislators your concern that they oppose the appointment of anti-choice judges, www.prochoiceaction.org/campaign

PIONEER WOMEN

The Plough Woman: Records of the Pioneer Women of Palestine. In the words of Rachel Kaznelson-Rubashov (Shazar), who wrote in the introduction in 1931,”This book is, in form and content, the mirror of a great episode in the history of Jewish woman hood. It is not a literary enterprise. It is a simple collection of human documents, a cooperative effort to record, in direct personal reports, the spirit and achievements of a generation of women.” This extraordinary collection of poignant and courageous voices has been reissued in a critical annotated edition, prepared Mark Raider and Miriam Raider-Roth, from Brandeis/New England Press.

Living for Tomorrow: Untold Stories by the Pioneering Women of Israel is a documentary film based on a 1944 book. Women of the Kibbutz, published in what was then Palestine. Made by the granddaughter of one of them, these women in their 80s and 90s tell about their personal experiences building the kibbutz, a Utopia of collective ownership and share decision-making which they hoped would become the spiritual kernel of the new Jewish nation. Lilach Dekel,(917)576-/416; lilach@dekelmedia.com