Happening

GROUPS AND PROJECTS
Women and Judaism is a group of women who are questioning the relationship of women to Reform Jewish practice. Their aim is to raise awareness among congregations and the movement as a whole of the parameters women come up against when we seek a new definition of ourselves. They are currently working on a project to provide information on “Women and Tallit,” and will soon be producing a pamphlet of their findings. Inquiries and suggestions are welcome. Contact:

Barbara Borts c/0 The Manor House
80 East End Road Finchley London N.3 England

“Full Moon, Full Life: A Modern Woman’s Perspectives on Judaism” is a documentary film project that explores attempts made by Jewish women to reconcile their tradition with feminist ideals. By documenting the rites of passage of a Jewish woman through the various stages of her life, the film will address the challenges and choices she makes. To date, this project is being partially funded by the Quebec government, but additional support is being sought. For further information, write:

Ina Fichman (Producer/Director) Full Moon Productions
5325 Gatineau Street Montreal Quebec H3T 1X1 Canada

The Mount Sinai Rape Crisis Intervention Program provides support services for survivors of sexual assault, their families and friends. Over 100 trained volunteer advocates and staff are available for companionship during emergency room procedures. RCIP also has a speakers bureau, which offers educational presentations free of charge. For more information, contact:

Mount Sinai Medical Center Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science One Gustave L. Levy Place New York NY
10029 (212) 650-5461/5493

Senior Options and Support (SOS) is a community service project sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women, New York Section, to provide older adults and their children with answers to such questions as the limitations of Medicare, how to choose a nursing home, problems with Social Security, and the like. The Hotline operates from 10 to 1, Monday through Thursday, and may be reached by calling:

(212) 535-5900

EVENTS

The ninth annual National Women’s Studies Association conference, “Weaving Women’s Colors: A Decade of Empowerment,” a conference on the intersection of race and gender, will take place June 24-28, 1987, at Spelman College in Atlanta GA. For more information, contact:

NWSA ’87 P.O. Box
21223 Atlanta GA 30322 (404) 727-7845

The Jewish Vegetarians of North America are holding a “Jewish Vegetarian” conference in New York City on May 24, 1987. The conference will include cooking demonstrations as well as samples, and various speakers. For more information, contact:

Jewish Vegetarians of North America
P.O. Box 1463 Baltimore MD 21203 (301) 752-8348

A program in Yiddish is available from the Oxford Centre for Hebrew Studies, an associate institute of the University of Oxford. Courses will run from August 3-28, 1987. Enquiries and requests for applications may be directed to:

Ms. Jean Nightingale Administrative Director Oxford Programme in Yiddish Oxford Centre for Hebrew Studies
45 St. Giles Oxford OX1 3LW, England (0865) 511869

The Feminist Women’s Writing Workshops will again be held on the lakeside campus of Wells College, Aurora NY from July 12-24, 1987. This year’s guest writer, Diane di Prima, is an experienced teacher, performer, and author of 22 books of poetry and prose. Tuition, private room, and board are included in the fee of $630 (for non- resident participants tuition is only $430). For a detailed brochure and more information, contact:

Katharyn Machan Aal, Director Feminist Women’s Writing Workshops
P.O. Box 456 Ithaca NY 14851 (607) 273-9040

DRAMA, FILM, VIDEO

Among the current Cinema Guild film and video releases are “Breaking the Silence: The Generation After the Holocaust,” a documentary by Eva Fogelman which focuses on the experiences of the children of Holocaust survivors. For further information, contact:

The Cinema Guild
1697 Broadway New York NY 10019

A film by Oren Rudavsky, “Spark Among the Ashes: A Bar Mitzvah in Poland,” which follows the story of an American boy’s Bar Mitzvah in Crakow and the human drama of religious and social controversy which accompanied it, is available for rental or sale from:

The Filmakers Library
133 East 58th Street New York NY 10022

“Zion’s Captives,” an eight-minute UJA videotape on the plight of the Soviet Jews, focusing on longtime refusenik Ida Nudel, is cleared for broadcast and available in all formats. Contact:

United Jewish Appeal 99 Park Avenue Rm.
300 New York NY 10016 (212) 818-9100, ext. 366

“Independent Filmmakers: Looking At Ourselves: A Guide to Films Featured in the Jewish Film Festival” is a 61-page paperback listing and describing over 100 new Jewish subject films premiered by the Jewish Film Festival, a Berkeley-based resource center on Jewish film, in 20 cities since its founding in 1981. The illustrated book, edited by Deborah Kaufman and Janis Plotkin—the JFF’s Director and Associate Director, respectively—also features short articles on independent film, Holocaust cinema, new Israeli movies, and how to organize a film festival, plus resource listings. The main body of the paperback is devoted to descriptions of films, many of them dealing with Jewish women. These include:
• “Anou Banou: The Daughters of Utopia,” (France, 1982). The lives of six pioneers who came to Palestine in the 1920’s with Socialist, Zionist, and feminist politics, and their lives today.
• “As If It Were Yesterday,” (France U.S., 1980). Secret network among Belgians in World War II, especially young women, to shelter children.
• “Charlotte,” (Holland, 1980). The life, work and loves of artist Charlotte Salomon, who perished in the Holocaust. (Some of her work was featured in LILITH 12/13).
• “Each Other,” (Israel, 1980). Love and intimacy between women in present-day Israel.
• “In Her Own Time,” (U.S., 1985). Traces the work of anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff (reviewed in LIUTH #7) and her exploration of Judaism as her death from cancer approached.
• “Malou,” (Germany, 1983). A woman’s search for the history of her dead mother, a German Jew abandoned by her husband in Buenos Aires.
• “The Night of the Long Knives,” (U.S., 1983). Two women of the Los Angeles punk scene confront punk use of Nazi symbols.
• “The Story of Esther,” (U.S., 1977). An 82-year-old woman talks about her life, then and now, on New York’s Lower East Side.

Copies of the guide, at $9.00 each, plus 50 cents postage and handling, can be ordered from:

Jewish Film Festival
2600 10th Street Berkeley CA 94710

“A Life of Song: A Portrait of Ruth Rubin, Yiddish Folksinger and Folklorist,” is an excellent resource for havurot (study groups), reading circles, synagogues and classrooms. It features the life and work of Dr. Ruth Rubin, an 80-year-old scholar and performer who, over the last 45 years has collected over 2,000 songs from immigrant Jews. This represents the largest collection of Yiddish folksongs in the world compiled by a single individual. In the videotape, Rubin’s interpretations of Yiddish folksongs reveal the rich legacy of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. The videotape is available from:

Cindy Marshall Productions
76 Columbus Avenue Somerville MA 02143 (617) 625-5986

“Dialogue with Leah Shakdiel,” a 24-minute video cassette, deals with Shakdiel’s ordeal in trying to assume the religious council seat to which she was nominated in Yeroham, a small town in the Negev. It is available for $9.95 from:

New Israel Fund
111 West 40th Street (Rm 2600) New York NY 10018

“Miriam’s Daughters Now” is a 29-minute video cassette by Lilly Rivlin documenting attempts by Jewish feminists to rethink rituals which have excluded them in the past. The video includes three ceremonies: the Rosh Hashana ritual of Tashlich — the discarding of one’s sins; a feminist seder that reexamines the Biblical Exodus story with regard to modern issues and concerns; and a baby-naming ceremony conducted by the newborn’s parents, both of whom are rabbis. The video cassette is available from:

El Ar Films
463 West Street (#510A) New York NY 10014

“Salt of the Earth,” the unique classic popularized by thousands of 16mm showings by women’s groups during the 1970’s, is now available on high quality VHS and Beta. The only film blacklisted during the McCarthy era, it poignantly portrays the true story of a Chicana’s political awakening during a 1950’s zinc mine strike in New Mexico. The tape is available from:

Voyager Press
2139 Manning Avenue Los Angeles CA 90025 (800) 446-2001

A new film directed by Lorraine Gray, “The Global Assembly Line,” which follows with detail and intimacy the lives of working women and men in the “free trade zones” of developing countries, is available from:

New Day Films
22 Riverview Drive Wayne NJ 07470-3191

Centre Productions, Inc., and Rustad/ Wickham Video will release “Self-Defense for Women,” a 90-minute videotape designed to teach women of all ages strategies and exercises for self-defense. For more information, contact:

Bonnie White Centre Productions, Inc.
1800 30th Street, Suite 207 Boulder, CO 80301

“Golda Meir: ‘A Woman of Valor'” is a dramatic presentation with music about the life, times and character of Golda Meir, as portrayed by Sascha Garson. Garson’s career as a character actress spans community theater in her native New York City, Mexico, and currently in San Diego. She has dramatized the problems of women, the elderly, and the stigmatized mentally ill by organizing the Sascha Garson Mobile Theater, and the Plays for Living touring company sponsored by the Jewish Family Service. For more information, or to book this program, contact:

Golda 1318 Felton Street San Diego, CA 92102 (619) 239-0108

PUBLICATIONS

B’nai B’rith Women has published “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,” a booklet

that gives an overview of the United Nations treaty on this issue. Single copies of the booklet are available free of charge, and additional copies are 75 cents each. Send requests to:

B’nai B’rith Women
1640 Rhode Island Ave., NW Washington DC 20036

Two collections of works by the celebrated Yiddish poet Rachel Korn have been translated by friends of the National Yiddish Book Center. For more information, contact: The National Yiddish Book Center P.O. Box 969 Amherst MA 01004 B’nai B’rith Women is offering a child care booklet, giving guidelines for selecting quality day care. To obtain a copy of the booklet, send $2 to:

B’nai B’rith Women
1640 Rhode Island Avenue, NW Washington DC 20036

The Legal Committee of the Chicago Chapter of the American Jewish Committee has published a pamphlet on the legal and social implications of a religious Jewish divorce, “get.” For a copy of the pamphlet, “Divorce and Jewish Law,” send a SASE to:

American Jewish Committee
165 East 56th Street New York NY 10022

“Feed the World,” a teacher’s guide to helping students understand the Jewish perspective on world hunger, is a publication of the Coalition for Alternatives in Jewish Education. “Feed the World” contains a series of lesson plans designed to help students clarify their own thinking about the hunger problem and plan a course of action for their personal participation in the effort to alleviate it. It also contains a list of books, films, and filmstrips on world hunger, as well as a list of organizations that deal with the subject. For information, contact:

CAJE 468 Park Avenue South New York NY 10016 (212) 696-0740

For a number of years, the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) has had an active Jewish Caucus, which has worked hard to increase awareness of Jewish issues and to develop Jewish programming. At the 1986 NWSA conference in Urbana, 1L, approximately 600 women attended the plenary session entitled “Jewish Women’s Voices: Diversity and Community.” A tape of the plenary is available for $6 from:

NWSA University of Maryland College Park
MD 20074

Heritage, a newsletter published quarterly by the Illinois Ethnic Consultation, an organization sponsored largely by the American Jewish Committee, is publishing a special issue on ethnic women. This special issue will deal with problems faced by ethnic women in maintaining traditions which often come into sharp conflict with the modern world in which they live. For a review copy of the special issue of Heritage, contact:

Heritage News Service
55 East Jackson Blvd. Chicago IL 60604

In celebration of the renewal of the Statue of Liberty, and in honor of the famous poem by Emma Lazarus which graces it, Biblio Press is offering an Emma Lazarus poster: 18″ x 24″ on heavy stock, in full color, with her poem. The posters can be ordered from:

Biblio Press
P.O. Box 22 Fresh Meadows NY 11365

CALLS FOR MATERIALS

Earthwise Review is sponsoring the Anne Frank Youth Award for Poetry, a children’s poetry competition. Prizes will be certificates of merit awarded to both the child and to the school the child attends. Please specify grade, age of student, name on each entered page, address, name of school, and name of teacher. An adult must sign each completed entry. Entries shall be judged on neatness, form, content and overall poetic talent as determined by the judge. Form is poet’s choice, and there is no entry fee. Send entries by August 31, 1987, to:

Contest Editor c/o Earthwise Review
P.O. Box 680-536 Miami FL 33168

For a history of Jewish cookbooks, anyone with manuscripts and printed books, in any language, as well as women’s magazines and other popular periodicals for or read by Jewish women that dealt with food, domestic science, housekeeping, etc, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or information on others working on this or related topics, please contact:

Dr. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
231 Bowery New York NY 10002

For research on the personal writings of Jewish women, diaries and journals— Grandma’s from the attic, or yours from last week—are needed. Anonymity guaranteed, if desired. For more information, or to make arrangements, call collect:

Laurie Simon Goldman
(513) 351-4686

For a “New Jewish Rituals” book, the editors are seeking new life-cycle rituals for birth, non-birth events (e.g. infertility, miscarriage, abortion), growing up, approaching adulthood, aging, death and dying, and “ageless” rituals (e.g. undertaking political action, celebrating significant friendships, aliyah). Contact:

Rabbi Linda Holtzman/Deborah Zucker
635 Westview Street Philadelphia PA 19119 (215) 848-1963

The Hall Center for the Humanities is seeking material for a book on women in prison and alternatives to incarceration. Submissions may be sent to:

Kristine Furlough Center for Humanistic Studies University of Kansas
211 Watkins Home Lawrence KS 66045-2967 (913) 864-4798

Work has resumed on the Hashomer Hatzair Archives, which will be a unique resource, enabling shomrim and professional researchers to recreate the past through photographs, documents, correspondence, and personal histories. If you have photos or documents, if you have completed or would like to write (or tape) a memoir of your movement years, if you have the names and addresses of shomrim, contact:

Joni-Sue Blinderman Hashomer Hatzair
150 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10011 (212) 255-8760