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by Danya Ruttenberg
Yentl’s Revenge
If there was one specific experience through which I came of age as a Jewish woman, it was my mother’s death my junior year of college. It happened much later than, perhaps, most of the other rites of passage described on these pages, but adulthood certainly hadn’t happened by means of my bat mitzvah—a fundamentally empty event involving a new dress, new bank account, and the same insecurities I’d had since before needing a bra. Over the seven years following that, I, like most kids who were raised with privilege, teetered on the strange border between childhood and adulthood—taking steps towards independence but not quite ready to stand on my own.
How Do We Become Grown-Up Jewish Women?
The articles in this special section:You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah*
by Fiona Rosenbloom
Yentl’s Revenge
by Danya Ruttenberg
The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt
by Ruth Andrew Ellenson
Room in the Heart
by Sonia Levitin
The JGirl’s Guide
by Shulamit Reinharz
My Sister’s Wedding
by Hannah R. Goodman
Lost in America
by Marilyn Sachs
The Last Days of Dogtown
by Anita Diamant
The J.A.P. Chronicles
by Isabel Rose
Confessions of a Closet Catholic
by Sarah Darer Littman
House on the River: A Summer Journey
by Nessa Rapoport
Closing the Sea
by Judith Katzir
When I Was a Soldier
by Valerie Zenatt