Summer 2012

Is it shameful to be Jewish and poor?  A new marriage ritual pushes for domestic equality. Seeing a child through transgender surgery. Why I gave a kidney to a stranger.

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In This Issue

Lilith Feature

Weddings!

Including Old (and New) Wedding Rings, a Feminist Wedding Vow That Makes Housework Equitable, and a Vintage Marriage Agreement

More Articles

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Why I Gave a Kidney to a Stranger

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Last month, I was wheeled into an operating room in Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikva, an anesthesiologist said laila tov, and a surgeon removed my left kidney, which was brought... Read more »

Letdown

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Becca slips out of the library with her blue bag hidden under her arm. She’s not having an affair or embezzling the overdue fines. She’s on her scheduled lunch hour.... Read more »

Kosher

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It had begun innocently enough, over a jar of Baco-Bits in among the canned soup and vermicelli collected in a box that the synagogue had placed in the church lobby... Read more »

Face Me

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Lori follows Sharon down the sunlit hall and into the bathroom, dim as a cave. She wants the makeover Sharon promised, even though it’s Shabbes and they’re not supposed to... Read more »

Gender and Generosity in Israel

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An activist starts a women’s fund in Modi’in and discovers that kindness and cooking are the coin of the realm for women. How’s that gonna drive systemic change in women’s lives?

Sabbath Service

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This Sabbath eve you struggle as you enter rest. Morphine slides shut the doorsand opens them; we glimpse another room, inside this one, in which you try to give your... Read more »

How my Daughter Became my Son

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Her daughter becomes her son, but Sennesh remains constant; “too calm,” her kid says. And parents of LGBTQ children get an instruction manual in “Casual Coming-Out Comments” by Catherine Tuerk — wise advice on how to let the world know your child is gay or lesbian.

My Welfare Mom, Our Food Stamps, and Why I’m a Marginal Jew

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Class, caste, and cleaning the toilets at Brandeis. Feeling always illegitimate as a Jew, and now a parent herself, Kott approaches Judaism tentatively, suspiciously, and yearningly.

Postmodern House Rings

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Ken Goldman, 52, is one of the most whimsical Judaica artists out there [check out kengoldmanart.com]. A communitarian — he’s lived on Kibbutz Shluchot for 27 years, but is a New Jersey... Read more »

“A Marriage Agreement”— 1970

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As parents, we believe we must share all responsibility for taking care of our children and home — not only the work, but the responsibility.

Try a New Wedding Vow (This Time the Man Gets the Ring)

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My grandfather and three of his seven siblings immigrated to America from Zawada, Poland, and ever after talked about one subject perseveratively: the hard life of their mother Rose. “She... Read more »

The “House Rings” Miracle

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Last spring when my partner and i got married, we didn’t use just two wedding rings. We used four. And that wasn’t because we were trying to upset convention any... Read more »

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