meaning

This week’s Jewish Home L.A. contains my review of Circle, Arrow, Spiral: Exploring Gender in Judaism, recently published by Mekor Press and distributed by Menucha Publishers.

Miriam Kosman’s outstanding new book about gender within Judaism

Miriam Kosman‘s new book appears at a pivotal point in Jewish history. The role of women in Judaism has dominated the headlines of Jewish media outlets in recent years. Usually, Hareidim are made out to be the bad guys: according to most writers, Hareidi men bully women, look down on us, and short change us in any way humanly possible.

For someone like me — a feminist who willingly joined the ranks of those observant Jews who lean to the right — this kind of “news” makes us want to bang our heads into the wall in frustration. Not only do we perceive the Jewish world differently, many of us chose Orthodoxy in some part because mainstream feminism had failed us. Frankly, we felt more supported and appreciated as human beings, as Jews, and as women within our new community than we did in in our former, non-Orthodox world. We feel respected by the vast majority of Hareidi men, including by our husbands, sons, and rabbis. And while we do see plenty of areas in which our community can and should improve, many of the issues targeted by reporters and crusaders hold completely different meanings for us than for secular people.

Many of the recent books about Judaism written by Modern Orthodox authors have compounded the problem. They report on our world as outsiders (sometimes trumpeting all along how because they are, loosely-speaking, “Orthodox” they therefore have an insider view), and often articulate outrage while playing fast and loose with facts. Yet, until now, few books for the English speaking world have expressed the genuine insider perspective as to why Orthodox women don’t participate in many time-bound positive commandments, are excluded from certain communal rules, and so on.

Miriam Kosman‘s new book remedies that. Continue reading →

Yesterday’s L.A. Times had a wonderful article by book critic David Ulin about his book collecting habits. His home is packed floor to ceiling with shelves and shelves of books. Periodically, he arranges them in alphabetical order.

Ulin shares many reasons for his enormous book collection. Here’s his chief one:

They are part of my present, yes, but also part of my past, my history: three-dimensional memories.

Among their appeals is that they opened up a world view, which is what the most essential writing does. Yet equally important is their resonance as objects, carried with me, shelf to shelf, apartment to apartment, over decades, physical reminders of who I was and who I am and of my process of becoming, blurring the line between inside and out.

This led me to think about what the Klempner family book collection means about us.

World view – Klempner adults are cheapskates. We love borrowing from libraries more than buying books. We still have a lot of books, but not relative to the amount of reading that goes on around here. Most of the books we actually own are Jewish books, especially for adults–books of prayer, Torah, character-building, and so on. The secular adult books we own are mostly practical.
Life history – You can see what my husband learned in classes ten or fifteen years ago by checking which volumes of the Gemara we own. You can tell I studied anthropology in graduate school and that one of us reads French (speaking is another matter…). You can tell we’re both teachers, and that we’re the kind of parents that like to read a lot about how to parent. On the kids’ shelves, you can track all of my eldest child’s special interests since age 5.

What do your books say about you?

Rebecca Klempner

Author page of Rebecca Klempner

Have you seen my review of Miriam Kosman’s new book about Jewish feminism in this week’s Jewish Home L.A.?

Home decorating with bibliophiles: what your books say about you

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