Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America

Letty Cotton Pogrebin was born in 1939 in Jamaica, Queens, New York. She was raised in an observant Jewish home, and studied Torah and Talmud. When she was fifteen, her beloved mother died of cancer, and Ms. Pogrebin, because she was female, could not be counted to form the necessary "minyan" to say the traditional mourner's Kaddish, (prayer), for her own mother. Her father, who never seemed, or apparently cared, to understand how marginal and rejected she felt, called the synagogue and had another man sent to their home, where they were sitting shiva. Time has brought change to the Jewish religion. Today a woman can form a minyon, the group of ten Jews necessary to recite formal prayers, in Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Movements. But these changes did not happen in time for Letty. A few years later, while she was still in college, her issues with her father, and with the male dominated Jewish religion, became intertwined. Her feelings about her "father and her faith merged." She writes, "I also cut off my formal affiliation with Judaism. Merge the Jewish patriarch with patriarchal Judiasm, and when you leave one, you leave them both.""Deborah, Golda, And Me," is Letty Cottin Pogrebin's story of her struggle to reconcile her feminism with her Jewish faith. She writes with intelligence, passion, honesty, and eloquence about her determination to fight against being a marginal person in her religion, and in her life. This book, in a sense is a record of many of the battles waged in her war for personal and political power.She was active early on in the women's movement and was the founding editor of Ms. Magazine. When she reflects on the broad purview of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, she cannot explain why she felt no curiosity about the status of Jewish women or the problems of Jewish girls in less hospitable environments then those in which she grew up. "I don't know why I wasn't motivated to investigate religious sexism, or to integrate some of my private spiritual insights into my general feminist framework. Even if I did not choose to act as a Jew in the Women's Movement, why didn't I at least act as a feminist among Jews? Why didn't I join forces with Jewish women who were fighting for gender equality in the synagogue, where I was aware of the gender inequities?"She fought for equal rights for women, all over the world, and against anti-Semitism. In 1975, at the first of three United Nations "International Women's Decade" Conferences, the delegates passed a resolution that effectively identified all Jews as racists. The "Zionism is racism" resolution - called the Declaration of Mexico, (the conference was held in Mexico City), took Letty by surprise. "I could not believe that supposed feminists who had been entrusted with the inauguration of a ten-year commitment to improving the status of all the world's women - and who were pledged to address the monumental problems of female infanticide, illiteracy, high mortality rates,

I enjoyed much of this book--particularly the parts about her family and their effect on her and her Judaism. The parts about Palestinians go on a bit long, and they were hard to read in light of more recent developments. A lot has happened in the last 10 years, and I wonder what she would have to say about this topic now.

This book was eye opening. As an Orthodox Jew and a feminist, there were many aspects of the this book I found hard to deal with. However, I have found that overall I was very impressed with the content of the book.The author spends a lot of time reflecting on her own experience as a Jewish Woman in America, which was often very different from my own. However, when she got down to the nitty-gritty of being a Jewish woman, and the problems and issues therein, she hit the mark. I found myself reading excerpts in discussions with both male and female friends about the way women are treated in Judaism, especially in Orthodox circles. As a mother, I found this book especially important as I raise my daughter to become a, G-d willing, enlightened Orthodox Feminist Jew.

This book, which was a bestseller, is certainly one of the most important books in both women's studies and Jewish studies. Written with love, with force, seamlessly incorporating meticulous research with the author's insightful wisdom, it is a book that will be read for many years to come. I bought 6 copies of this book for friends, and all agreed it was probably the best book of this ilk that they had read. Ms Progebin is an extraordinary writer, with a great heart, and the abilty to weave love into the most hardened or bitter of facts. To all women, and most especially to all Jewsish women, READ IT! You will be greatly helped.