Feminists and Jewish Book Week
By: Dina Rabinovitch
“That’s a great skirt,” the blonde woman in shades of emerald velvet, says to the younger, darker-haired American who has just come into the room. The American’s skirt is some kind of soft brown cloth, intricately draped and folded so it falls interestingly when she sits, and moves gracefully when she stands.
She accepts the compliment with a nice smile, the American woman, but she launches straight into what’s top on her mind. “I want to say,” she says to the room at large – there are maybe eight of us, scattered around drinking tea, eating biscuits, in what they call the Green Room, a place for speakers at Jewish Book Week to gather before they go on stage – “I want to be referred to by my correct title. I have an endowed chair, that is a full chair, nothing part-time about it, at Dartmouth College, which is Ivy League. I was here Wednesday evening, and some youth in a suit introduced me, and he called me Dr Susanna all evening. I am Dr Heschel.”
It’s my job to introduce her this Sunday lunchtime, when we all sit around in the Green Room, I am introducing Dr Heschel, and also Baroness Julia Neuberger, and Lynne Segal too, who tells me in a mutter, “you can say I teach at Birkbeck, if you like.”
“Ok,” the blonder, older lady says, turning to me with a smile. “If we are doing this, then I am Baroness Julia Neuberger, and I’ve just finished being the Bloomberg professor of philanthropy and public policy at Harvard.” I write this down, but when I get on stage I forget to say it.
“And my next book,” Susanna Heschel says in the direction of my notebook, “is called, ‘When Jesus was an Aryan: Christians, Nazis and the Bible.” Actually, I already have this scribbled on my page of notes, but I write it down again anyhow, even double-checking the exact title.
Just be Jonathan Freedland, Just be Jonathan Freedland goes the soundtrack in the back of my mind, This is my first time chairing an event at Jewish Book Week, but I have watched Jonathan Freedland chair dozens and I aspire to his blend of easiness and absolute dictatorship over the audience. So it’s visions of Jonathan chairing unruly audiences, competing with visions of three eminent women and their correct titles, all jostling for space in my over-drugged (strictly medicinal) mind this Jewish Book Week Sunday, as we all make our way out of the Green Room and onto the stage.
It also happens to be the Jewish festival of Purim, so I have started the day in synagogue listening to the story of how Queen Esther saved the Jews from the machinations of the wicked Haman. It’s one of the most picturesque, carnival days of the Jewish calendar, and in synagogues around the world, as the story is read out with its universal tune, children in the community hold “greggers” – little wooden noise-makers – and when the name Haman is read from the text, all the greggers are waved and sounded to drown out the sound of the bad guy’s name. It is an extraordinary, enduring sight, like watching a sixteenth century crowd at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
I open the proceedings on stage by saying “what better day to discuss Jewish feminism, than on the day when we read the story of Queen Esther?” Is she a feminist heroine, or – using her beauty to bewitch the Persian King – is she designed to raise feminist hackles?
I also show the audience that I have brought a gregger with me. Before we slip on to the stage Baroness Neuberger says to me, “I’m sure I can be ruder than you, Dina, so if you need any help controlling the audience…” I smile and say, “well, thank you” – and now it is pictures in my mind of the West Wing’s Ainsley Hayes saying, “gee, thanks” anytime somebody offers to help her out. I tell the audience that I have brought a gregger with me: “anybody who monopolises the conversation…” and I wave the noisemaker menacingly.
And so we begin a discussion of these three women and how they came to be Jewish feminists. Susanna Heschel says she was born a feminist, and says, “I was born thinking.” Maybe she was.
She tells the audience about being patronised by men, and gives them her “full professor” speech. Heschel strikes me as by far the panellist with the best Jewish education; it comes through in her books too.
This Sunday she launches into various intricate images of her thoughts about Judaism and its homoeroticism.
Julia Neuberger says she was born a feminist too, and indeed, perhaps she was. Neuberger is a woman rabbi, and on stage you can see how brilliant she is with people – she must be excellent parochially. She talks about the down-to-earth stuff that matters within a
community: deaths, divorce, relations between men and women, between the races.
Lynne Segal has written a book, “Making Trouble” which I have read and enjoyed. It is all about how little Judaism there was in her childhood, but on the platform she talks more about how many Jewish influences there were on her. I ask her about this, and she says, “well it was there, but we didn’t shout about it.”
And then the audience join in, clamouring to ask questions about Jewish divorce procedures, and co-operation with Moslem women. There is, of course, not enough time to hear all the questions, and everybody could have listened to the panellists for much longer.
At the end Lynne Segal says to me, “great shoes”. They are burnished gold, with high stacked heels. Dr Heschel has gold shoes too, but a Mary-Jane shape with buckles. Lynne Segal is in blue trainers, and Baroness Neuberger is wearing polished black courts. And, by the way, I never needed to use the gregger.
Dina Rabinovitch is a writer and critic. She launched her book Take off Your Party Dress at JBW this year. You can read her own blog at: http://www.takeoffyourrunningshoes.typepad.com
“That’s a great skirt,” the blonde woman in shades of emerald velvet, says to the younger, darker-haired American who has just come into the room. The American’s skirt is some kind of soft brown cloth, intricately draped and folded so it falls interestingly when she sits, and moves gracefully when she stands.
She accepts the compliment with a nice smile, the American woman, but she launches straight into what’s top on her mind. “I want to say,” she says to the room at large – there are maybe eight of us, scattered around drinking tea, eating biscuits, in what they call the Green Room, a place for speakers at Jewish Book Week to gather before they go on stage – “I want to be referred to by my correct title. I have an endowed chair, that is a full chair, nothing part-time about it, at Dartmouth College, which is Ivy League. I was here Wednesday evening, and some youth in a suit introduced me, and he called me Dr Susanna all evening. I am Dr Heschel.”
It’s my job to introduce her this Sunday lunchtime, when we all sit around in the Green Room, I am introducing Dr Heschel, and also Baroness Julia Neuberger, and Lynne Segal too, who tells me in a mutter, “you can say I teach at Birkbeck, if you like.”
“Ok,” the blonder, older lady says, turning to me with a smile. “If we are doing this, then I am Baroness Julia Neuberger, and I’ve just finished being the Bloomberg professor of philanthropy and public policy at Harvard.” I write this down, but when I get on stage I forget to say it.
“And my next book,” Susanna Heschel says in the direction of my notebook, “is called, ‘When Jesus was an Aryan: Christians, Nazis and the Bible.” Actually, I already have this scribbled on my page of notes, but I write it down again anyhow, even double-checking the exact title.
Just be Jonathan Freedland, Just be Jonathan Freedland goes the soundtrack in the back of my mind, This is my first time chairing an event at Jewish Book Week, but I have watched Jonathan Freedland chair dozens and I aspire to his blend of easiness and absolute dictatorship over the audience. So it’s visions of Jonathan chairing unruly audiences, competing with visions of three eminent women and their correct titles, all jostling for space in my over-drugged (strictly medicinal) mind this Jewish Book Week Sunday, as we all make our way out of the Green Room and onto the stage.
It also happens to be the Jewish festival of Purim, so I have started the day in synagogue listening to the story of how Queen Esther saved the Jews from the machinations of the wicked Haman. It’s one of the most picturesque, carnival days of the Jewish calendar, and in synagogues around the world, as the story is read out with its universal tune, children in the community hold “greggers” – little wooden noise-makers – and when the name Haman is read from the text, all the greggers are waved and sounded to drown out the sound of the bad guy’s name. It is an extraordinary, enduring sight, like watching a sixteenth century crowd at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
I open the proceedings on stage by saying “what better day to discuss Jewish feminism, than on the day when we read the story of Queen Esther?” Is she a feminist heroine, or – using her beauty to bewitch the Persian King – is she designed to raise feminist hackles?
I also show the audience that I have brought a gregger with me. Before we slip on to the stage Baroness Neuberger says to me, “I’m sure I can be ruder than you, Dina, so if you need any help controlling the audience…” I smile and say, “well, thank you” – and now it is pictures in my mind of the West Wing’s Ainsley Hayes saying, “gee, thanks” anytime somebody offers to help her out. I tell the audience that I have brought a gregger with me: “anybody who monopolises the conversation…” and I wave the noisemaker menacingly.
And so we begin a discussion of these three women and how they came to be Jewish feminists. Susanna Heschel says she was born a feminist, and says, “I was born thinking.” Maybe she was.
She tells the audience about being patronised by men, and gives them her “full professor” speech. Heschel strikes me as by far the panellist with the best Jewish education; it comes through in her books too.
This Sunday she launches into various intricate images of her thoughts about Judaism and its homoeroticism.
Julia Neuberger says she was born a feminist too, and indeed, perhaps she was. Neuberger is a woman rabbi, and on stage you can see how brilliant she is with people – she must be excellent parochially. She talks about the down-to-earth stuff that matters within a
community: deaths, divorce, relations between men and women, between the races.
Lynne Segal has written a book, “Making Trouble” which I have read and enjoyed. It is all about how little Judaism there was in her childhood, but on the platform she talks more about how many Jewish influences there were on her. I ask her about this, and she says, “well it was there, but we didn’t shout about it.”
And then the audience join in, clamouring to ask questions about Jewish divorce procedures, and co-operation with Moslem women. There is, of course, not enough time to hear all the questions, and everybody could have listened to the panellists for much longer.
At the end Lynne Segal says to me, “great shoes”. They are burnished gold, with high stacked heels. Dr Heschel has gold shoes too, but a Mary-Jane shape with buckles. Lynne Segal is in blue trainers, and Baroness Neuberger is wearing polished black courts. And, by the way, I never needed to use the gregger.
Dina Rabinovitch is a writer and critic. She launched her book Take off Your Party Dress at JBW this year. You can read her own blog at: http://www.takeoffyourrunningshoes.typepad.com
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