I have shlepped myself to Virginia Woolf’s house in Sussex, and wandered the Yorkshire moors in pursuit of the Brontes’ home (calling “Heathcliff! Heathcliff!” when no one was within hearing). But no writer has launched more trips for me than Jane Austen. I have not only visited several of her homes (the one in Lyme [...]
Tonight at Kol Nidre, which marks the start of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, my husband and I will fight over prayer books, as we do at the start of every service during the Jewish High Holy Days. We own two copies of Gates of Repentance, first published by the Central Conference of [...]
This was originally posted last Passover, March 29, 2010, on the Ms. Blog. Unlike most religious events that require attendance at a synagogue, church or mosque, the Passover Seder–which was celebrated last night, and will be celebrated again tonight, by Jews around the world–remains at home, around a dinner table. That fact alone has always [...]
It’s a sign of success, I suppose, that one can Google “feminism Jane Eyre” and find websites willing to sell you a term paper on the subject. We’ve come a long way, baby. When I was in college and graduate school, we were just discovering what it meant to read a novel–even a novel by [...]
This Friday, March 25, marks the 100th anniversary of the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company that killed 146 workers, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women. HBO begins broadcasting their tribute documentary, Triangle: Remembering the Fire, tonight, and the Internet is full of accounts and remembrances of the event. The centennial reminds us not [...]
Today, in Jewish synagogues all over the world, thousands of little girls will parade around in princess dresses or sparkling harem pants and declare themselves to be Queen Esther, a great beauty who married a King and saved her people. But far fewer will play Queen Vashti, who refused to answer to the King’s beck [...]
Who would guess that a small agricultural town in Northern California, located among the towering redwoods and rolling acres of chardonnay and pinot noir grapes of Sonoma County, would give rise to a movement that changed the curriculum of America’s schools by putting women into their proper historical place? But that’s exactly what Santa Rosa [...]
