Clémence Boulouque takes a look at Regina Jonas, the first female rabbi and a mother who had no children Regina Jonas There was no rabbi at my Dad’s funeral. I was eleven when he died. A pious man and a poor salesman. My first teacher. But we did not have enough to pay for a rabbi.
Sigal Samuel on what happens when the matriarchs take a field trip to paradise “Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden” Lucas Cranach the Elder In one of my favorite Talmudic stories, four rabbis enter a mystical garden known as the pardes, with bad results: one dies, one goes insane, one becomes a heretic, and
by Siona Benjamin Four cathedral-scale mixed media panels exploring the journey of the four matriachs as they enter the Pardes. Till all children are safe, none are safe. Mothers will find it within themselves to make everything happen. (Benjamin’s work is on display at the 14th Street Y through the end of March.) Kizoa slideshow:
Elissa Strauss on the Power of Parenthood Becoming a mother didn’t make me nicer. More compassionate? Yes. More sensitive? Sure. But nicer. No. During the few months in which I was “trying”, I started involuntarily responding to pregnant women with a snarl. Then there was the period of time following my son’s birth when my
Ruby Namdar on how motherhood exalted and destroyed the women of Genesis Adriaen van der Werff: “Sarah Presenting Hagar” Motherhood, especially with the first child, is an extremely tender, and hence vulnerable, state. But this extreme state of fragility is also a time in which the visible and invisible structures of power in the family