The inaugural conference...will explore the representational relationship between Jews and sexuality, Jews and gender, Jews and physicality, and Jews and the body. How have Jews imagined themselves throughout history and how do they imagine themselves today? Or, how do others imagine Jews or even “the Jew”? Appropriate proposals might explore such topics as the new Israeli masculinity in Hebrew literature, the figuring of queer Jews in film, Jews on stage, representations of Jews in the medical profession, medicine’s treatment of Jews, or Jews in athletics...
Just after the “Bringing Women to the Fore and Advancing Peace” session [at the J St. Conference], an elderly woman approached me to respond to a question I had asked about intersectionality, a term used in modern feminist theory to describe how all forms of oppression are connected. The idea is that you can’t eradicate racism without getting rid of sexism, or homophobia...The woman...didn’t like the fact that I used the term intersectionality...I should call them “multiple voices or something to that effect.” It was great.
Can interactibility be applied beyond feminist semantics? To nationalism? If so, could it be said that Jews cannot fulfill their Zionism if the Arabs cannot realize their Palestinianism?
The suspects, five minors and a woman, are suspected of vandalizing IDF property, interfering with army forces, and cutting down hundreds of Palestinian-owned olive trees near the village of Kusra, in the Binyamin region of the West Bank, police said.
The National Serious and International Crimes Unit has been holding a secret investigation of the matter for the past two months.
Settlers are claiming that officers arrested the suspected immediately after the alleged events and released them the next day on the condition they stay away from east Binyamin for one month.
"These are false arrests," claims Attorney Adi Keidar, who represents the suspects. "This happened two months ago and the girls were released with the police's consent. Now the Serious Crime Unit suddenly remembers to arrest them? It's a scandal.
"Moreover, they are suspected of very minor offences. How does such a case end up with a police elite unit?"
Associates of the suspects also leveled criticism at the investigation.
This book surprised me with its clear and thorough explanations considering it was written by and intended for the conservative and ultra-conservative Torah-observant Jewish community. Even though the text itself is without illustrative photos and diagrams, there is a modest packet of explicit drawings tucked into a sealed envelope attached to the inside back cover. As befits a book intended for a chaste and conservative audience, there is a label on that packet warning of its explicit nature...This small book contains useful information that not only provides practical advice about techniques and mechanics, but also nurtures a sensitivity that will benefit both sexual partners.
There are the necessary basics: where things are and how they work; but there is also a strong emphasis on the need for patience and clear communication. To that end, the authors address issues that most people never consider, but which are necessary for an active, fulfilling sex life...this small book is not one to skirt vital issues: how sex smells, sounds, and feels for both the male and female; how to deal with unrealistic expectations; and, lack or orgasm as well as how to maximize orgasmic potential. There is a straightforward discussion of lubrication, how to deal with the constricts of religious observation as it applies to sex, causes of impotence, sex during and after pregnancy and how external pressure can affect a couple's sex life amongst other issues.
The sex act, from a Jewish point of view, Wolfson begins without blinking, is not intended merely to fulfill the commandment of "be fruitful and multiply." It is also supposed to give pleasure...Any consensual act between a couple is halachically permissible, she boldly writes, and any act that boosts mutual desire and satisfaction is a blessing. "Distance leads to touching and longing leads to pleasure. Restrictions help you miss your partner and intensifies the passion," she says, and we all lower our eyes to the cookies.
"We are all women, we all want love, we all menstruate, we all have sexuality," says Wolfson in a steady, experienced voice, encouraging us to look up again. "Judaism is responsive to women and gives us space so that on certain days of the month we don't need a filing cabinet of excuses like 'I have a headache,' and can just curl up under the covers or with a good book." We laugh. The ice is broken.
"Then comes passion and the desire to be together. Impurity is not dirtiness, but absence of life. The mikveh is the culmination of a woman's private, internal process. I immerse in primordial waters, feel renewed and then come to my partner full of vitality, energy and sexuality."
What was taking place in that room was not a reform but a revolution...
Controversial bra display for cancer awareness set ablaze
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — A public display of bras outside a Bowling Green business has been set ablaze.
The cancer-awareness display at Western Kentucky Diagnostic Imaging Center had created some controversy in the south-central Kentucky town, prompting calls to the business and letters to the paper.
On Monday night, vandals set fire to the display, burning some of the bras, according to WBKO-TV.
The same non-Jewish material!
The same narrow and clinging tailoring!
The same narrow, short and trashy line!
The same exaggeration of curves!
The same causing of sin!
The same decadant European designers!...
The High Court of Justice on Thursday officially abolished the so-called “mehadrin” public buses operated by the Egged bus company, but it is far from clear that the ruling will put an end to the gender separation arrangement in which female passengers are frequently forced to sit at the back of the bus. According to Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, “There is a common understanding today that the operation of the buses as they were run until 2007 is forbidden. This is the current opinion of the Transportation Minister and, as the regulatory body, that is what he will instruct the public bus companies. For those who are not clear on this, we will say that a public transportation operator (like anyone else) may not tell, request or order women to sit in a specific place on the bus just because they are women, or to tell them how to dress, and they are entitled to sit anywhere they wish.”
Every passenger is entitled to sit anywhere he chooses (except for those places limited to persons with disabilities). Harassing a passenger in this matter could be a criminal offense.
Girls school of 'real men' leading right-wing battles
"A girls school of real men," they sometimes call the small ulpana in the West Bank settlement of Ma'ale Levona, headed by Rabbi Gad Ben-Zimra.
The religious Zionist middle school and high school won its nickname from its students' incredible willingness to sacrifice themselves for the Greater Land of Israel - setting up illegal outposts, refusing to move in the face of police assaults, and sitting in jail for weeks in order not to give interrogators their names.
The ulpana students had their hour of glory in their steafast battles against the evacuation of Gush Katif and Amona. This week, inspectors from the Civil Administration got to see the girls in action. Two Civil Administration jeeps entered Ma'ale Levona with a small police escort, where they found the girls blocking the road. The students sat on their vehicles, wrote graffiti on the jeeps and threw mud at the inspectors as they left. A few hours later, when the inspectors returned with 100 riot police officers, the girls laid down on the wet road. Twenty of the students climbed into a huge garbage bin, and threw trash at the police. Only after a five-hour battle were the inspectors able to complete their job distributing freeze orders at the settlement.
...The students from the ulpana tend to marry young. One said that by the end of 12th grade, half the students are engaged or married. One 11th-grader got engaged this week, and a few months ago a married 12th-grader had a baby.
Ben-Zimra's wife Nurit has told the Besheva newspaper [in Hebrew] that she does not support girls marrying in 12th grade or immediately after high-school graduation.
Whole women should not be torn in two, between their passions for the performing arts, and their love for God and His Torah. They can find a venue that allows for the natural expression of both, be it Women-only classes, concerts, or contests. This project envisions jump-starting the eventual establishment of performing arts schools for women for all skill levels including professional training in the performing arts, but more importantly, through this project, we will advance the state of performance opportunities for women-only audiences of a professional caliber in recognized theaters and institutions.
Goals
The goals of Professional Women's Theater touch upon a number of aspects within Israeli society that not only empower women by providing them opportunities to utilize their natural artistic talents, but to mobilize these talents into professionally-marketable skills, that will enable them to contribute to their families, thereby strengthening their own self-esteem and the family unit as a whole.
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