Ezrat Nashim, "Call for Change,"
(Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Movement: 14 March 1972)
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It is not enough to say that Judaism views women as separate but equal, nor to point to Judaism's past superiority over other cultures in its treatment of women. We've had enough of apologetics: enough of Bruria, Dvorah, and Esther; enough of Eshet Chayyil (woman of valor)! It is time that: women be granted membership in synagogues women be counted in the minyan women be allowed full participation in religious observances women be recognized as witnesses before Jewish law women be allowed to initiate divorce women be permitted and encouraged to attend Rabbinical and Cantorial schools, and to perform Rabbinical and Cantorial functions in synagogues women be encouraged to join decision-making bodies, and to assume professional leadership roles, in synagogues and in the general Jewish community. women be considered as bound to fulfill all mitzvot equally with men. For three thousand years, one-half the Jewish people have been excluded from full participation in Jewish communal life. We call for an end to second-class status of women in Jewish life. -[Jewish Women's Archive, jwa.org/feminism) |
...שלח לחמך על פני המים רבי אלעזר בן שמוע הוה מטייל על כיף ימא רבה חמא אילפא דמיטרפא בימא כהריפת עין, טבעת וטבע כל מה דהוה בה. חמא חד גבר, דיתיב על קורשא דספינתא, מגלא לגלא סליק ליבשתא. כד הוא הוה ערטילאי, והוה מיטמר בכיף ימא. ארעת ענתה דישראל סלקין לריגלא בירושלם. אמר להון: מן בני עשו אחוכון אנא, הבו לי זעיר כסות ואיכסי בה, תתאי דערעני ימא ולא אישתזב גבאי מידי. אמרין ליה: כן יתערערן כל אומתך! תלה עיניה וחמא ית רבי אלעזר, דהוה מטייל ביניהן. אמר: מסתכל אנא דאת גבר סב ויקיר מאומתך, ואת חכים ביקרי דברייתא, אלא זכי בי והב לי תכסית דאכסי בה, תתאי דערערן ימא. הוה על רבי אלעזר בן שמוע, שבע איצטלוון. שלח חד ויהביה ליה, אובליה לביתיה ואכליה ואשקיה, ויהב ליה תרין מאוון דינרין, וארכביה ארבעה עשר פרסין, ועבד ליה יקרא סגי עד דאעליה לביתיה. לבתר יומין, מת קיסר הרשע ואימנו ליה מלכא תחותיה. גזר על מדינתא ההיא: "כל גוברין לקטלא וכל נשיא לביזה"! אמרו לר' אלעזר בן שמוע: זיל ופייס עלינן.
...Rabbi Elazar ben Shammua was once walking by the seashore when he noticed a boat sinking at sea. A moment later he watched as a man holding onto a plank of wood floated onto shore. Other Jews were walking by. Because the man was naked, he covered himself and pleased: "I am a son of Esau, your brother. I have lost everything. Please give me a garment to cover myself." The Jews refused and said: "Your people have treated our people with cruelty. Therefore, may all your people be stripped bare as you are today." The man then turned to Rabbi Elazar and said, "You are an honorable man; please help me." Rabbi Elazar took off a garment and gave it to him. Then he brought him to his home, fed him, and gave him money with which to begin his life again.
When the emperor died, the rescued man succeeded him. He ordered that all Jews in his state be killed. The Jews turned to Rabbi Elazar and asked him to plead for them. When the man, who was now the ruler, saw Rabbi Elazar standing before him, he said: "Does not your Torah teach 'You shall not hate an Edomite, for he is your brother'? I told your people that I was the son of Esau, and they treated me with hatred, not with kindness."
Rabbi Elazar replied: "Though they are guilty of breaking the law of the Torah, forgive them."
The king, recalling what Elazar had done for him, answered: "Because of what you did for me, I will forgive them."
We shall probably always have individuals lurking among us who yearn to play tyrant. Some of them will be dumber than two bags of broken hammers, and some will be very bright. Many will start so far down in society that they have little chance of amassing power; others will have easy access to money and influence all their lives. On the national scene some will be frustrated by prosperity, internal tranquility, and international peace--all of which significantly dim the prospects for a demagogue -in-waiting.
Others will benefit from historical crises that automatically drop increased power into a leader’s lap. But ultimately, in a democracy, a wannabe tyrant is just a comical figure on a soapbox unless a huge wave of supporters lifts him to high office. That’s how Adolf Hitler destroyed the Weimar Republic and became the Fuhrer. So we need to understand the people out there doing the wave. Ultimately the problem lay in the followers. --Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarians, p. 14
(8) A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. (9) And he said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. (10) Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.”
Jews and Money: The Stereotype, The History, The Reality
"All Jews are rich. They’re really good with money and own all the banks. Oh, and they control the media, too, not to mention the government. So go the stereotypes that have followed Jews for centuries. They are hateful and hurtful canards, and have triggered immeasurable Jewish suffering throughout history."
“Jewish wealth is a stereotype,” Muller said, “but in almost every society in which Jews have been granted a modicum of equal legal rights, even if there was social and religious discrimination, they tended to do disproportionately well economically. In central and western Europe, and eventually the United States, Jews were the wealthiest group on average by a wide margin.”
He also busts the myth that the ghettoized Jews of medieval Europe languished in poverty.
“It’s not true that for most of European history the Jews were poorer than the surrounding population,” Muller noted. “They were richer and certainly a lot more literate. It’s true they didn’t have many rights, but then the vast majority didn’t have many rights.”
He attributes Jewish success in business to Jewish culture, which tended to emphasize literacy and education. Moreover, the kinds of occupations Jews were allowed to enter typically required, and resulted in, knowledge of commerce.
Jews, he said, knew “how to buy and sell.”
“Because they were often excluded from other areas of economic activity, like land owning,” Muller added, “Jews tended to be on the lookout for opportunities, for new markets, new commodities or new ways of retailing. [Jews] often began as peddlers, which is a way of reaching untapped markets. Later on they were involved in a number of new forms of retailing, such as department stores, catalogue sales, then box stores.”
(8) Haman then said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them. (9) If it please Your Majesty, let an edict be drawn for their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the stewards for deposit in the royal treasury.” (10) Thereupon the king removed his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the foe of the Jews.
Gender Stereotypes in Television
Although most Jewish women on television have been “proud, heroic, and accomplished characters,” they have also been depicted as loud, vulgar, spoiled, unattractive and unsexy; frequently they appear as caricatures, usually as disagreeable ones, rather than characters.” When young Jewish women are on screen, they often fit the model of the spoiled Jewish princess looking for bargains and a man, preferably a wealthy doctor to take care of them (e.g., Fran Fine on The Nanny), or they are frumpy and unattractive (Fran on Mad About You, Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Brenda on Rhoda), or comically wisecracking and brash (Vicki on Suddenly Susan).
Older women are modeled after the tired stereotypes of possessive, manipulating Jewish mothers (the mothers on Rhoda, Mad About You, Seinfeld, The Nanny).” In Maurice Berger’s view, such mothers appear as “controlling and hypercritical monsters.
Although Jewish-princess and Jewish-mother jokes make for easy, quick laughs, such humor is cruel and upsetting to Jewish women, lessening self-esteem, particularly for younger women, who especially rely on the media for their role models, while shaping male attitudes toward Jewish women in negative ways. Those non-Jews with little acquaintance with Jewish women tend to accept the stereotypes as real. The negative effect such portrayals have on audiences has been suggested by the Morning Star Commission, a group of thirty top Los Angeles television and film professionals organized by Hadassah Southern California that has explored the depiction of Jewish women in the media.
Focus groups of Jewish women created by the commission reported that they saw Jewish women on TV as “pushy, controlling, selfish, unattractive, materialistic, high-maintenance, shallow, domineering”; they were “cheap bargain hunters” who “nagged their husbands and spend all their time cooking or shopping.” (Fran Drescher’s character was cited most often as fitting these negative attributes and perpetuating stereotypes.) The commission found that non-Jewish women held equally disturbing images of Jewish women on TV—overweight and big-nosed, sharp-tongued and arrogant, scolds and henpeckers.
- https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/gender-stereotypes-in-television/
