The Power of Amen - Child-Women and Brachas Parties

‘Say Amen, Mummy.’ My youngest daughter is full of enthusiasm for her brachos (blessings). As every modest mother knows, training our children to say blessings before and after food is one of the pleasures of parenting. So it came as a surprise to find women acting like children at a ‘brachos party.’ Advertised as an opportunity ‘to make some brachot, eat some food, and say amen - let's do our hishtadlut (effort) to help our fellow Jews in their time of need. All this, plus a Devar Torah at the end - all in under an hour. Make it one of the best hours you've spent, and turn up!' Well – I just couldn’t resist.

This party was held in the women’s section of a Sephardi shul in Hendon, a bustling hub of London’s Orthodox life. The basic premise of these parties is that the word ‘Amen’ has some sort of kabbalistic power to bring about good things for people in trouble. Sheets of paper with various headings were on a table: zivuggim (a partner), parnassah ( livelihood) yeshua (general help) and cholim (sick people). As the women entered the room, many of them added names to these sheets – names that would be prayed for later in the evening. The list for a suitable partner was the longest – wherever I go, I can’t get away from lists of wonderful single women in their late 30s looking for a husband. Plates of cake, biscuits, fruit, vegetables, crisps and sweets were distributed on all the tables – all in preparation for the collective flurry of Amens to be recited.

A few women, with snoods askew and chapped hands, brought large buckets of dough to the party as they wanted to use this as an opportunity to publicly say the blessing of ‘hafrashat challah’ – putting aside a small amount of dough before baking bread. Then one by one, each person took a piece of cake, said the appropriate bracha and a chorus of Amen answered. We went round the room again for all the other foods, with a running commentary on the importance of our holy endeavour and a reminder to think about those who need our prayers for good health, a good job or a marriage partner.

Eventually, the rabbi of the synagogue came to visit the women and he brought along a friend. We stood in deference and only sat down after they both did. The guest speaker made a pitch for his yeshiva: for only £5 a month, he could guarantee that one of his students would study on my behalf and bring only good things for me and my family. This bargain offer was only available if I signed up on the evening and filled in my bank details to secure payment. I declined. While the attendance of the rabbi seemed to add an air of gravitas to the evening, I wondered if it was the price the women had to pay to have the shul to themselves for most of the evening. These women had transformed the synagogue space, usually reserved for formal prayer, into a space for domestic concerns and eating. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries women wrote ‘techinot’ – prayers for women reflecting domestic concerns – are these brachos parties a 21^st century invention to claim sacred space in the synagogue as their voice cannot be heard during formal services? Are the child-women subverting the status quo right under the noses of their revered rabbis?

The rabbi’s words were troubling. He praised the women and said that by saying a bracha they were averting some terrible preordained catastrophe. Who knew women had such power? But the finale was more disconcerting: the rabbi reminded the women that even more important than saying brachot was wearing modest clothes. He chastised the women who wear beautiful sheitels (wigs) and railed against tight, short skirts. It is quite extraordinary – women have been part of the twists and turns of Jewish history for thousands of years, but in today’s world they are merely the guardians of the modest hemline.

Menu Planning: an Orthodox Woman's Foreplay

I was thinking cupcakes for dessert on first night Rosh Hashana. Topped with chemically enhanced parev whipped cream, I could decorate them with fondant apples or a marzipan shofar. Yes, my dessert will be the talk of Hendon. Philanthropists and educators will praise me for making Judaism relevant in the 21st century - combining contemporary culinary trends with a nod towards tradition. Yes, I really do deserve the moniker 'frum domestic goddess of north-West London.' Here's something you have to know: menu planning is the new foreplay for the Orthodox Jewish woman.

The spiritual challenges of the High Holiday period is the easy bit; the frisson of planning, creating and serving extraordinary meals gives me goosebumps. There's a lot of angst and mutterings about the need to impress in-laws and friends during the marathon of yom-tov meals.Often it feels like we're back in the playground. The core of the frum north-west London community went to the same primary and high schools, and I have sat through so many meals where these apparently grown-up adults replay all their hurt and frustration experienced in the playground 25 years ago. The school's asphalt is still hot, and while men will compete with words: political debate, Talmudic discourse, business machinations, women will compete with food: crash diets, body image and inspirational yom-tov desserts. I feel sorry for the interlopers - the Swiss, Belgians and Americans who married into the frum establishment - they are totally adrift in this sea of adolescent reminiscing.

Competition: the rest is commentary. There are still winners and losers in the playground, but now the definitions have changed. There was a time when the 'clever girls' were the winners: free spirits who went to university, got themselves a career and interesting jobs while the girls who went to seminary and got married shortly afterwards were lauded publicly but quickly became invisible as they stayed home to breed and raise their young children. Unlike the American scene, it was a rare English rose who could combine domesticity with domination in the work force. Twenty-five years and a serious case of schadenfreude later, the smugly Smeg married woman is considered the real winner. Her single, once-coveted intellectual friend in her late 30s is most definitely the loser, and if she hasn't left for Baka or the Upper West Side, the single woman (and of course, the single man) is the self-conscious odd-number guest at her old school friend's yom-tov table.

These multi-leaved tables, groaning with exotic salads, tender meats and lush desserts, are the convenient story of north-west London. But inconveniently these tables also represent the intense competition over food production and male virility: can he afford to let you buy the expensive meat? Unwittingly, these tables undermine the romantic notion we have of our own community. These sumptuous tables don't tell the story of the families who are reliant on the kindness of the 'chicken ladies' (a small group of selfless and modest women who have quietly collected money, and cut a deal with the butchers to supply chickens at cost-price to a growing number of families in Golders Green and Hendon who are finding it increasingly difficult to afford food for Shabbat and Festivals). These tables don't tell the story of the increasing number of orthodox women who have been publicly humiliated by their husbands' indiscretions. Many are now divorced, others are heading that way - their families fractured and their yom-tov table ruined. People do not always choose the circumstances they find themselves in, and our ability to empathize with their situation and offer friendship is a wonderful Rosh Hashanah gift.

Yes, I will stick with cupcakes for dessert. It's a corny metaphor, but if we can take one large cake mixture and then make individual cupcakes, each with its own flavour and decoration, all equally delicious - then surely we can take one large mixture of Jewish people and create individuals, each with his or her own flavour and decoration, all equally delicious.

And so, another Jewish man marries out. Clearly, a Jewish husband is the lastest must-have accessory. Ivanka got hers last year, Chelesa did yesterday and there's a slew of pretty It-girls with Jewish boyfriends hoping that he'll turn into that nerdy-yet sexy, dependable Jewish husband. It would be churlish not to wish Chelsea and Marc mazal tov on their wedding, but quite frankly, all the self-congratulations about this union signalling the ultimate acceptance of 'The Jew' leaves me cold.

I'm worried about all the single Jewish women. There's a glut of single Jewish women who would prefer to marry a Jewish man, but they've all been taken by the waspy girl-next-door. And when that waspy girl wants to convert, well then every celebrity rabbi is elbowing her way forward to become the spiritual mentor of the moment.

All this makes me even more despondent about the situation facing single Jewish women, particularly those in the Orthodox community. But here's where I am going to make myself really unpopular - the number of women converts far exceeds male converts and these women converts are encroaching on the local home grown talent, taking away potential husbands for the women in their 30s and 40s who have been searching for a suitable mate for so long. It's very disheartening for these women to watch what happens when a woman converts and within a few months is married to a local fellow. I say this tentatively and with respect, for we are obliged to welcome the converts and the tremendous sacrifices they make, particularly given the demands of London's notoriously rigorous Beth Din are very impressive. And of course, we're all familiar with the convert who eventually dumps her Jewish boyfriend because he is not frum enough for her - it's usually enough to make him run into the arms of the nearest shiksa.

The only solution I can come up with is a proactive campaign to convert more non-Jewish men. It's hardly a new idea but someone has to take the lead in enticing all those interesting non-Jewish men in our workplaces to explore the benefits of converting. And maybe it doesn't even have to be a halachic conversion: recently I saw the term 'sociological converstion' whereby people are absorbing the social mores and values of a Jewish lifestyle without confining themselves to a rabbinical conversion.

Of course, it's not ideal, but it could prove an option for men and a solution for women as the halachic status of ensuing children will not be compromised. And in a reversal of many other cultures where boys are prized over births, Jews will always be relieved if a daughter is born – it’s an halachic assurance of Jewish grandchildren no matter what reckless decisions her mother makes.

Summer Camps - a privilege for the pampered

Now that the fasting of Tisha B’Av is over, the folly of summer camp begins. Talking about ‘getting the kids ready for camp’ is a favourite Shabbat lunch topic, while ‘shopping for camp’ is a specific activity that Hendon mothers (and yes, I generalise) undertake with a specific passion usually reserved for, well, things I am too modest to mention. New T-shirts, shoes, suitcases, underwear, bedding, hair accessories and skirts are standard. How the world has changed - when I begged my parents to let me go to camp, I had to choose my words carefully - camp only meant Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen.

“Going to camp” exposes the wealth divide in much of the frum community. Bnei Akiva, the movement aligned with the national-religious Mizrachi movement, costs £655 for a two week residential camp, and while there are bursaries, these are usually reserved for those on welfare benefits or single parents. While your average family on middling-incomes may be lucky enough to have the money in the bank, understandably it may not be their first priority to send one, if not more, children to camp. For children who are not at Jewish schools, camp is the best way to develop Jewish social networks, learn more about Jewish texts and experience a Jewish lifestyle in a non-threatening environment. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Jewish communal leaders are inspired by their formative experiences of Jewish summer camp, and this is reflected in the fact that only the wealthy men and women can afford to be our lay leaders.

However, some consider camp a pernicious influence. Last year, the German government banned the far-right youth organisation "Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend", or German Youth Faithful to the Homeland, for trying to indoctrinate children and teenagers at their summer camps which include military-style drills and courses on "racial purity." This year, David Cameron has announced some half-baked idea for young people to get involved in summer camps and community projects as a means of raising the self-esteem and sense of social responsibility of the underprivileged. In Israel, concern about the extreme religious teachings in summer camps organised by Fatah and Hamas has been a long-standing issue. In Uzbekistan, the government has accused the Baptist Union of brainwashing children with religious ideas at their summer camp. Some may wonder if it is so different at Jewish summer camps that celebrate Jewish nationalism, reinforce Jewish insularity and solidarity and see the world solely through the Jewish lens. For example, Camp Gan Israel advertises itself as “Where Jewish kids are Happier, and Happy Kids are Jewisher!” Jewisher than what?

While it’s simple when religious camps are sex-segregated, it gets a little more complicated where boys and girls are together. Naturally it is expected that they will be kosher and Sabbath-observant, however, the dress code and the relationship code is a little more ambiguous. At Bnei Akiva, there is much less talk of its revered Torah v’Avodah ideology, and more obsession with ‘shomer negia,’ (literally ‘guarding the touch’) which forbids any physical contact between the young male and female campers and their leaders. While it is comforting to parents to know that it’s unlikely their daughter will be deflowered at Bnei Akiva camp, this skewed focus on the physical relationships has ironically, created more sexual tension between its senior members. It’s no surprise that many a marriage in modern Orthodox circles was first imagined at a Bnei Akiva camp. Singles cruises geared for all the religious unmarried men and women in their 30s is all about re-creating the romantic possibilities of a Bnei Akiva summer camp.

What about the homesick child at summer camp? In my day, you’d cry yourself to sleep and put on a brave face during the day and soon afterwards, it would all be fine. The mobile phone has changed the summer camp experience forever. For a while, they were banned from summer camp, but this year, most youth movements have conceded to pressure to allow the children to bring their phone to camp. The problem is that generally, the children will ring their parents, or email them from their Blackberry (the hand-me-down phone of choice when their parents upgrade their own phone) at the slightest complaint or indignation.

Children no longer have to rely on their inner resources and resilience – they can always phone home for comfort and succour. Jewish camp providers have to pander to parental demands and expectations to ensure cash flow, while children learn that their needs and their happiness is all that matters. Narcissistic children calling their parents from summer camp does not augur well for the future of the Jewish community – a community that desperately needs visionary leadership, selfless membership and a deep commitment to ensuring that Jewish values permeates all communal activity. As long as summer camp remains accessible only to the privileged, the community has no idea what talented and dedicated young people are waiting to be discovered.

Hendonistan - where the women are to blame....

In Hendonistan, there's a new message that's been circulated via email and posted on relevant notice boards inside one particular shul [synagogue] (although by the time you read this, I understand the notice will have been taken down). In a paean to Mea Shearim typography, the black and red banner in this popular Orthodox London shul requests that girls and women maintain proper halachic [according to Jewish law] standards of dress in shul. They are to refrain from 'low necklines, see-through and short-sleeve tops and short skirts.' And finally, there is the classic plea 'Please help us to preserve the Kedushat Beit Haknesset.' [sanctity of the synagogue]. Yes, all that holiness resting on the errant elbow of Hendon housewife.
In Hendonistan, formerly known as Hendon, large numbers of Muslim women wearing their jilbab and hijab share the streets with young Orthodox women in their swirling denim skirts that sweep the ground. 'At least,' think all the women in sheitels and long sleeves, 'we don't have to cover up ourselves like THEM. We're so NORMAL.' Yes, it's perfectly normal, as some rabbis have cited, to blame the tragedies of the world on the immodest dress of women. The case of the three yeshiva students in a Japanese jail for allegedly smuggling some drugs is a recent example that highlights this worldview.
In the May 1st edition of the Five Towns Jewish Times, there is an advertisement written in the name of Mrs. Goldstein, the mother of one of the boys in jail. Distressed by her son's situation, she explained that Harav Hatzadik Rabbi Yakov Meir Schechter was asked what could be done for the young men. "The tzaddik's answer was precise. A hisorrerus [awakening] - in tznius [modesty] will surely be a big z'chus for the yeshua [salvation]." The advertisement continues with emotional blackmail; "The commitment of righteous women to improve in any area of Tznius carries more weight than all efforts combined. Your contribution in the form of a personal undertaking can be the deciding factor in their fate. Who can remain idle at this time?" There is also a small outlined box for you to fill in "I, so and so, daughter of so and so, hereby, bli neder (without making a promise) undertake ... upgrade my tznius performance by ..." Three blank lines are left for you to fill in before sending the note to Mrs Goldstein in Monsey, New York. Conveniently, a few suggestions are offered in addition to the usual hem length advice:
Refrain from brisk walking as a form of exercise
Refrain from eating/drinking in public areas, especially where men are present
Shoes/heels/fitted with a rubber sole
Learning hilchos tznius (the laws of tzniut) daily.
What is a woman meant to make of this? Holding women's actions accountable for the fate of these young men serves to abrogate the personal responsibility of those who committed the crime. How is a man meant to respond? Is he really meant to believe that his mother/wife/daughter/sister is the harbinger of all bad tidings pending her fashion sense? Has thousands of years of Jewish history and our complex relationship with the Divine been reduced to a schmutter [piece of cloth]?
In Hendonistan, there is no shortage of rabbis and teachers willing to instruct women how to dress appropriately. Treating the women like children who need to be reprimanded is foolish - their only sin is perhaps too much disposable income with which to buy the latest fashions. While some women simply scoff at this modesty policing, many teenage girls are having a visceral reaction to the way that some lessons in school are hijacked to remind them of the importance of modesty. Critical and condescending teachers are not going to save the Jewish people.
However, if you are concerned about your wardrobe, there are some solutions for a modesty makeover. Try Sleevies - a sleeve extension with an elastic band at the upper arm that you pop underneath the original short sleeve. You can transform your whole wardrobe with this simple device that creates a ¾ sleeve on every top. For suspect necklines, wear a TeeNeck which is a "shirt supplement designed to wear with a lower cut top." Or if you're nifty with a needle, a new book by Rifka Glazer is all you'll need. Seams and Souls: A Dressing, Altering and Sewing Guide for the Modest Woman published by Feldheim (who else?) claims to be a 'a comprehensive guide to sewing and shopping for clothing that conforms to the proper standard of tznius. It will help you decide which clothing to buy and which to avoid or discard because they cannot be altered to meet halachic standards, plus it offers many creative solutions for tznius problems." There is a wide range of creative tips and techniques for tznius solutions for sewers at all levels and over 250 modest, easy-to-follow diagrams for altering the most problematic parts of garments.
In Hendonistan, I am afraid that sewing up the seam will lead to sewing up the soul.

Jobs for the Girls?

In my real life, I am about to lose my job. Furious networking and frantic emailing have left me little time to write anything other than job applications and embellishments on my resumé (all job offers welcome). However, I have had a lot of time to think about what the recession means for Orthodox women, and how paid employment differentiates the role of women across various segments of the Orthodox community.
In the charedi community, especially in those sections where the men are in full-time learning, women are childbearing and bringing home the proverbial bacon. They generally have relatively low-paid jobs such as teachers, secretaries, beauty therapists or shop assistants that provide the basic infrastructure for a community to function. Rarely are they in business (unless it's sheitels [wigs] or housecoats) and even the recent Israeli initiatives to provide computer training and jobs found that many women were willing to take lower pay for working in an all-female work environment with flexible hours.
Men in full time learning, teaching in yeshivot or managing religious communal organizations have already started to feel the impact of the increasing numbers of American and European businessmen who can no longer afford to support these institutions across the Jewish world. Even in a good economic climate, most of these men have very few skills that would enable them to get a decent paying job outside the community. By minimizing the value of a secular education, their rabbis have failed to enable these men to provide adequately for their families and have perpetuated their dependency on the tzedakah [charity] of their neighbours (or in England, on the munificence of the welfare state).
The better-educated and savvy women in the charedi community are going to manage this recession by taking second jobs or piecemeal work, while the single working women in the charedi community with no husband or children to support are going to be the most financially secure. Is it too optimistic to think that this economic crisis will force rabbis and educators to re-evaluate the sort of life skills and training they are giving their young boys?
In the modern Orthodox community, there isn't a minyan where a man hasn't lost his job - bankers, lawyers, computer specialists and accountants have had their role as family provider snatched from under their tallis [prayer shawl], leaving many of them feeling emasculated and depressed. For women, the implications of the recession are still evolving - while a few women complained that their husbands had cancelled this year's Pesach holiday to a five-star resort at the Dead Sea, most are being much more careful about what goes in the their shopping trolley. Mothers are distraught as they start cutting back on extra-curricular activities for their children - ju-jitsu, folk guitar and tap dancing are under threat, and in a community that heavily guards the phone number of a good Polish cleaner, a few have taken to cleaning their own bathrooms and ironing their own husband's shirts.
Many of these women are highly-educated professionals who can afford to be full time homemakers while others are underemployed in mildly interesting jobs for a couple of days a week with their earnings reserved for little treats. After relying on their husbands for years, are these women willing to work full-time to support their families? More significantly, after so many years out of the work force, do they have the requisite skills and confidence to find the increasingly scarce jobs that are out there? When things get tough, what sort of role-modelling will these couples provide for their children? Will young girls finally realise that they need to train for careers with serious financial rewards so that they can support themselves in the future?
There is of course the other group of single, divorced or married women who are already working full time, often as the sole breadwinners in their family or as part of couple where two middling incomes are needed to create one almost decent Jewish salary that will enable them to live in the Jewish area, eat overpriced kosher food and send their kids to summer camp. For these women, it's business as usual, juggling work and home, with the sceptre of redundancy hanging over their heads, even though fortunately, many are in teaching, nursing, local council and other public sector jobs where there is greater job security.
Rabbis in every community are tackling the economic crisis according to their community's need - it might be facilitating introductions to potential employers, setting up a discrete emergency fund, calling for simpler simchas or providing some spiritual sustenance during these challenging times. There is much talk of lowering expectations, especially amongst children, and recognising this crisis as a corrective for previous greed and excess (which is extremely annoying as those struggling the most are not those who created nor benefited from this excess or greed).
In what might appear to be unrelated, there is also increasing concern about the number of young people who are going 'off the derech,' and rejecting the Orthodoxy of their parents. Some are motivated by the poverty of their own families and want to escape the inevitable consequences of a poor education and limited contact with the secular world. It strikes me that the fallout from the religious system is less about the big theological questions and more about overcoming deprivation. As long as desire, and not doubt, continues to fuel religious disquiet, the recession will only exacerbate the feelings of hopelessness and cynicism in a failing religious system. And if anyone tries to tell me that the recession is due to the immodest dress of women... well, I may just have to throw my sheitel to the wind.

Trapped by Yichus

Napoleon and his cronies declared, via George Orwell, that ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ I have my own version: All Jews are equal, but some Jews have more yichus than others.
Yichus is the delicate tissue paper and silk bows used to wrap up a very ordinary gift. Once the fancy packaging is stripped away, all you’ve got is the very ordinary, and often very disappointing, gift. A distinguished lineage and respectable breeding can make a difference to one’s social standing, and so Yichus is touted by the matchmakers when the boy or girl in question doesn’t have very much to offer themselves. For example, the son of well known Rosh Yeshiva has excellent yichus while the daughter of a Latvian convert to Judaism would have very little yichus. Where serious yichus is at stake, marriages are often about forging dynasties, establishing power bases and consolidating the number of loyal followers.
While many parents regard good yichus of their prospective son or daughter-in-law as a drawcard, it hides the very real failings of some people. Paralysed by their yichus, a young person living in the shadow of their ancestors’ achievements may never amount to much. While they may get the proverbial ‘foot through the front door,’ their accomplishments are often mimized precisely because of the head start granted by their yichus. However, yichus is only one of the components of a successful resume in the matchmaking world. Potential brides are gauged by their beauty and despite all exhortations that a girl’s kindness, modest demeanour and homemaking skills are highly valued, the fact is that unless she is pretty and skinny, her chances of finding a ‘good boy’ are severely curtailed. Unless, of course, she has a rich father – in which case, she can eat as much as she wants.
Traditionally, young men were measured according to their learning prowess. I have always found it strange that the young women only willing to go out with boys ‘in learning’ known to excel in their ‘learning’ even though they are unable to understand what these potential husbands are actually learning because the women were not allowed to study Talmud. How sad that they must rely on other men for an evaluation of their potential spouse’s intellectual capacities.
The contemporary Ba’al Teshuvah movement has impacted on the traditional notions of yichus, given that many young Jews who become observant have actively chosen a life path that is radically different from their parents. The family reputation and lineage of a ba’al teshuvah, although there may have a smattering of rabbis from the shetetls of Eastern Europe, has been ravaged by assimilation and mothers who probably did not attend the mikvah. These blemishes continue to punish the struggling ba’alei teshuvah and often hinder their ability to marry into some of the most prestigious religious families. However, one constant remains – the young pretty woman who becomes religious, and has a wealthy father, will always have less trouble finding a husband than her poorer, plumper sister.