Lady Judith Montefiore: A Brief History

From aish dot com:

It was, in the words of Charles Dickens, “The best of times and the worst of times.” While revolution and political strife roiled Continental Europe, Britain in the 1780s and beyond was home to progressive social change, and to a growing community of educated, cultured Jews who flocked to England.

This group of highly educated, ambitious Jews called themselves the “Cousinhood” – brilliant Jewish families who built empires of business and service, married into each other’s families and created a new, vibrant Jewish community. One of the most prominent of these immigrant Jews was the Dutch-born Levi A. Barnet Cohen who moved to London in the 1770s and eventually became one of a dozen Jews newly elected to Parliament, without compromising his Orthodox Jewish faith. He married a brilliant Jewish woman named Lydia and together they raised an observant Jewish family. Their daughter, Lady Judith Montefiore, became a great – and little known – patron of Jewish life.

Judith used her wealth to support poor Jews, helping build the Jewish Ladies’ Loan and Visiting Society, a Jewish orphanage in London, and educational programs for girls at Jews’ Hospital. Moshe also rose in British society. He was knighted in 1837 (Judith gained the honorific Lady then); that year he was also elected the Sheriff of London – only the second Jew ever elected to that post. Yet despite the Montefiore’s high social position, they were dogged for years by anti-Semitism and snide anti-Jewish remarks.

read more here @ aish dot com

Last Days of Freedom For Anne Frank

"Not being able to go outside upsets me more than I can say, 

and I'm terrified our hiding place will be discovered 

and that we'll be shot," she wrote in her diary in September 1942.

The Jews in hiding had withstood bombs, near-starvation, two break-in attempts, and the many privations of their helpers during over two years in hiding, and the suspense had begun to take its toll. They were pale and malnourished from life without sun, but they were alive.

And then, on August 4, 1944, everything changed.

read more here @ Mental Floss

An obituary 1,700 years old has been translated

An obituary 1,700 years old has been translated - CNN.com

A 1,700-year-old obituary, which is unlike anything researchers say they have seen before, has finally been translated. The inscription, written in ancient Greek on a small limestone tablet reveals a woman's name, her religion and what she was like as a person.

Lincoln H. Blumell, who specializes in ancient scripture at Utah's Brigham Young University, translated the epitaph. Plucked from Egypt, the document had been sitting in the Rare Books Department at the University of Utah's J Willard Marriott Library since it was donated in 1989. It commemorates a woman named Helene who cared for and loved orphans.

In peace and blessing Ama Helene, a Jew, who loves the orphans, [died]. For about 60 years her path was one of mercy and blessing; on it she prospered.

Read more here at: CNN online edition

2,500-Year-Old Find Gives Rare Insight into Women's Roles in Ancient Israel

2,500-Year-Old Find Gives Rare Insight into Women's Roles in Ancient Israel

Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists recently discovered two rare ancient seals in the City of David in Jerusalem.  Archaeologists found the seals inside a 2,500-year-old building.

“Inside this building as a result of very gentle work that include also sifting of the finds, sifting of the airs in order to find all the tiny artifacts, we discovered among other stuff two Hebrew seals; one with the name of a man, Sa‘aryahu ben Shabenyahu and another one with the name of a woman, Elihana bat Gaelm,” IAA archaeologist Yana Tchekhanovetes told CBN News.

“It’s very exciting to know that in ancient times were strong woman in Jerusalem living here. Even though we don’t have any idea who was this lady and why she deserved such a special right in this society,” she continued.

Chained Women

From the Jewish Daily Forward:

Purim is a holiday that is about women’s power, in its different forms. Thinking about the roles of Queen Vashti and her successor Queen Esther in the Purim story highlights some of the dilemmas that women have faced throughout history. I therefore think it’s particularly apt that Ta’anit Esther is International Agunah Day, the day the marks the harrowing struggle of “chained women,” or women denied divorce.

Vashti and Esther were both married to a man, the same man, for whom women were objects to be adorned and used. This was arguably the prevailing culture at the time, but there are also gradations in the exploitation of women.

Women face the insider/outsider dilemma all the time. Should we work hard and sacrifice our integrity (and money) to meet social expectations of female beauty in order to reap the significant social rewards of beauty and sexuality, or should we challenge the system, refuse to turn ourselves into seductresses, and force the world to deal with “real women,” as we are?

In Judaism the insider/outsider dilemma is faced in the most harrowing way by agunot, women who cannot get a Jewish divorce because the system relies on male volition. To stay in the Jewish legal system, agunot give up right to live independently, or to give birth to a Jew, or to be free. They can be free at any moment, but that would entail giving up their status within the Jewish legal system.

Women Falsely Punished For WWII Collaboration

From the News - Poland:

Veteran Polish film director Feliks Falk has said that many women were punished unjustly for charges of collaboration with Nazi Germans during World War II.

Falk discussed the theme in Kielce on Saturday at a special screening of his latest film, Joanna. The movie won two of the top awards at last year's Polish Film Festival in Gdynia.

Joanna tells the story of a Cracovian woman whose husband was interned by the Germans in a POW camp for officers. One day she meets a Jewish child in a church, and decides to take her in. However, Joanna is shortly denounced by her fellow countrymen. Her fate seems sealed, but a German officer gives her the chance of survival, if she is prepared to collaborate with him.

“The parents and neighbours who accused the heroine of hiding a Jew were not bad,” the director reflected. “They were simply terrified.”

“The decision to hide Jews was a difficult one,” Falk continued. “Joanna conquered that fear.”

The film went on general release in Poland before Christmas. Joanna is not based on a specific historical case, but explores the dilemmas of many Poles during German occupation. The penalty in Poland for hiding Jews was death, a sentence that was invariably meted out to the entire family.

Joan Rosenbaum: Jewish Museum

From the Jewish Daily Forward:

After 30 years as director of New York’s Jewish Museum, Joan Rosenbaum announced in December that she would be stepping down from the post at the end of June. Few would deny that during Rosenbaum’s tenure, the Jewish Museum has become a powerhouse of art and creativity, both in the Jewish world and in the larger New York art world. Since she took the reins of the museum in 1981, it has doubled the size of its physical location on Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, expanded its permanent collection to more than 26,000 objects, put on innumerable noteworthy exhibits and ensured its own future by building an endowment of about $92 million. The Forward took the opportunity to ask Rosenbaum about the changes she has seen during her career, both at the Jewish Museum and in the wider spheres of art and Jewish culture.

Female Torah Scribe

From BBC News:

Avielah Barclay is an Orthodox Jewish woman who aims to live "sincerely and 100%" inside the traditions of her faith.

She leads a fastidiously observant life, wears a head covering and a long skirt - in line with Orthodox views on female modesty - and keeps a kosher kitchen.

Yet she is, in many ways, a most unorthodox Jewish woman.

Avielah is a scribe. She writes and restores sacred Jewish texts, a job traditionally done by men.

In fact, for years she has been wondering whether she is the first female scribe in millennia of Jewish history.

Fully trained and certified, getting commissions to restore the sacred texts, and teaching students, she is aware of the importance of her work.

The scrolls she restores today will be used in ritual for generations after she is gone.