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Celebrating Rosh Chodesh are, clockwise from center, Michelle Blumenberg, Naomi Silverglade, Tali
Mendelberg, Donna Santman, Marilyn Schwartz, Jody Axinn, Susan Knoppow and Hannah Bernard.
Jewish Feminists Celebrate
The Ancient Festival Of Women
SUSAN LUDMER-GLIEBE
E
Special to The Jewish News
fight young women sit
in a circle in a dark-
ened room. Twelve
white candles flicker before
them, like a scene from a
LaTour painting. Ink-black
figs, nuts and wine are ar-
ranged casually on a table
several feet away. Though it is
a raw, dank winter night, the
women's thoughts are of new
beginnings, of warmth and
illumination.
"This is the month of
Shevat," says Hannah Ber-
nard softly. "Even though it's
raining out, it's close enough
to spring," she adds with a
touch of levity.
Her comment reflects the
realization that Michigan
weather and the Jewish
calendar do not always fit
neatly together. Sometimes it
is necessary to resort to a bit
of imaginative dissimulation.
Bernard and the women en-
circling her begin their obser-
vance of Rosh Chodesh, the
Festival of the New Moon.
Though some Jews have not
heard of this holiday and
many more have never
celebrated it, for these women
Rosh Chodesh has a par-
ticular and special
significance and meaning.
"Rosh Chodesh was
rediscovered just recently as
a women's holiday," explains
Michelle Blumenberg, pro-
gram director at the B'nai
B'rith Foundation in Ann
Arbor.
Rediscovered is a good word.
Though the holiday has been
around for centuries, it is only
in the past dozen years that
Jewish women have adopted
it. They embraced the holiday
quality of the festival which
emphasized the natural
association of the moon and
women; which reaffirmed the
sanctification of the life cycle,
of rebirth and renewal. One
Jewish feminist, Arlene
Argus, even notes that the
acronym of roshei chodeshim
(new moons) spells rechem
(womb).
There was a strong histori-
cal reason for their attraction
to the holiday as one of their
own. As the Talmud explains,
because women refused to
surrender their jewelry for
the creation of the golden calf
they were rewarded with the
observance of Rosh Chodesh.
Unlike men, women could
abstain from work on their
holiday, though that did not
mean they could go out
gambling, as evidently occur-
red in the Middle Ages when
a prohibition on that activity
had to be enacted.
Gambling aside, this is a
holiday, celebrated 11 times a
year, that women are taking
to their hearts — and their
minds — nationally and local-
ly. "It's our holiday. We claim
it," says Donna Santman a
U-M student from the
Philadelphia area.
The observance of Rosh
Chodesh affords women like
Santman, Blumenberg and
Bernard the opportunity to
explore feminine spiritual
qualities within the context of
an ancient tradition. It allows
them as well to be inventive
and experimental in develop-
ing new rituals and
ceremonies that are natural
outgrowths of older Judaic
rites.
The women observing Rosh
Chodesh this night belong to
an informal organization,
formed a year and a half ago,
called Jewish Feminist Group
of Ann Arbor. Its members
are primarily, though not ex-
clusively, undergraduate
students at the University of
Michigan. Their religious
backgrounds range from
unaffiliated to Orthodox.
Some have worked in Israel,
some are fluent in Hebrew,
others have little formal
religious education. There are
single women and married
women, heterosexuals and
lesbians. The group is always
changing as people graduate,
move away and new people
take their place. "It's a mix of
women. A nice mish-mash,"
says Blumenberg. "That's the
beauty of it." The group is
open to any and all Jewish
women.
The celebration of Rosh
Chodesh is something the
group has just recently
begun. But members are ex-
tremely excited about it
because for some of them it of
a means by which they
can fulfill their own personal
quests and do a mitzvah as
well. The celebration of the
holiday gives a structure to
the group's meetings and is a
way of exploring and par-
ticipating in their own
discovery of Judaism. Sant-
man, who has been with the
group almost from the begin-
ning, says that the initial