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Closed Monday in the West Bloomfield Plaza SPECIAL NOTICE CALL THE LEASE-LINE 354-0570 CALL FOR A CUSTOM QUOTE ON ANY OF THESE MODELS AUDI PORSCHE SAAB ■ /482,1 16._ ,W . 1111111MI IMMV. 7.1, CADILLAC BMW BUICK CHEVROLET Gbe PONTIAC 41111/1 #4 - 1988 OLDS REGENCY BROUGHAM for Details LEASE for $344 per m onth Ask Call for Alan or Mike GLASSMAN LEASING TELEGRAPH & 12 MILE ROAD • SOUTHFIELD 84 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1988 18 month dosed end lease — with credit approval — 0 down $500. Sec. Dep. Total payment 48x334 — Plus Tax 8 Lic. includes all Factory Rebate & Incentives 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