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Who Is A Jew Debate
Is A Feminist Issue
MARLENE ADLER MARKS
Special To The Jewish News
W
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henever I feel down
about the future of
feminism, as I've
been feeling lately, I think
about my Uncle Sol. Uncle
Sol was my father's eldest
brother, and what I remember
most about him is that he
sold Melmac dishes door to
door.
Melmac was a post-war
breakthrough, designed to
make the housewife's life
easier. It had the safety of
plastic and the look of
ceramic; it was unbreakable
and probably dishwasher pro-
of, though of course, no one I
knew then had dishwashers.
Uncle Sol lived all his life in
Brooklyn, a quiet man with a
squeaky voice and squirrelly
eyes behind his glasses. He
believed in Melmac, and for a
long time I did, too.
Here was a product of the
future. You could throw it on
the table, smash it with the
peas and lamb chops on the
floor. Melmac was a miracle.
But by the Kennedy in-
augural, our Melmac place
settings were replaced by
china — the Melmac wouldn't
break, but it showed every
scratch. Uncle Sol was left
with a product no one wanted.
No, I do not think of
feminism as the political
equivalent of Melmac, an idea
whose time has come, and
then gone. But I've been
reading Marcia Cohen's The
Sisterhood, a history of those
frenetic first years of the
women's movement, and I'm
nostalgic.
Give me a picket, I want to
march again, but the ques-
tion is, will you be there with
me? Maybe it's the abortion
wars, or the long-ago ERA
battle, but all the working
women I know are tired.
So it's declasse now to be a
feminist — just me and Ro-
seanne Barr are left. Still, I
have to tell you that the
feminist revolution is
nowhere near finished; in
fact, we need it more than
ever.
My fear is that women have
grown so comfortable with
the few perks they personal-
ly have achieved in the last
decades that, well, the real
possibility of inclusion into
society will be lost.
I saw that prospect most
recently during the "Who Is
a Jew" controversy in which
the sexist element was ig-
nored entirely.
Many dedicated, intelligent
women failed to see "Who Is
a Jew" for what it was: an old-
fashioned turf war, Orthodox
men versus liberal men, hag-
gling over rules that would
certainly have their greatest
effect on women. This was a
major policy decision, pertain-
ing to the rights of converted
Jews to return to Israel, in
which the woman's voice was
not heard at all.
We concentrated on "Who
Is a Jew" as a debate about
the rules of being Jewish:
which rabbi signs a piece of
paper. But the larger question
of who makes the rules, and
who the rules are aimed at,
was never raised.
And this is the question
that bears our attention. If
"Who Is a Jew" is about con-
version, it's about the conver-
Sad to say, the
syndrome which
keeps women out
of power, that
keeps Judaism an
old boy network, is
also part of the
syndrome which
leads to
intermarriage.
sion of women, isn't it? It is
about the fear by Orthodox
men that converts who have
their children will be
somehow "impure" and
"unauthentic" Jews unless
they follow Jewish law.
But who knows what makes
a woman an "authentic" Jew?
Have women nothing to add
to the equation, which for
2,000 years has been defined
by men? The voice of women
in their roles as carriers of the
faith is what is missing from
this dialogue, and we need to
hear it.
So if the issue this time is
conversion, at its root "Who Is
a Jew" is no different than
any other Jewish tradition
(see the laws of adultery) and
custom (see its attitude about
women's education) which
sees women as property of
men, an object of the law, a
vessel of the Jewish future,
rather than as fully human
participants in society who
can determine their own
course. Men will decide,
women will abide.
I'm afraid liberal Jewish
men have not treated women
much better in this matter.
For "Who Is a Jew" unveiled
the skeleton in the Jewish
family closet: the large