When I consider author Sara Davidson\’s now-so-public love affair with a cowboy who didn\’t know about Anne Frank, I can hear my mother saying, \”Honey, you could do so much better.\”
To which Davidson\’s response would surely be, \”Show me how.\”
The evening following the final session of theSecond International Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy, I attendeda small family dinner and celebrated the wedding of a SatmarChassidic couple. Among the guests were men with long curledpayot (it\’spronounced \”payyes\” there), and some wearing shtreimels (the fur hat worn bysome Chassidic men). All of the women\’s heads were covered with wigs,and some even wore a small pillbox hat atop it, according to thedecree of their respective rabbis. The women were elegantly (butmodestly) attired in unrevealing clothing and were segregated fromtheir men by tall walls. While the men sang joyously, the womengossiped. When the men rose to dance, most of the women werevicariously reveled by staring at them through the cracks in thewall. (Of course, it is forbidden for the men to watch the womendance, and not one single male deigned to take even a quick\”peek.\”)
The second International Conference onOrthodoxy and Feminism was held at New York\’s Grand Hyatt Hotel overPresidents Day weekend.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.