L'dor v'dor
From generation to generation. An exploration of the relationship between religion, agency, and feminism through the experiences of several Jewish women.

Marina
In 1917, a young Jew named Victor escaped the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, tied to the underside of a horse's belly. Fleeing religious and political persecution, he made his way to New York in 1920, and eventually found himself in Cohasset, Massachusetts, where he would marry Henrietta, the daughter of two Italian immigrants, in 1936. In 1945 they brought a daughter into the world: Marina, my grandmother. She was the third daughter of Henrietta’s but the first of Victor’s, and his Jewish influence would mean religion looked a little bit different for her growing up than it did for her older siblings who had been raised Catholic (ish).
Marina doesn’t describe her parents as devoutly religious in any way, shape, or form. “I’m not even sure [Victor] believed in God, to be honest. Everything that happened to him as a kid kind of destroyed his faith in that way. And my mom had been born Catholic, but she left the [church] at 18 or so because she was fed up with how the priests were treating her mother” (Singer). This meant Marina’s childhood was relatively secular; her family celebrated both Catholic and Jewish holidays, but in the same way that Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, without any devout religious attachment. Their life, for the most part, revolved around the bakery her parents owned, although Victor always brought Marina and her younger brother Sam to the (Jewish) High Holidays. “We always closed the bakery for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur” (Singer). Despite his disbelief in God he still found it important to familiarize them with Judaism. And despite their relative detachment from any form of religion, Marina still understood that God was a good being who existed, that she could speak to and ask for help.
When Marina was around 10, Victor even tried to send her to Hebrew school:
“I remember standing in the hallway while they all sang the Israeli national anthem, and I was pretending to fake it. I just felt so out of it. They put me with these little tiny kids who were coloring because I didn’t know anything. Obviously, it didn’t work out. I just went there once, I don’t think I ever went back” (Singer).
Despite this trial and error, her older brother Sam was Bar Mitzvahed some years later when he was about 15. Marina didn’t attend the ceremony; she stayed at home with Henrietta to prepare for the after-party. Ultimately, she remarked that “we really didn’t have that religion gene” (Singer), but somehow Judaism stuck with Sam and Marina. “It’s really kind of miraculous…But I’ve always felt like I was a Jew, and I can’t exactly tell you why that was. But I always closely identified as a Jew, not as anything else” (Singer).
In the 1960s at the University of Maine Orono, Marina met Stephen, her future husband and my grandfather, who came from a devout, conservative Jewish family.
“I remember going to his house for the first time on a Friday night [Shabbat], and I didn’t know how to say the wine prayer or the hamotzi or anything in Hebrew, so he taught me how to say them before we got there…His mom made us a lovely Shabbat dinner, and I seem to remember her lighting the candles, and I just I liked it. I love ritual; I was in a sorority, I love all that kind of stuff. And so I took to it” (Singer).
Marina continued dating Steve, and she went through conversion shortly after. In reform Judaism, the rules are more relaxed, but for an Orthodox or Conservative family like the Singers, it mattered who your mother was. Judaism is passed down matrilineally, meaning Victor’s religious background didn’t quite cut it. “In order for us to get married in a traditional Jewish wedding, I needed to actually go through and convert” (Singer).
Conversion wasn’t a cakewalk for Marina, she hit a bump in the road with the first Rabbi she met:
“I went to this horrible Rabbi…and he said some terrible things to me. He literally called me a bastard. He said the Jews don’t want me and the Catholics don’t want me, I was ‘nothing.’ And I was only like 18, and I went home and hyperventilated, I was so upset. I didn’t know what to do” (Singer).
Miraculously, this didn’t deter her, and a friend of Victor’s connected her with a different Rabbi in Chelsea, Maine who proved to be much more accepting. Throughout the summer of 1965, Marina met with him twice a week to prepare for her conversion. Using books that you might use with young kids in Hebrew school, he taught her the alphabet, the prayers, and the history of the religion. And when it came down to it, he didn’t actually make her go through the final step of the conversion, which is immersion in the mikveh (a Jewish ritual bath). She recalls him telling her: “I feel like you're a Jew, I don’t feel like you really need to be converted, I feel in my heart that you are.” So he signed all her conversion papers and sent her on her way. She married Steve in 1967.
Marina found friends and quickly became involved in the Jewish community in Maine, specifically a Jewish social group connected to the synagogue called the Sisterhood, of which she became president for over 20 years. In her 20s and 30s she was actively involved in planning breakfasts, parties, yard sales, and other activities to earn money for the synagogue, and frequently visited Jewish community members who couldn’t get out of their homes easily and might not otherwise have company. It became a large and important part of her life. Eventually, after she’d had three children (one of which was my mother), Marina was asked to teach at a Hebrew school in Auburn, Maine (and she would go on to be my Hebrew school teacher too). She remarked: “I think I learned about 99% of what I know about Judaism from teaching the kids and listening to Rabbi Geller [the leader of the community in Auburn]” (Singer). It wasn’t until she was in her 40s that Marina became a Bat Mitzvah; she led her Bat Mitzvah service together with a Jewish friend from the synagogue.
Marina admits that some of the Jewish traditions that she and Steve used to follow closely have fallen by the wayside. “A lot of our Jewish life had to do with [Steve’s] parents…to please them. Families try to please each other, women try to please their husbands” (Singer). When Steve’s parents were alive, having a seder three or four days after Passover started (instead of on the traditional first and second evening) would have had Marina unnerved, but now she’s just happy to get our family together whenever she can. “There’s something about just being with your people” (Singer). She reflected that now, in this stage of her life, she and Steve are really enjoying reform Judaism. “You go through life and your views change. I used to keep totally kosher, it was a pain in the neck. I guess I thought I had to, and sometimes I think that’s what religion does, it makes you do things because you think you have to” (Singer).
For Marina, her connection to Judaism is not so much about an overarching belief that the Torah is the word of God, but an appreciation for the rituals, prayers, and community that form around it:
“I don’t believe a lot of it, I think many of them [stories, laws, etc.] were just there to try to make people behave themselves…And I mean all of these rules, God didn’t make any of these rules. Let's face it, where did they come from? They were made by men…I don't think about the prayers [rules] when I’m conducting my daily life. I learned how to be a good human being from my parents” (Singer).
She recognizes deeply that Judaism, and religion as a whole, has a capacity to cause harm to those who participate in it, and she acknowledges that just because she finds a great amount of joy in participating in Jewish rituals, it doesn’t mean everyone else does. Marina is also understanding of the fact that the Torah is a historical text. It tells us something about the Jews who lived at the time it was written, but that doesn’t change that we’re living in a very different time today.
Ultimately, it’s clear that Marina is incredibly glad she chose to stick with Judaism. Even if the stories we share over Passover or in the Torah aren’t always rooted in reality, they can still be applied to our lives today:
“A lot of it seems meaningless but it really isn’t. The whole [Passover] seder experience really has a lot to do with what’s going on today in Ukraine. I mean Putin is a Pharaoh. I like to do those sorts of things to remind myself how good it is to be free, and how good it is that I can choose this…I guess everyone takes religion for what it does for them” (Singer).
For her, religion has created a sense of belonging; belonging to a tribe. “I think one of the things that I like about lighting the [Shabbat] candles is thinking that there’s a whole bunch of other Jewish ladies all over the planet doing that at just about the same time” (Singer). And when something positive happens worthy of celebration or something negative that elicits grief, Marina feels like she has a structure to fall back on. Judaism is and has been there to help her get through it all, regardless of the circumstance. And it’s something that she and my grandfather passed on to their children.
Karen
Karen Singer, my mom, was born in 1968 and grew up in Bath, Maine. Her religious experience as a child differed greatly from her mother Marina. “It was difficult at times because I was a painfully shy kid and I just wanted to be the same as everybody else. I didn’t want to be noticed for differences” (Totman). Apart from Karen’s two younger siblings, there were only two other Jewish kids in the whole town. Missing school for the High Holidays made her stick out like a sore thumb. She found it especially difficult when her teachers would point to her around Christmas time and explain that she celebrated Hanukkah, not Christmas. The only places that were comfortable to be Jewish were home and Hebrew school.
Karen was the first Jewish girl to be Bat Mitzvahed in Bath, Maine (though she had to travel to Auburn for the actual ceremony). Her sister Beth was the second.
“We had gone to Lisa’s [her cousin’s] Bat Mitzvah in New Jersey, and I thought, well if Lisa did that I want to do it too. So Rabbi Geller made me little tapes [recordings] to learn the prayers. I would play the tapes over and over again, rewind, and play them again. I didn't really want to stand up in front of everyone on the bimah but I did love learning the prayers. The music of the prayers has always been one of my favorite parts of Judaism” (Totman).
And there were other traditions she enjoyed too, like when Marina would pull out an entirely different set of dishes for their Passover seder. She even let the kids drink special coffee in small mugs (three of which Karen still has); Karen always looked forward to that coffee as a special treat. Although seders at Ada’s house (Steve’s aunt) were long and boring for her as a child, the older she got the more she found joy in them.
When she got to college at the University of New Hampshire, she decided to let the traditions go a little bit. “I always wondered growing up if I was sure this would be for me” (Totman). And then in her sophomore year, she realized that she missed it, and she wanted to attend high holiday services again like she had every year at home. So she drove to a tiny synagogue in Dover, New Hampshire where a family friend was a member of the congregation.
“And I just felt really welcomed and at home. Even though they were total strangers, we were singing all the same prayers. I think it was the first time I realized that Judaism is happening all over the world, and it’s ancient. And it’s powerful to feel like you belong to a large group of people who are all carrying on these traditions at the same time” (Totman).
Karen expressed that this was the first time it felt like she was choosing Judaism. When she was younger it felt more like a ritual or a habit that her parents expected; with some distance from home, she began to appreciate that it was something she actively wanted to be a part of her life.
Supplementing this realization was her exploration into what it really meant to be Jewish:
“I started to learn that things that were important to me, were also important themes in Judaism, like social justice, repairing the world, helping others, and welcoming strangers. And at the same time, I also read a bit about Catholicism and I thought that was some weird stuff. Being told as a child that an abstract man that you’ve never met died for your sins? I liked that Judaism teaches us to always keep questioning and always keep learning, and to try to apply Jewish law to our current, modern lives” (Totman).
Judaism, in her eyes, (specifically the reform Judaism that she participates in now) is flexible; it makes room for individuality. Everyone is accepted into synagogue or the community for whatever reason they want to be there. “There’s an old joke that if you ask five different people about something to do with Judaism you’ll get five totally different answers. It allows for that” (Totman).
She’s even had the opportunity to watch the way Judaism is practiced change right before her eyes. When she was younger the men would lead services, and the women would always be downstairs getting the food ready in time for the service to end. Now women have become the rabbis and leaders of the majority of the services that she attends. She also noted a change in all of the gendered language in the texts she follows in synagogue. When she was a child, synonyms for God were “Lord” and “He.” Today, in our congregation, God is never referred to with male pronouns.
In a line of thought very similar to Marina, Karen remarked that it’s empowering for her to know that she belongs to a larger group of people who share similar values and will always welcome her.
“It helps me feel centered to belong to a religious community, and it gives me opportunities and friendships that I wouldn’t otherwise have…It also gives me a sense of stability and pride to be attached to a heritage of people who have survived and persevered through one atrocity after another… the tunes we sing have been sung for literally hundreds of years; this reminds me that people have been finding strength and solace in this religion for longer than I can actually even fathom” (Totman).
Judaism has always been there for her, and it’ll always be there for the community that she’s a part of because it has existed for hundreds of years. It’s there for her in the rituals like tashlich on Rosh Hashanah, and in the “tunes” she sings while she’s cleaning or cooking or driving to work.
Leah
This was an activity in remembering for me. Most of what I can recall from my childhood experience with Judaism is annoyance, to be entirely honest. It was frustrating that I had to go to Hebrew school every Wednesday, which meant missing swim practice. But Susan (one of my teachers) always brought us snacks, which was something to look forward to. And despite my distaste for the school part of being Jewish, I loved reading books about the Holocaust (The Book Thief is probably my favorite book to this day) and identifying with Jewish history. But having to sit in a classroom to try to learn Hebrew wasn’t the most appealing to me. I’m not sure it is for any 8-11 year old. Though apparently, my memory is not entirely accurate.
When we spoke, Karen reminded me that she and my dad gave me the choice of whether or not to have a Bat Mitzvah, and I very clearly wanted to; there was never any question. She imagines it was because I attended the Bar Mitzvahs of my older cousins and I wanted to do the same. I apparently even talked my cousin into doing a Bat Mitzvah with me; we did ours together. I remember this, although I don’t remember fervently wanting to participate in this tradition. Today I’m absolutely glad that I did. It enabled me to visit Jerusalem, and put my hands on the Western Wall, something that was much more meaningful than I expected. And my Jewish identification also seems to have resulted in a significant number of my friends in college being Jewish, specifically women.
Notable here, for the context, is that during my childhood most of the figures that I saw actually participating the most in Judaism were women. But our congregation leader was a man (who I think I resented because his classes on Torah stories were not as fun as Susan’s classes where we made art or my grandma’s classes where we sang the Hebrew alphabet song). Every single one of my Hebrew school teachers were women, apart from our congregation leader. My grandma, as I’ve mentioned, was one of them. She, my mom, and my aunt Beth were the driving force behind religious family gatherings to light the Hanukkah candles or have a seder. Judaism is very gendered to me; it’s female-identified. Reflecting on my closest friends at Eckerd, only four of them are not Jewish. I thought it was a coincidence that my first roommate, and my second, third, and fourth roommates were all Jewish. But it does make me wonder if there's something larger behind my alignment and identification with them, even if it’s cultural rather than religious.
Much like my grandma, I’ve always just felt like I’m a Jew. Maybe I'm not a good Jew, and maybe I don’t remember a lot of the prayers I should know, and maybe I also don’t really believe in God, but I’m a Jew nonetheless. It’s literally in my blood as much as it’s how I’ve been socialized. Doing this project has made me perhaps a little excited to go home and sit in the very back row of my synagogue (where my family always sits) and look up to see my great-grandfather and grandmother’s names (who my middle name honors) on the stained glass windows. Even if I’m more of what would be termed a secular Jew, I think the ability to identify with Jewish history and people is and has been incredibly meaningful, and a really large part of my life.

Analysis
These women’s relationships with Judaism are clearly nuanced, but each of them illustrates in various ways that their religion is a deep and significant element of their identity. So significant that it can be difficult to understand where the motivation comes from to join or continue to engage in a religious community. Is the force internal or external? Both? The day after my initial conversation with my grandma, she emailed me some additional thoughts she’d had after we spoke. I’d like to include them in my analysis because of their relevance to this particular conversation; especially for women, it can be confusing and it may perhaps feel disempowering to realize that you don’t quite know why you chose religion.
Upon reflection, Marina questioned why she and other women choose to take part in organized religion. She noted that at least some of her motivation to convert and maintain Jewish rituals was influenced by her husband Steve. Marina wondered how often women choose religion just to try to keep the person they love happy, without thinking too deeply about “whether it really is their choice or not” (Singer). Continuing this stream of thought, she expressed that “it’s kind of complicated trying to figure out what really makes us humans do what we do, but I think trying to make the person you love the most happy may have much to do with it. I wouldn’t have made much of a feminist” (Singer).
I would challenge her in some ways, because while mainstream liberal feminism would indeed label actions meant to please the men in our lives as a form of oppression, it is a choice nonetheless. In a world where we are constantly bombarded with messages trying to dictate the choices we make, it’s almost impossible to identify the deeper meaning behind a large majority of our decisions. What’s more important here, I think, is that Marina had complete agency in her decision to convert; her desire to participate in the Jewish tradition was born out of an enjoyment of the ritual even though this evolved concurrently with her relationship with Steve. And that’s okay; it doesn’t mean she didn’t freely choose Judaism. She chooses it every day, and throughout her adult life the form it’s taken has looked different. I see that as reflective of her agency in making Judaism her own, rather than anybody else's. Karen and I have done the same, in continuing to name Judaism as part of our identities, even as our relationships with it fluctuate.
This is a sentiment explored by Haviva Ner-David in her text Life on the Fringes. She expressed in this text that she is often caught in an internal battle between her “feminist sensibilities” and her desire to keep with religious tradition. As her journey of wearing tefillin progresses, she wonders: “Am I doing this for the Sake of God, or for the sake of feminism? For my own spiritual development or to prove a point?” (Ner-David 56). I’m of the opinion that she’s wearing tefillin for all three of these reasons, just like Marina is currently a practicing Jew because she loves the tradition and because she wanted to make Steve happy. Empowerment is not black and white, and the idea that women’s decision-making is only ever dictated by patriarchal forces is oppressive in and of itself. Eventually, Ner-David seems to come to a conclusion regarding this complex issue. In writing about her experience with niddah laws, she reflects: “we can imbue a ritual with new meaning in a way that is both conscious and intellectually honest without insisting that the new meaning is what the earlier commentators had in mind” (Ner-David 158).
The fact that these women even have the autonomy to speak about and reflect on their (oftentimes gendered) religious experiences, to me, is indicative of their capacity for agency within a structure that is viewed as inherently oppressive from the outside; it’s just not. As much as it may be socially or politically powerful for women to align themselves with feminism, it doesn’t make much room for nuance. This is why it’s necessary and powerful to explore gendered experiences in religion from the individuals who practice it. We will always be missing a part of the story if we leave religious women out of the narrative. Talk about disempowering.
References
Ner-David, Haviva. “Mitzvot: Commandments.” Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination, Ben Yehuda Press, 2014, pp. 28–65.
Ner-David, Haviva. “Taharah and Tumah: Purity and Impurity.” Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination, Ben Yehuda Press, 2014, pp. 150–176.
This was originally written in a course called Gender, Activism, and Religion, and has been reworked for publication on this platform.