• Jewish education takes on a new flavor at the Jewish Food Education Network. [eJewishPhilanthropy]
• Dan Friedman reviews Off and Running -- the story of an African American girl adopted by Jewish lesbian parents -- in the Forward. JWA co-sponsored a talk called "Who am I anyway?" with director Nicole Opper and Adam Pertman, author of Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming America last October. Judith blogged about it here.
• In honor of Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, Jewish Women International has partnered with United Synagogue Youth (USY) to get teens talking about healthy relationships. They posted some activities to get the conversation started. [JWI]
• Jewish Women International is also collecting stories of teen dating violence through an online survey. If you are a teen, recently were a teen, or work with teens, please fill it out! [JWI]
• Rabbi Yehuda Levin, the spokesman for the Rabbinical Alliance of America, warns that allowing gay people to serve in the military will cause more natural disasters. He already blamed the earthquake in Haiti on gay people. Yes folks, it's the Jewish Pat Robertson. [Jewschool]
• Fat and Fabulous: Marjorie Ingall profiles plus-size fashionista Deb Malkin and touches on the some of the complexities of the fat acceptance movement. [Tablet]
• A great piece by Jaclyn Friedman about women's "second sex" status at the Superbowl. [Nation]
• Jon Stewart shows us some horrifying anti-semitic children's cartoons from Hamas. [MyJewishLearning]
• Our Bodies, Ourselves is seeking up to 2 dozen women to participate in dicussions that will inform the next edition of the book. [Our Bodies, Ourselves]
• Robin Washington remembers Rosa Parks on her birthday [TCJewfolk]
• Not sure I understand what this is about, but I am intrigued by this "United Jewish Handywomen" apparel. There are also shirts for the "International Order of Challah Makers." [Jewnion]

Last year in honor of Tu B'Shevat, we created a new page on jwa.org to feature Jewish women in environmental activism, and honored six women actively engaged in that work. After it “went live,” we were excited to find that several people submitted comments suggesting other Jewish women who deserved recognition. We heard those suggestions, and this year we brought the question to you—“who would you add to our list?” We asked, and you answered!  We have received the names of over 30 women in response to our call.

It has been inspiring to learn the stories of so many courageous and dedicated women.  Their work spans a wide range of experience, including careers in animal rights, green architecture, clean water, conservation, and climate change. We were thrilled to see the variety of paths these women had taken to promote change -- including non-profit workers, artists, camp directors, authors, lawyers, and spiritual leaders. On our website, we have written "Acting individually and collectively, Jewish women have pioneered their own environmental activist efforts." The array of stories you have brought to our attention overwhelmingly confirms this.

Central to the mission of the Jewish Women's Archive is sharing the unheralded stories of Jewish women. While we celebrate those who are well-known for their work, we also recognize those who work out of the spotlight. We want to thank you for answering our call, helping us build our collection, and bringing the stories of these dedicated women to light.

Today marks the 172nd anniversary of the First Hebrew Sunday School in the United States, founded in 1838 in Philadelphia.  You can read about it at JWA's This Week in History. It was an audacious undertaking which required the special talents of an unusual woman.

Rebecca Gratz (1781-1869) was born in Philadelphia at a time when Jews were socially assimilated.  She and her siblings, children of a wealthy family, enjoyed all the society pastimes of privileged youth.  But at the age of twenty, Rebecca was already concerned for the less fortunate.  In 1801, she joined the new Female Association, the first nonsectarian women's charity in the city.  She would serve for more than forty years as secretary of both the Philadelphia Orphan Society and the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society.  She also founded  Philadelphia's Jewish Foster Home.

Beyond her good works, Rebecca had the aura of romance about her.  A beautiful young woman, she had renounced the man she loved for religious reasons (he was Presbyterian) and remained single all her life.  In 1821, when the immensely popular novel Ivanhoe by Walter Scott reached America, many people thought they saw Rebecca Gratz in the depiction of everyone's favorite character, the beautiful Jewess Rebecca.  (There is no documentation to prove this, but Rebecca's good friend Washington Irving did visit with Scott for several days in 1817, about 18 months before he wrote Ivanhoe.)  Whether the resemblance was real or coincidental is not important:  everyone thought it was true and it made Rebecca a celebrity.  She became that rarest of all beings:  a glamorous woman with moral authority.  With this heady charisma, undeniable experience in organizing and fundraising, plus the approbation of her rabbi Isaac Leeser who shared her educational concerns, she was able in 1838 to make the Hebrew Sunday School Society a reality.

Rebecca's interest in Jewish education stemmed from her memory of what a mystery her religion had been to her in childhood.  She wanted to sweep away childish ignorance and see "the next generation of Jew[ish] children...able to give a reason for their faith."  She was especially able to help them because during her years of caring for her many nieces and nephews (and raising seven of them), she observed the children carefully and drew some astute conclusions about their cognitive development.

For instance, at a meeting of the directors of the Orphan Asylum, during a heated debate about the text for a (Protestant) religious service for the children, Rebecca saw a problem no one else discerned:  children before a certain age could not grasp the abstractions the women were arguing about.  As Rebecca put it, young children needed a picture to link to a word to make it meaningful.  This did not seem to be apparent to most adults around her, and so her insights into children's development led to views on education which are surprisingly modern at a time when most teachers considered the hickory stick their most important resource to encourage learning.

Rebecca would not have been familiar with terms like "child-centered" or "age-appropriate language," but her educational methods could be described in those words.  The hallmark of her teaching was the explanation -- in a vocabulary and with images children could readily understand -- which accompanied the reading of Scripture and other texts.  She did not want her pupils parroting things they did not understand; she was trying to engage their minds.

Rebecca Gratz conveyed her educational principles to her admiring young teachers and watched over her endeavor as superintendent of the school for more than two decades. Her long experience in charitable organizations made her realistic about what human institutions could accomplish, but in her eighties she was able to tell her faculty that for her the Hebrew Sunday School was the "crown of life."  The school was her lasting contribution, but also to be cherished is her vision of how religion should be taught.

Susan Sklaroff is a docent at the Rosenbach Museum and Library who blogs under the name of Claire Salisbury at Rebecca Gratz & 19th-Century America.

Thirteen years ago today, the newly appointed Secretary of State Madeline Albright went public with the discovery of her Jewish roots. This event brings up an interesting issue, one that we at the Jewish Women's Archive wrestle with daily. Is Madeline Albright a Jewish woman, or a woman who happens to be Jewish?  Is there a distinction between the two?  Should there be?

In a previous post, Renee Ghert-Zand made this distinction when she wrote: "Musicians like Chana Rothman, Naomi Less and Sarah Aroeste aren’t merely rockers who are Jewish. They’re Jewish rockers." To her, a "Jewish rocker" is one who incorporates Jewish themes into their music, rather than just a musician who happens to be Jewish. This seems to be a legitimate distinction that recognizes the infusion of Jewish identity into one's work. But what of the flip side?

Everytime a famous person dies, I count the hours until the Jewish community finds a way to claim him or her (see: Brittany Murphy). Only today I saw at least four articles on Jewish blogs and newsfeeds wondering if we could claim J.D. Salinger as a Jewish writer since his father was Jewish, but not his mother. Does it make a difference if he is known as a great Jewish author, rather than simply a great author? What does the Jewish community stand to gain from claiming him as one of our own? And if he hasn't incorporated Jewishness into his work, is it really appropriate to call him a Jewish writer? Or is he merely a writer who happens to (maybe) be Jewish?

A great many of the women recognized by JWA in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia, as well as This Week in History and We Remember are women whose Jewish identity played a large role in shaping their values, work, and accomplishments.  At the same time, many of the women recognized do not have strong connections to their Jewish identity and are included because of their Jewish background. (Or are all Jews inherently influenced by their Jewish roots even if they don't identify as Jewish?)

This distinction goes right to the heart of the mission and purpose of the Jewish Women's Archive. At JWA we're in the business of celebrating Jewish women.  Since one of our organizational values is inclusivity, we embrace a broad understanding of what it means to be a Jewish woman. Still, we discuss and debate this issue and we do not always reach consensus.

I'm curious to know how you feel about the issue. Should there be a distinction between Jewish women and women who happen to be Jewish? Is there anything to gain from making that distinction?

Kol ishah is the singing voice of a woman, and something observant Jewish men are forbidden to hear. Too bad for them, because they are missing out. They are not listening to the voices of today’s Jewish women rock musicians, something that even those of us who do not observe kol ishah did not have the privilege of hearing until recently.  Back when I was growing up there were American female rockers who were Jewish, like Pat Benatar, and there were Israeli women rock singers. Girls (and the rest of us) today, however, can look up to young American women who not only rock out, but do so to lyrics that incorporate traditional Jewish liturgical texts, make references to biblical narratives and convey authentic Jewish values and messages. Musicians like Chana Rothman, Naomi Less and Sarah Aroeste aren’t merely rockers who are Jewish. They’re Jewish rockers.

It is also exciting to see how these singers naturally and seamlessly switch between English and Hebrew in their songs. Chana Rothman, whose songs I find to be exceptionally intelligent and well written, does this especially well. This singing in multiple languages within a single song also seems to be a trend among Israeli women singers like HaBanot Nechama and Yael Naim (who sings in French, as well as English and Hebrew). I like this fluidity and breaking down of boundaries, which I have a feeling has a lot to do with the far more globalized world young people live in today.

Read the rest at Truth, Praise & Help.

Renee Ghert-Zand is a Jewish educator and writer living in Palo Alto, CA.