By Rebecca Honig Friedman, cross-posted on Jewess. This would have been an appropriate post for last week when we celebrated Yom Ha'azmaut and commemorated Yom Hazikaron but ...

Jewesses With Attitude recently reconnected with Rivka Solomon, the founder and visionary of That Takes Ovaries (TTO) and recipient of the Jewish Women's Archive's Women Who Dared award.

Today is the 60^th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, and I'd like to mark it not (only) by eating falafel but with something less tangible but ultimately more nourishing: considering stories. Sixty years is only half way to 120 - the mythical age Jews wish upon one another - but this "half life" contains within it so many dreams and visions, loves and losses, hopes and fears, connections and fractures, struggles that remain unresolved. So many stories - I picture them jostling for

 Cross-posted to Racialicious

I recently attended a Yiddish culture conference where participants were required to wear nametags printed with their full names. Thus displayed, my conspicuously Puerto Rican name provoked endless fascination and scrutiny. One day I was asked to identify my ethnicity five times -- before the end of breakfast.

It's unlikely that Emma Goldman predicted her legacy would inspire the name of an activist folk music duo, but perhaps she did. Over the weekend, I had the delight of seeing Emma's Revolution, a "musical uprising of truth and hope from award-winning, activist songwriters" perform with feminist folk music pioneer Holly Near.

By Rebecca Honig Friedman (cross-posted on Jewess). This is truly fascinating.

What connects the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus? Susan Sontag with Gilda Radner? Patriotism with labor protests? Musical theatre and domestic ritual with potato kugel and halvah? You guessed it: JEWISH AMERICAN HERITAGE!

by Rebecca Honig Friedman. Cross-posted on the Jewess blog.

Some of the articles we're finding in our look at The American Jewess archives seem surprisingly contemporary (19th century language aside), yet a closer look reveals the more subtle points of contrast between how we approach particular issues now vs. then.

Are younger generations of women "afraid" of feminism? Has the media slashed and distorted women's choices about balancing work and family? Must women vote for female candidates?

Art, liberation, ritual, the environment. For Jewish eco-feminist artist, Helene Aylon, these are the unifying elements of her life's work. In celebration of Earth Day, I've been re-exploring some of her ground-breaking work and realizing that we need more of it!