09-10 TABLE of CONTENTS:
The First Woman to Have a Bat Mitzvah
DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
QUOTES by
Carole Nelson Douglas and Audre Lorde.
BORN 09-10-1909, Dr. Judith Kaplan Eisenstein,
U.S. author, musicologist, and composer.
In 1922 Dr. Eisenstein was the first woman to have
a bat mitzvah.
"No thunder sounded,"
she said in 1992, recalling the ceremony. "No
lightning struck."
Allowing women the rite
that had long marked the passage of Jewish males into religious adulthood
proved to be the first of many changes broadening the role of women in
Judaism. The changes now included their ordination as rabbis. She was the
oldest daughter of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of the Reconstructionist
branch of Judaism.
Today the bat mitzvah ceremony (baR mitzvah is for
boys) is an established practice within the Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist
branches of Judaism, and parallel celebrations are common in some quarters
of Orthodox Judaism as well.
From 1929 to 1954, Dr. Eisenstein taught music
education and the history of Jewish music at Jewish Theological Seminary's
Teacher's Institute, now known as the Albert A. List College of Jewish
Studies in New York City.
While there she published a Jewish songbook for children,
Gateway to Jewish Song, which was followed by other books of Jewish
music and musical history for young people.
From 1942 to 1974, she wrote seven cantatas on Jewish
themes, among them is the frequently performed, What Is Torah, which
she wrote with her husband, Rabbi Ira Eisenstein.
In 1959, at the age of 50, Dr. Eisenstein, who had
earned a Master's degree in music education at Columbia University's Teachers
College, began work for her Ph.D. at the School of Sacred Music of Hebrew
Union college-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. After receiving
her degree, she taught there from 1966 to 1979, and also taught at the
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia.
The smallest branch of Judaism, Reconstructionism
views Judaism as what Dr. Eisenstein's father, Kaplan, called the "evolving
religious civilization of the Jewish people,"
emphasizing the cultural and moral heritage of the Jewish people but not
traditional supernatural and theistic beliefs. Dr. Eisenstein studied at
the Institute of Musical Art, now the Juilliard School.
In 1952, Dr. Eisenstein defended the idea of a distinctive
Jewish music. While Jews had borrowed much musically from the nations and
peoples they had lived among, she wrote in The New York Times, the
music of Jews "bears the unmistakable
stamp of their own peculiar wistfulness, puritanism, or wry humor."
When she was 82, 12 years
past the biblical lifespan of 70, Dr. Eisenstein had a second bat mitzvah,
at which she was also honored by feminist and Jewish leaders, including
Betty Friedan, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Ruth Messinger, Elizabeth Holtzman,
Rabbi Rachel Cowan and Blu Greenberg.
At that time, Dr. Eistenstein expressed disappointment
that bat mitzvah ceremonies, like bar mitzvahs, were often overshadowed
by lavish parties.
"Bat mitzvah began
not just as a statement of feminism,"
she said, "but as a statement of dedication
to something larger than oneself."
[Information on
Dr. Eisenstein provided by Varda Ullman Novick.]
Event 09-10-1973: Ironically, exactly 64 years
after Dr. Eisenstein's birth, another Jewish tradition of several thousand
years duration was broken. The Conservative branch of Judaism ruled that
women would be counted along with men to make up the minimum requirement
of ten needed for a true worship service. Orthodox Jewry maintains the
men-only policy.
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09-10 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS
B. 09-10-1638, Marie-Therese of Austria, Queen consort of King Louis
XIV of France, was another royal female whose body was used in trade
for political power for others. She was given in marriage by her father
as the price of peace between France and Spain.
As part of the marriage
agreement, M-T renounced her right to the Spanish throne that she would
inherit. Her husband Louis XIV to whom she was forced into marriage was
a horrible whoremonger who took many official and unofficial royal mistresses.
He was also a liar.
After breaking the marriage
vows, he broke the marriage agreement and conquered part of Spanish Netherlands
in his wife's name. M-T is said to have never complained of her treatment,
had five children, and then conveniently died. Louis XIV reigned 1643-1715,
some 34 years after M-T's death.
09-10-1758, Hannah Webster Foster, British author of Coquette;
or The History of Eliza Wharton that went through 13 printings. Twenty
years after her death the book was still being reprinted. It was not until
1866 that her name began to appear as the author. Social conventions at
the time forbade women gaining "notoriaty," a method of control
that effectively kept most women's accomplishments from being credited
to them. Only the very brave or stubborn like Jane Austen dared put their
names to their works of art in those times.
B. 09-10-1852, Alice Brown Davis was a leader and for a short time
the chief of the Seminole Indians. She married a white man who deserted
her and their 11 children when the youngest was three. They had operated
a trading post for the Seminoles in Oklahoma where ABD's family had settled
after the Civil War. Most of the children became prominent community and
government leaders.
ABD, in spite of the
hardships of keeping a business going and a large family, became an amazing
symbol of strength among her people who resided near the Cherokee in Oklahoma.
She even went with a group as an interpreter to seek land in Mexico. Her
people's self-government was effectively abolished when the State of Oklahoma
set up counties that submerged the Indian population with white voters.
Because the U.S. government needed a chief's signature for a piece of Florida
property, President Warren G. Harding appointed her chief of the Seminoles.
She had previously visited
the "lost" group of Seminole who had hidden in the Florida Everglades
to escape the forced migration that became the Trail of Tears and established
a dialogue between the two groups. Instead of signing, ABD demanded reparations
and she was summarily removed and a U.S. government illegally signed the
deed.
The Seminoles, under
her guidance took the matter to court and finally won a settlement in 1946,
11 years after Davis' death. The whites continue to exploit the Seminoles
and to keep many of them in abject poverty.
The author of WOA visited
several Seminole settlements as a news writer while she lived in South
Florida and later visited in Okalahoma. I am STILL ashamed and angry at
the despicable treatment and genocide of our native peoples. The European
invasion of the Western Hemisphere killed more than 100 million native
Americans. And we still close our eyes to the Indian Holocaust and the
poverty and displacement we continue to exert over the survivors.
B. 09-10-1863, Abbie Gerrish-Jones, U.S. critic, writer, and composer.
Her opera Priscilla (1887) is considered the first complete opera
- libretto and score - to be written by an American woman.
B. 09-10-1864, Josephine Adams Rathbone, U.S. librarian. One
of the first professionally trained librarians, JAR took a supervisory
and teaching position at Pratt Institute Free Library in Brooklyn New York,
the first free library in the U.S. She left Pratt which was one of the
primary institutes of training for librarians, giving them hands-on experience
to direct the New York Public Library school.
A man was hired as director
of the NY school and she was made vice-director, a move that shocked her.
She was regarded as the real director of the school. JAR was recognized
widely as the foremost teacher of library science in the nation, requiring
her students to not only know the business of taking care of books but
also knowing their contents and current affairs. She served as president
of the American Library Association for one term.
B. 09-10-1877, Katherine Sophie Dreier, U.S. painter and modern
art museum founder. Instead of focusing on her considerable artistic talent,
KSD turned most of her energies towards gaining acceptance in the United
States for modern art. Independently wealthy, she - along with artist Marcel
Duchamp - established Soci,t, Anonyme in 1920, New York City's first museum
of modern art. She published material and held lectures and the like to
encourage acceptance of the new art forms.
When the Museum of Modern
Art opened in 1928, it eclipsed her museum and she later donated the collection
to Yale University.
Her sisters were Mary
Elizabeth Dreier and Margaret Dreier Robins, both active in art and in
social concerns. All three were active in the women's suffrage and rights
movements.
B. 09-10-1883, Mabel Vernon, U.S. suffragist, feminist firebrand,
and pacifist. Not as well known as some, MV was the first national suffrage
organizer for the Alice Paul militant wing and was one of the first to
be arrested for picketing the White House. She arranged for Sara Bard Field's
transcontinental automobile trip that collected half a million signatures
supporting women's suffrage.
An award-winning debater
in school, she traveled throughout the nation to urge support for suffrage.
In later years she worked for the Equal Rights Amendment and campaigned
for women who were seeking seats in Congress.
In the early 1030s she
became active in various internationl peace movements and gradually began
to center on South American problems and was a member of the Inter-American
delegation for the founding of the United Nations in 1945. MV received
several honors from various South American nations.
Throughout her long life,
she was not only a valued speaker, but one of the most valued and under-honored
types of any organization: a great fundraiser.
B. 09-10-1886, Hilda Doolittle, aka H.D., American poet, novelist,
translator and writer. An imagist in her poetry, H.D. leaned heavily
on ancient mythology and mysticism images. She signed her works H.D. rather
than her full name. Her best know works are perhaps Helen in Egypt
(1961) and her somewhat autobiographical Bid Me to Live (1944).
Her best known poems are,"Sea Garden" (1916) and "Red Shores
for Bronze" (1931).
She wrote that she was
"saved" by wealthy English novelist Winifred Ellerman, known
professionally as Bryher, who was the most significant of H.D.'s several
major relationships. Bryhar and H.D. usually shared a home and frequently
traveled together.
H.D.'s daughter from
a marriage with homosexual Richard Aldington was adopted by Bryher. Both
women married, mostly in name only, in the way of the times.
H.D.'s mother was raised
a Moravian (a mystical sect) and taught music and painting. H.D. saw herself
as pulled between the two poles of her father's scientific views and her
mother's mysticism.
H.D.'s work is almost
under constant reevaluation with one critic saying that "we
have not yet learned to read her." And so, like her thinking,
her works are judged either as ordinary or she is judged as one of the
major poets. She lived most of her adult life in Europe, only visiting
the U.S. a few times.
Event 09-10-1894, United Daughters of the Confederacy, a woman's
patriotic society, was founded. As its title indicates, membership is limited
to those who forebearers were in the Confederate armed forces or government
or were prominent in the "cause." Its stated purpose is education
and preservation of Confederate historical sites.
B. 09-10-1894, Rachel Field won Newberry medal for Hitty,
Her First Hundred Years (1930). Her major adult novel All This and
Heaven Too (1938) was a runaway best seller and a major Hollywood movie.
B. 09-10-1896, Elsa Schiaparelli, Italian-born French fashion designer
who used surrealist-inspired ideas in her fashions. She invented such styles
as the bottle dress was responsible for moving colors for women into the
vibrant scale with her introduction of shocking-pink.
ES used the garish to
create interest and produce good advertising for the name. Her main lines
featured solid styles that sold extraordinarily well for 40 years. One
of her innovations was padded shoulders that changed women's silhouettes
to the power look.
B. 09-10-1907 Fay Wray, U.S. film actor, the human love interest
of the original King Kong of the movies.
B. 09-10-1908, Eva B. Adams, director of the U.S. Mint 1961-69.
B. 09-10-1927, Yma Symac, Peruvian song stylist who revived interest
in ancient South American music. Her voice ranged four octaves from deep
contralto to a full high C, and she imitated birds, drums, etc., as she
sang. She was immensely popular in the United States.
Event 09-10-1948: Mildred Gillars, accused of being Nazi wartime
radio broadcaster "Axis Sally," was indicted in Washington,
D.C., on treason charges. According to the indictment, Gillars broadcast
propaganda in English aimed at demoralizing Allied soldiers and citizens
during World War II.
B. 09-10-1953, Amy Irving, American actor best known for her
roles in The Far Pavilions (1984) and Yentl.
Event 09-10-1974: Mary Ann Krupsak, wins the democratic nomination
for New York lieutenant governor over Mario Cuomo and Antonio Olivieri.
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QUOTES DU JOUR
DOUGLAS, CAROLE NELSON:
"How
unfair it is that enterprise is called a harlot when it wears a female
face .... You call her an 'adventurous' as well. Two centuries ago the
word designated a woman who lived by her wits; today it has been debased
to describe a woman who lives by her willingness - especially in regard
to men of influence and wealth."
-- Carole Nelson Douglas in Good Night, Mr. Holmes.
LORDE, AUDRE:
"When
I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision,
then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."
-- Audre Lorde
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