From Immigration To Integration The Canadian Jewish Experience: A Millennium Edition

A PORTRAIT OF JEWISH LIFE

12. Jewish Women in Canada: An Evolving Role

Norma Baumel Joseph

The study of Canadian Jewry is often seen as a pale reflection of American Jewish studies. The differences in density and population numbers clearly pave the way for some of the most vital differences between the two communities and for this scholarly overture. Nonetheless, researchers in the field often find that form of comparison inadequate. Clearly, the connections, variations, and resemblances are there, and important data for comparative studies exists. But it is in the realm of observed distinctions that the map of Jewish communal patterns needs to be investigated.¹

In exploring the role of Jewish women, it is easy to note the increasing influence of women in the Jewish world of the United States. Their active and public presence in all sectors of communal life is well documented. In contrast, Jewish women in Canada have not been perceived as engaged in the same quality and quantity of activities. In addition, the historical role and experiences of Canadian Jewish women have not been well documented. What are the legitimate inferences of such disparities? Does that imply that Canada is “behind” the United States when it comes to the evolving role of Jewish women? I think not. That form of reasoning precludes serious analysis, obscuring rather than developing the evidence.

In order to support this contention, it is perhaps appropriate to begin with one of the most heralded, divisive, and visible transformations in women’s roles: the rabbinate.² The history of Jewish women’s leadership is complex, but official ordination was not established until 1972, when the Reform movement in the United States ordained Rabbi Sally Preisand. In 1974 Sandy Sasso was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary, and in 1985 the Conservative movement followed with Rabbi Amy Eilberg. Today, more than half of the student body at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary is female. The Reform Central Conference of American Rabbis has registered 293 female rabbis and the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement has a hundred female members.³ The struggle for the rabbinate took place in the United States and, consequently, there are many more female rabbis there. Canada, on the other hand, has fewer than ten functioning female rabbis and, like their colleagues in the States, not many are congregational rabbis. What does that mean? Demographically, it means that more American Jews are regularly exposed to learned female authorities. More Americans are used to women who can lead services, whose advice is sought, who are communal leaders, who have authority and voice. It certainly does not mark universal acceptance. Does it mean that they are learning to disregard gender or to take gender more seriously? Does it mean that Canada is in the dark ages because there are fewer female rabbis and not all of them can get jobs here? Or do we need to explore what the rabbinate means in Canada and in the US, what forms of leadership are available in both countries, what the numbers indicate per capita, and what other leadership positions are being developed.

One of the first Canadian congregations to hire a female rabbi was the Holy Blossom Congregation in Toronto. Since hiring Elyse Goldstein almost two decades ago, the synagogue has consistently sought to have one female as part of its clergy staff. None of the women hired, however, has ever assumed the role of principal rabbi. Other congregations in Canada have been less forthright in employing female rabbis. Certainly, there have been very divisive battles on hiring committees, with some congregations even refusing to interview female candidates. Some of the women, such as Rabbi Nancy Wechsler-Azen, have asserted that they received equal treatment, while others reported discrimination both within the congregation and from their male colleagues.⁴ Some - like Rabbi Dina-Hassidus Mercy, who works in a senior centre in Vancouver- have chosen to work in rabbinical, but non-congregational, jobs. These women have been struggling with stereotypes, prejudices, conservatism, and pretty bad jokes. But they have affected the community in many ways-more than their numbers might indicate. In such a small Jewish community as exists in Canada, with its two national Jewish newspapers, the Canadian Jewish News and the Jewish Tribune, the publicity, and even controversy, surrounding these women can have significant consequences. What is needed now is detailed research into the lives, experiences, patterns, and successes of these rabbis and their respective congregations. Placing these stories into the context of the rabbinate in Canada, as well as that of the United States, will enhance the study.

Different questions, unique to the Canadian experience, need to be explored. For example, rabbinic training takes place, for the most part, in the major seminaries of the United States. All rabbis serving in Canadian congregations are trained south of the border. Most of them are also born there, and the role of female rabbis in Canada must be placed into that context. What do the American-born rabbis bring with them? How does their Canadianization take place? What links are forged or dissolved? Exploring the roles of female rabbis in Canada yields novel Canadian information.

Notably, and unexpectedly, Canada is the site of one of the most daring and innovative phenomena directed by a female rabbi. Towards the end of the 1980s, Reform rabbis and congregations in Toronto were increasingly concerned about the attraction of Orthodox centres for adults interested in text-based learning. In an attempt to create a space for Reform, advanced, adult learning, they pooled their resources and, in 1991, established Kolel: A Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning. Not only was this a uniquely Canadian move, but by hiring a feminist rabbi, Elyse Goldstein, the founders substantiated the acceptance of female rabbis in Canada. She was the best “man” for the job. In one sense, gender was not important. She brought knowledge, passion, teaching skills, and commitment to the job. Under her guidance, Kolel has grown, reaching about 1,500 adults a year, with six staff and fourteen classes a week. On the other hand, gender is very much at the heart of the task. The program was “designed to reach out to Jews seeking to study in an atmosphere of progressive, egalitarian values.”⁵ Elyse Goldstein is an outspoken feminist. Many of the students, male and female, find that she has created a welcoming environment for liberal and feminist Judaism. Kolel is a prime example of Jewish institutional innovation in Canada, initiated by a male rabbinic establishment, built upon teamwork and the expertise and accomplishment of a female rabbi.

In the Orthodox community, as well, there are a range of initiatives in the field of Jewish study in which women have been both the initiators and the primary recipients. Significantly, Orthodox women’s groups have also focused on text-based learning, with programs such as Mekorot in Toronto. Particularly noteworthy is the appointment in the last decade of the twentieth century of Arna Poupko as Jewish scholar for the entire Federation in Montreal.

Examining the distinctive role of women rabbis in Canada touches upon another critical question of context and comparison: to what degree is it necessary or beneficial to continuously compare women’s roles to those of men. If women do not have the same roles and rituals as men, does this mean that they are behind, less-than, or subservient to men? Must they perform the same male roles in order to be validated or achieve individuation and equality? The answers to these questions are not so simple, nor are they clear. In some arenas, it is necessary for women to assume equal role definition and status; in others, women’s actions retain a distinctive quality that is appropriate and advantageous.

Women’s volunteer organizations in Canada have played such a characteristic role. From the first organizational moment to the present, these groups have endeavoured to aid those less fortunate through social welfare work. Volunteerism enabled women to take their roles as homemakers and caretakers into the public arena. In this organizational world, women developed many of the managerial and economic skills necessary for public life. By creating their own organizations, they were also able to extricate themselves from male political authority. Routinely marginalized by the male establishment, many of the women’s organizations set their own agenda and accomplished much. Until recently, historians have neglected this part of the Jewish community, yet the data is rich in terms of Canadian women’s social activism, communal politics, ethnic identity, and individual self-confidence.⁶

The first Jewish women’s organization in Canada, the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society of Montreal, was created in 1877 in order to meet the needs of the poor women and children arriving from eastern Europe. Women such as Mrs. Louis Saunders, Minnie Falk Davis, and Bertha Lehman Rosenthal managed to incorporate quickly by means of a special legislative act, and then raised the necessary funds from the provincial government and individual banks. Thirty years earlier, the first Jewish philanthropic organization in Canada, the Hebrew Benevolent Society, had been established by the Sephardic community. The relationship between these societies is unclear and the record does not indicate why the women formed their own society, but their focus on women implies a special need and gender awareness. Documents from the Baron de Hirsch Institute in Montreal indicate that in 1905 women undertook the relief aid to women, while the men in the organization attended to men and general needs such as coal or matzo.⁷ This steadfast, down-to-earth commitment to women, perhaps necessitated by women’s invisibility in general communal affairs, marks these organizations even today.

The end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century saw the growth and institutional development of the Canadian Jewish community. In 1831 there were approximately one hundred Jews in Canada; by 1931 the number had swelled to over 150,000. In that immigration-rich environment, numerous organizations were formed across Canada to aid the absorption and Canadianization of these Jews. A brief listing of these associations indicates the geographic spread and communal intensity exhibited: the Ladies’ Montefiore Benevolent Society in Toronto in 1878, the Jewish Endeavor Sewing School, the Hebrew Ladies’ Sewing Society, the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Hebrew Maternity Hospital, the Council of Jewish Women in Toronto in 1897, the Ottawa Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society in 1898, the Toronto Hebrew Ladies’ Aid Society in 1899, the Daughters of Israel in Saint John, New Brunswick in 1900, the Hebrew Ladies’ Maternity Aid Society in Toronto in 1908, Ezras Nashim in Toronto in 1913, the Hebrew Young Ladies’ Boot and Shoe Society in 1914, and the Council of Jewish Women established in both Calgary and Edmonton in 1920 and in Vancouver in 1924.⁸

Even though most of these organizations no longer exist, their heirs surely do. Others, such as synagogue sisterhoods, have been able to sustain their unique organizational structure and purpose.⁹ In Ottawa the Ladies’ Auxiliaries banded together in 1915 to form the Jewish Women’s League of Ottawa. The sisterhood of Canada’s oldest synagogue, the Corporation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Montreal, was formed in 1918 and that of the Shaar Hashamayim in 1921. The time differential between the founding of these latter two synagogues - the Spanish was founded in 1768 and the Shaar Hashamayim in 1846 - and their respective auxiliaries does not necessarily indicate an absence of interest or activism on the part of the women. Rather, it speaks to the absence of women in the very early years and, conversely, their activism in other organizational modes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Examples of such multiple affiliations are plentiful. Caroline Hart organized and headed Toronto’s kindergarten system from 1885-1892. In 1934 Lillian Freiman of Ottawa was the first Canadian Jewish person to receive the Order of the British Empire for her volunteer work, especially in support of immigration and immigrants. Belle Goldsmith de Sola, first president of the Sisterhood of the Spanish and Portuguese, was also founder of the Daughters of Zion, the Friendly League of Jewish Women, and the Welcome Club for Jewish Working Girls, and was decorated by the kings of both Belgium and Serbia for her work during World War I. This unfolding of women’s organizational activities in Canada reveals an important consistency and activism. Even as the larger community incorporated many of the smaller organizations, and many of the activities were subsumed under the federation system, some women’s organizations maintained their distinctive structures and programs.

Several of the most influential national organizations were started in the United States, but had specific Canadian characters.¹⁰ The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) was founded in 1897 in Toronto and spread across Canada. The many chapters were independently formed by upper-class British and German Jews concerned with the integration of new immigrants to Canada. They created educational programs and established family services. One of their continuing goals was to present a positive image of the Jewish community and to be a valued part of Canada. They extended their work to include the good of society in general, including advocating social legislation. The National Council of Jewish Women established links with other Canadian women’s organizations in provincial and federal programs. The Council has maintained its involvement with social causes, politics, and education. In addition, the members’ educational and leisure interests in current events and culture form the basis of local programming.

Hadassah, the largest Jewish women’s organization in Canada was founded in 1916 in Toronto and 1917 in Montreal. Unlike the NCJW, Hadassah’s focus was on the needs of Jews in Israel. These upper-middle-class women saw their volunteer work as a logical extension into the public sector of their traditional role as caregiver. As Lillian Freiman declared in 1920:

We can do our woman’s part. We can minister to the sick. We can carry across to that country that is soon to be ours, our knowledge of sanitation, and our methods of education. We can help to combat disease, to build better, cleaner homes, to open hospitals, schools, clinics, all that goes to make a healthier, happier home life, and therefore, a healthier, happier nation.¹¹

That tradition has been maintained throughout Hadassah’s history.

Hadassah differed from its American counterpart in two crucial ways. In 1921 it joined the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) and, under the leadership of Lillian Freiman, it funded and sponsored Nahalal, the first agricultural college for women in Israel. This momentous shift in a women’s philanthropic organization promoted productivity rather than charity and is an unparalleled contribution of Canadian women.

Altruism has always been the hallmark of these organizations, but they also benefited their own members. Hadassah was a vehicle for Zionist education and political activism in support of Israel amongst women in Canada. While there were some Canadian-based projects, most of its fundraising efforts were directed at programs in Israel. Today, that same focus has been extended to embrace more women-oriented projects located in Canada.

Pioneer Women’s Organization, now Na’amat, was established in Montreal in 1925. It, too, was Zionist, but from a Labour Zionist perspective. Unlike the previous organizations, this one was formed with affiliations with Israeli organizations and in response to the lack of power granted women in the Labour Zionist movement. They focused then, as now, on the needs of women. The funds raised by this organization provide half of all social services for Israeli women, youth, and children.¹² When the group was founded, the membership consisted of immigrant women with working-class backgrounds. They were closely aligned with Yiddish education and supported the Jewish Peoples’ and Peretz schools in Montreal. Their political activism clearly came out of their socialist ideals and backgrounds, but this distinction is no longer germane. Moreover, the class division between the organizations is today no longer as salient, with regional differences being sometimes more pronounced than economic or religious ones.

Similarly, B’nai Brith Women, established in 1939, has recently dissolved its partnership with the main - “parent” is the telling word in this context - organization. Again internal politics and women’s desire for their own political voice has produced a new organization, Jewish Women International. It, too, has its own agenda, with a focus on women in Canada. The majority of Jewish women belong to these “secular” organizations.¹³ The formation of these numerous groups and their endurance testify to Canadian Jewish women’s continued patriotism, Jewish consciousness, social idealism, practical methods, charity, and independence of action.

There are, of course, active religious women’s organizations, such as Emunah Women, affiliated with the Mizrachi movement. Although Emunah’s mandate is religious Zionism, it combines fundraising for charities benefiting women and children in Israel with educational programming here in Canada for its members, such as Montreal’s Rosh Hodesh lecture series. Indeed, in many places in Canada there are Rosh Hodesh prayer and study sessions for women in a variety of Orthodox settings.¹⁴ In the ultra-Orthodox community, Bikur Holim societies are just one example of a network of women’s organizations offering support services for families facing illness or disability. In the Hasidic sector of the ultra-Orthodox community, Women of Lubavitch is a prime example of an organization that promotes women’s initiatives that benefit the entire community.

As women’s worlds changed, so did the organizations. While the focus and goals of many of the organizations remained the same, membership changes brought about structural and programmatic transformations. The socio-economic and educational standing of the members had undergone a significant change. Many women entered the work force and had different interests.¹⁵ Volunteering was still a factor in their lives, but it was not the only one. On the other hand, they brought a variety of new skills and interests to their activities. Rather than belonging to many organizations, these women carefully chose one in which to develop their communal concerns. Reasonably, the organizations developed programs to benefit the women members themselves. Linking women across Canada, many of the groups focused on issues of identity, Canadian politics, and education. Jewish learning was included in the plan and issues of concern to Canadian women became more than mere pilot projects. Nonetheless, their focus remained on women in need. Substantial interest in domestic violence moved Jewish Women International to set up emergency apartments in Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg, while the National Council of Jewish Women founded Auberge Shalom in Montreal, the first Jewish shelter in Canada. Significantly, issues of poverty and abuse among Jewish women came back onto the agenda of many of these organizations. According to the 1991 census, 56 per cent of the Jewish poor in Canada were women and one in three elderly Jewish women lives below the poverty line.¹⁶ While poverty has become a community-wide concern, the unique problems faced by women have remained the central focus of the women’s organizations.

One of the unique accomplishments of Canadian Jewish women was the passage of a national amendment to Canada’s Divorce Act. Although many different organizations and individuals were involved in passing this law on August 12, 1990, it was largely an accomplishment of the women.¹⁷ Divorce in Jewish law is distinct from civil divorce procedures. In Orthodox and Conservative communities and in the State of Israel, a Jewish divorce document, a get, is required. This document must be administered by a rabbinic court, written by a skilled scribe, and initiated by the man. Rabbinic courts outside of Israel do not have any enforcement power and are unable to properly convince the male to give the get. The resultant disequilibrium has aroused great controversy in the Jewish world. Numerous organizations have been established to free these agunot, women chained to disintegrated marriages and dependent on their ex-husbands. Although there have been many rabbis and Jewish men involved, the major activists have been the women.

In Canada, two unparalleled events transpired: the women’s organizations joined forces and a federal amendment was passed. Both accomplishments astounded their American and Israeli counterparts. Initiated in Montreal by six groups, all the major national women’s organizations eventually joined in the larger effort.¹⁸ Citing the need of a government to protect its citizens, the women funded, organized, and advanced an educational and advocacy campaign to include a protective clause in the Divorce Act.¹⁹ Within the relatively short period of five years, the goal was accomplished: an amendment passed into law banning anyone from maintaining barriers to the religious remarriage of their spouse. Not satisfied with this accomplishment, the Canadian Coalition of Jewish Women for the Get, led by Evelyn Brook, continued its educational and activist mandate. The organization held vigils across Canada on the Fast of Esther in order to highlight the plight of the agunah. They produced a documentary film, Untying the Bonds… Jewish Divorce, with funds from the Canadian government. They set up helplines across Canada and forged international links. It is difficult to overstate this achievement. Many countries have looked to the Canadian example, but what they see is the legislative victory. Perhaps the more astounding detail is the unparalleled co-operation among so many women’s organizations and the larger Jewish communities’ acceptance and recognition of the women’s leadership.

In consonance with the changing role of women in Canada, many women found an increasingly welcome place in public and Jewish communal institutions. Jewish women have been vitally involved with synagogues, schools, hospitals, homes for the aged, Zionist organizations, federations, and all of the various community structures. Initially, outside of the women-only organizations, they lacked the political influence their numbers indicated. In the last three decades, their participation in the decision-making process and in leadership positions has increased. The Canadian Jewish community is not yet egalitarian, but the transformation has begun. There have been female presidents of synagogues, schools - including Orthodox day schools - B’nai Brith Canada, Canadian Jewish Congress, hospitals, and - belatedly - even federations. As the community enters the millennium, in Vancouver, for example, there is a female president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, the United Jewish Appeal fundraising campaigns have husband-and-wife teams, a woman heads the Jewish National Fund, and women have been presidents of three of the four day schools. While noting these changes, columnist Jean Gerber also noted that women are finally listed under their own names in registries and for mailings from Jewish organizations.²⁰ Thus, on the volunteer scene, women have been gaining positions of influence and community-based professional jobs are more evenly distributed. The top executive position in each organization, however, remains a male domain. Fundraising organizations still cater to the male population, but that will change as women’s economic power increases and the women begin to use their financial prerogative to donate to their own particular causes. In spite of everything - including the new realities and pressures of the career-woman model - the conservatism of Canada’s Jewish community continues to promote a “women in the kitchen” or “caregiver” role; in this way, the Canadian Jewish community mirrors much of the wider Canadian experience. Women’s voices, while no longer absent at the decision making table, are certainly not yet authoritative.

Two of the most consequential changes of the last fifty years have been in education and employment for Jewish women. The early immigrants of the twentieth century were mostly blue-collar workers and Jewish women were militant unionists. Many of them settled on farms in the West. Today, that picture is set aside. There are no more Jewish farmers and the voices of those courageous women have been largely silenced. The women were primarily from European cities, unseasoned in the isolation of rural life. Their stories of difficult adjustments, back-breaking fieldwork, never-ending housework, and extremes of weather are offset with narratives of strong family ties and festive communal events. They relied on their social and religious culture to devise a survival tale. There are only a few published memoirs and collections to mark this rare period of Canadian Jewish history.²¹

Many of the changes came as a result of demographic shifts. The communities of Toronto and Vancouver have been growing, while the first Jewish place of settlement, Montreal, has not grown and has even experienced a decline in recent years.²² There are staunch communities in Winnipeg, Halifax, Calgary, and Ottawa, but the Jews in these cities are aging. Jews, as always, are urban and mobilized, and as the population has moved, women have taken on new roles and entered the professional world. In 1931, 33 per cent of Jewish women were blue-collar workers, 5.9 per cent were managers, and 4.4 per cent were professionals. By 1971, those numbers had been interchanged: 5.9 per cent were blue-collar workers, 20.7 per cent were professionals, 4.7 per cent were managers, and 63 per cent were clerks and salespeople. Over 85 per cent of gainfully employed Jewish women were no longer primary producers or blue-collar workers.²³ The women moved out of that labour market even more completely than the men, but they did not succeed as well as the men. More women remained at the sales and clerical level, and those who became professionals did not manage to gain the same financial rewards as their male colleagues. A 1986 survey revealed that Jewish men earned an average of $25,439, while women earned half of that at $13,343.²⁴ Although the gap has decreased, the discrepancy in occupations and earnings remain a problem within Canadian society in general. Another distinctive feature is that in the years leading up to and immediately following World War II, most female workers were single. Marriage for Jewish women meant, among other things, that they would cease to earn a living. Middle-class status was defined in the Jewish community by the absence of wage-earning wives. This pattern no longer applies as married women frequently continue to work in what has become an era of double-income middle-class families.

This shift in wage-earning patterns is strikingly revealed in the history of unions. In the Montreal garment trade strike of 1934, Jewish women were “among the most militant strikers.”²⁵ The women also used these techniques in specifically Jewish circumstances. Like their American neighbours, they held two successful kosher meat boycotts in Toronto in 1924 and 1933 to lower the prices. They also joined forces to help one Orthodox woman avoid working on the Sabbath.²⁶ In 1931, 46 per cent of the Toronto garment workers were Jewish, and Jewish women made up 30 per cent of the women.²⁷ Today, their daughters and granddaughters are on the other side of the bargaining table, seldom even aware of their ancestor’s battles. Jews are still heavily invested in the shmatte (garment) trade, but the women are married to the owners, are the designers, sales representatives, accountants, lawyers, retailers, or consumers. Few remain in the factory production line.

The Jewish community of the twentieth century experienced a series of radical transformations, from the redistribution of the Diaspora to the destruction of the European community to the establishment of the State of Israel. The accompanying educational transformation properly belongs in that list. Schools were established for all students. This democratization of learning in both general and Judaic studies surely affects all aspects of Jewish social and communal life. Incredibly, given the history of women’s exclusion from official Jewish educational establishments, the modern inclusion of women as both students and teachers has had enormous implications. The first Jewish settlers in Canada sent their daughters to the Ursuline convent where they received an excellent education that was totally lacking in any Jewish heritage. Progress in the education of women has taken most of the twentieth century. Initially, schools were mandatory only at the primary levels and girls were frequently removed before high school. They were usually told that their education was a luxury the family could not afford, but that their brothers needed.²⁸ Many early narratives portray the yearning of women to get an education. Notable women such as Lillian Freiman and Caroline Hart championed educational initiatives. The women’s organizations understood that immigrants needed schooling in order to become good citizens, and so they funded various educational programs. Very few women were able to get advanced degrees in the first half of the century. Jewish studies as a subject was almost unheard of. Again, that has been reversed. According to the 1991 census, 44 per cent of Jewish women and 51 per cent of Jewish men graduated from college, while 20 per cent of the men and 12 per cent of the women earned graduate degrees. Despite these discrepancies, Jewish women are amongst the most educated of Canadian women.²⁹ They have entered the academic world of higher learning with the same passion and commitment as their male counterparts. Notably, they have also been the beneficiaries of Judaic studies programs in the universities and in intensive informal settings. In all sectors of the Jewish world, women’s Judaic learning has become available and sanctioned. And that is revolutionary.

The success stories of this past century reveal a community being transformed as it became Canadianized. Yet these accomplishments display a cultural persistence and distinctive character. Canadian Jewish women had higher levels of education, higher status jobs, and higher personal and family incomes than their non-Jewish neighbours.³⁰ Nevertheless, the majority of Jewish women continue to live in heterosexual, two-parent families, to assume the primary care for the home and the children, and to make the critical decisions concerning the family’s educational choices and synagogue affiliations. The range of women’s choices and expressions will surely expand and mark the next century, as will recognition of distinct elements within the Jewish world. Not everyone is heterosexual: not everyone is married. Lesbian and gay couples are establishing families. Many live alone, often choosing that standard. Many are coupled, living in alternative family patterns. Not everyone is Ashkenazi; not everyone is nostalgic for Yiddish or gefilte fish. The diverse Sephardic communities have begun to delve into and proclaim their own history and heritage. Women’s roles in maintaining and developing these distinctive forms necessitate investigation.

As the face of the Jewish community continues to change, as women’s participation increases, and as family patterns shift, the future challenges will necessarily involve innovation and compromise. There is also a note of caution required. The prevalence and intersection of antisemitic and sexist sentiments mar the Canadian picture. Jewish women are at risk, both from the Jewish and non-Jewish world. Their experiences of discrimination and harassment should not be trivialized as they signal Jewish women’s “dual oppression.”³¹

Nonetheless, the feminist movement has positively enriched both the secular and religious life of the community. Women are more active in rituals in many synagogues and have inaugurated women-focused and women-only ceremonies. In Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist synagogues, women’s ritual participation has increased. A 1998 study found that half the Conservative synagogues allow women to receive an aliyah and count women in the minyan.³² Individual groups have organized egalitarian services, but the majority of Canadian Jews attend established synagogues. The Orthodox synagogues have also been affected, with some even allowing women to dance with the Torah on the holiday of Simhat Torah. Ceremonies for the birth of a baby girl are expanding, but the most extensive proliferation has occurred in the bat mitzvah ceremony. In almost every community, including Orthodox and Hasidic, there is some form of celebration for the girl of twelve. Some celebrations take place at home, others in school; some are identical to the bar mitzvah, while others are innovative. The Spanish and Portuguese Congregation of Montreal is one of the only Orthodox synagogues to develop a Shabbat morning ceremony for the girl. Some congregations have also included bat mitzvah ceremonies for older women. Weddings have been modified, sometimes to include double-ring ceremonies.³³ The inclusion of women in rituals that consecrate life-cycle transitions brings women back into the arena of public participatory Judaism. They address women’s presence and ritual significance in community practice.

There have been a number of organized collective ceremonies or experiences that were generated in Canada. The first Canadian women’s prayer group began in 1982 in Montreal and has been meeting monthly ever since. Unlike many groups in the Women’s Tefillah Network, the Montreal group has always had use of a synagogue and its Torah scrolls and actually meets on Rosh Hodesh. Since 1993, they have also had their own prayer book.³⁴ In seeking new ritual experiences and expressions, numerous groups of women have met to celebrate their own woman’s seder. For example, during Passover 1992, sixty women in Victoria gathered to ask four different questions. Based on other seder samplers and their own individual quests, these women celebrated the themes of liberation and women’s contribution to Jewish heritage and history.³⁵

One of the most innovative Jewish feminist celebrations in Canada was the Succah-by-the-Water celebration. Inaugurated in 1991 by writer Michele Landsberg, this celebration lasted five years, attracting over five hundred women each year. The project, which was held in a huge tent at Harbourfront in Toronto, involved many artists, scholars, rabbis, activists, and musicians. The event was sponsored and co-ordinated by the New Israel Fund, manifesting a marriage of Zionism and feminist Judaism. Succah-by-the-Water was conceived “as a way to celebrate Jewish feminism, to reach out to the Jewishly alienated with a festival of great aesthetic beauty and pleasure, and to raise money for women’s causes in Israel.”³⁶ Women from all sorts of Jewish backgrounds participated in traditional holiday rituals in a creative environment and context. It was an inspiring Jewish-feminist event.

There are numerous interfaith groups in Canada in which men and women work together to overcome stereotypes and reach mutual respect. One such initiative specifically for women is the Women’s Interfaith Dialogue of B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights, in which women of different religions come together to share the common experience of women in their faith communities. Through this and other similar organizations, Canadian Jewish women have maintained an active role in reaching out to the larger Canadian community.

Two feminist conferences held in Toronto were exciting landmark events. Canadian Jewish women of various dispositions and locations came together to explore their concerns and express their feminist convictions. The book From Memory to Transformation has preserved some element of those stimulating conferences.³⁷ Although Jewish female authors have long been prolific throughout Canada, the first collection of Jewish feminist writing was published in 1992 by Fireweed: A Feminist Quarterly. The only Internet journal on women in Judaism is produced in Toronto by Dina Ripsman Eylon. Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal substantiates the ingenuity and opportunity found in Canada.³⁸ Finally, a unique publication of Yiddish women’s writings, Found Treasures, again displays the opportunities and accomplishments of Canada’s Jewish feminists. The book grew out of a search for foremothers and a desire to make the Yiddish prose available to their English descendants.³⁹

Possibly the most noted and used Canadian Jewish feminist resource is the 1989 documentary film Half the Kingdom, produced and directed by Francine Zuckerman. In this one-of-a-kind film that has been used in classrooms throughout North America, seven women from Canada, Israel, and the United States explore the challenges they face as Jews, women, and feminists. The film received many awards and its continuing popularity indicates its singular achievement.

This list of accomplishments is not complete. Although beyond the scope of this essay, mention must be made of the many female authors, poets, musicians, dancers, and artists who have bestowed their treasures on Canada and the Jewish community. Women such as Adele Wiseman, Miriam Waddington, Rochl Korn, Marilyn Lightstone, Ghitta Caiserman-Roth, Rita Briansky, Pauline Donalda, Ofra Harnoy, Ida Maze, Chava Rosenfarb, and Dora Wasserman have given us unique contributions worthy of consideration and celebration.

Individual women, from Esther Brandeau, the first Jew to arrive on Canadian soil in 1738, to “Bobbie” Fannie Rosenfeld, who won two Olympic medals in 1928, to Canadian broadcaster Barbara Frum, have paved the way for an active and adventurous legacy. The heritage of Canadian Jewish women includes scholars such as Ruth Wisse, Yolande Cohen and Frieda Forman, judges such as Rosalie Abella and Sylvianne Borenstein, politicians such as Elinor Caplan, Sheila Finestone, and Chaviva Hosek, and activists like Bessie Kramer, Judy Feld Carr, and Sharon Wolfe. From early community workers such as Lillian Freiman and Dorothea Judah Hart, to Regina Landau, the first female Jewish doctor in Canada, to contemporary activist Sheila Kussner, Canadian Jewish women have clearly contributed to the life of the Jewish community and to Canadian culture. If their stories are unknown or unheralded, the time has arrived to rectify that gap in our history.

Canadian Jewish women have been the casualties of three invisibilities. Paradoxically, they have been the agents for and beneficiaries of a transformed community. Innovative and conservative, their evolving roles have marked a singular passage through the twentieth century. All through the chronicles of that past, Jewish women have surely demonstrated their commitment and competence. The words of Lillian Freiman best express this reality:

Ladies first, in ordinary parlance, has become merely a form of courtesy, a sort of graceful tribute from the gentlemen to the feminine frailty of women. But these two innocent-looking words take on an entirely different meaning when spoken in certain Zionist circles. They stand for something definite. They are a tribute not to feminine frailty but to feminine ingenuity.⁴⁰

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