Elena Kagan is an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. She was born and raised in NYC, attended Princeton, Oxford and Harvard Law. She grew up Orthodox on the UWS and was a member of Lincoln Square Synagogue. For her Bat Mitzvah she wanted to read from the torah. A girl is not permitted to read from the torah in Orthodox circles. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, who went on to found the city of Efrat in Israel had her read from the Book of Ruth on Friday night, 5/18/73. Today she identifies with Conservative Judism.
About a month ago when they were preparing for the ceremony, Cutie came home and said her teacher said that girls could not be Ariot or the Siddur in the play. I didn't think anything of it at the time, just brushed it off as a misunderstanding. I am sending her to an egalitarian Hebrew School so I won't have to worry about her being a second class citizen.
At the ceremony last week, there were many children who were Ariot and the Siddur and not one was a girl. Could it be that the teacher discriminated against girls? Did this school that identified with Conservative Judism realize that the brilliant (she really is a great teacher) first grade teacher for the past 30 years had a sexist bias? So I called some parents with children in older grades. It is true - no one I spoke with remembers a girl in the leading roles during the Siddur Ceremony.
I spoke with the Head of School. This will be the last time girls won't be allowed to be Ariot. I can't wait for Elena's autobiography to be written. How much as it parental influence and how much was it the feminist movement in the media. BTW - We don't really have kind of feminist agenda that I ascribe to. I don't believe in equal pay for equal work. I do believe in equal pay for the same work.
5 years ago
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