Culture, Identity, Religion

BJ Men's Havura Celebrity Death Match is a Feminist Endeavor

Editor’s note: The following is a direct response to the recent post publicizing this month’s meeting of the Men’s Havurah at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun featuring the NYC federation’s top dog John Ruskay and Jewish media guru Daniel Sieradski in a dialogue between the establishment and anti-establishment voices in the Jewish world today.
The response below is written by Yosef Goldman who is a cantorial and rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and served last year as the first cantorial intern at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun. He is currently studying at Machon Schechter in Jerusalem and serves as the rabbinic intern at the Jerusalem Open House.
The BJ Men’s Havura is the place to be this Shabbat afternoon. If you identify as male, and not as female. And that’s just fine. I know, I know: it sounds sexist. But let’s back up for a moment; a little context goes a long way.
A year and a half ago Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein, one of B’nei Jeshurun‘s three rabbis, decided that it was time to act to address a growing gender imbalance that had been apparent at BJ for some time, one that mirrors a trend affecting all areas of non-Orthodox Jewish religious life- men just aren’t as interested in “doing” Judaism as women are. In the words of Sylvia Barack Fishman in an important study published last year:

Today American Jewish boys and men have fewer connections to Jews and Judaism than girls and women in almost every venue and in every age, from school age children through the adult years. The descent of male interest is evident not only in domestic Judaism, as expected, but also in public Judaism, religious leadership, and secular ethnic attachments.

Whether or not it’s a direct effect of women’s empowerment in Jewish life, the fact is irrefutable- men are dropping out. The question at BJ was what to do about it.
At BJ, where I served last year as the first cantorial intern, the vast majority of lay leaders are female. Whether it’s the Torah readers, prayer service leaders or committee chairs, women dominate. The monthly women’s Rosh Chodesh group and the annual women’s retreat are popular and successful. Until the Men’s Havura was formed there had been no space at BJ for men alone since 1984, when Marshall Meyer became the rabbi and disbanded the congregation’s Brotherhood and Sisterhood. (To be technical, the BJ Men’s Havura is open to all people male-identified, regardless of biology and regardless of sexual orientation.) I think that it’s crucial for there to be female space, opportunities for women to gather with other women and feel proud and safe to express themselves Jewishly, to explore their identity as Jewish women. I think that it’s equally important for male space to exist in our communities. As congregations become more fully egalitarian, opportunities for men to explore together the meaning of contemporary male Jewish identity are increasingly rare.
Traditional models of gender roles in Judaism are responsible for thousands of years of oppression of women and non-heterosexuals. Jewish feminists, both female and male, have, in the past 40 years or so, changed the way that we think about those roles and opened up ritual and social space for women. The concepts of Jewish womanhood and femininity have been critiqued and updated to reflect the needs and values of the contemporary Jewish community. But, to ask a question posed by Sarah Blustain in the current edition of Lilith (entitled “boys are the new girls”): “Did women’s lib by some incredible, ironical twist of fate, leave men confined?” It is time to revisit Jewish manhood and masculinity. This is just what Rabbi Bronstein had in mind when he started the Havura (click on link for an interview in Zeek of the topic).
It’s important to stress that a male critique of masculinity can be a feminist endeavor, as I believe the BJ Havura is. Daniel Boyarin, in his book Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man, quotes Tania Modleski to say that such a critique is feminist when “it analyzes male power, male hegemony, with a concern for the effects of this power on the female subject…” The very first meeting of the Havura, after a spirited Mincha service, we engaged in a Torah study, looking critically at models of manhood in the Chumash. Subsequent gatherings included a provocative discussion about sexuality and male-female relations with psychotherapist Esther Perel, author of the international bestseller, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence.
As the cantorial intern at BJ, I co-facilitated all of last year’s Havura meetings, along with Rabbi Bronstein and Marshall T. Meyer Fellow Rabbi Ezra Weinberg, and I was at the committee meetings. As I see it, Marcelo and the Havura committee are seeking to meet the challenges of liberating Jewish men from the confines of inadequate gender roles and to create a spiritually relevant space for men. Meeting these challenges is certainly in the interest of Jewish women as well. To quote Blustain’s piece in Lilith again, “It may be the ultimate feminist undertaking in the coming decades to help men free themselves—and to demand that they do so in the ways that continue to free us as well.”
Now, this week’s event may not relate specifically to the issues raised above, but it serves another important goal: getting the target audience in the door. When asked last year by the Havura committee heads for a program idea that would interest my friends and get them to come to a Men’s Havura, I thought immediately about Dan Sieradski in dialogue with John Ruskay (a dynamic activist in his youth, and a BJ member). I figured it would pique the interest of my friends and like-minded young men – the group that is least represented at the Havura’s gatherings. From the excitement in the 84 responses posted so far, it seems that the program has done just that.
The other gender imbalance—the lingering inequity in representation and pay among women in the executive leadership in the Jewish community—is still a big obstacle, and any discussion of the former gender imbalance is incomplete without mentioning the stained glass ceiling, but the discussion is ready to be had. I think we should be celebrating and encouraging female-only and male-only space, like BJ’s Rosh Chodesh group and Men’s Havura, that reflect the values of truly egalitarian Judaism.

21 thoughts on “BJ Men's Havura Celebrity Death Match is a Feminist Endeavor

  1. This is just obvious common sense. Men need their space, just as women do. There are things men are more comfortable discussing with other men – especially men they know and respect – than with women. Bringing women into certain settings where men feel intimate with one another destroys that intimacy and shuts people up.
    On a related issue, there is a growing debate ongoing in the education community about the benefits of sex-segregated classrooms, as boys apparently learn and perform better in boys-only environments.

  2. There are things men are more comfortable discussing with other men – especially men they know and respect – than with women.
    Are these the things that they’re going to discuss at the BJ event?I thought it was some sort of dialogue about the future of Judaism, or some such thing.

  3. Are these the things that they’re going to discuss at the BJ event?I thought it was some sort of dialogue about the future of Judaism, or some such thing.
    Actually, it’s a debate between the “establishment” spokesman and the “anti-establishment” spokesman.

  4. If you want to know why Judaism isn’t “popular” aming youngsters just reread the above post. How can you create enthusiasm for something when you hate everything it stands for.
    Money quote:”Traditional models of gender roles in Judaism are responsible for thousands of years of oppression of women and non-heterosexuals.”

  5. I recall the days when Jon Ruskay was as anti-establishment as they come.
    Daniel Sieradski- you day will also come.

  6. formermuslim, I always appreciate your insight.
    If you want, facebook friend me – Avigdor ben Dovid from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

  7. The facebook invitation goes for Jonathan1 as well and any other men who would like to do so. Oh no! Gender segregation on my facebook profile? Yes, that’s right.
    I used to have a very jealous girlfriend who asked me not to add women to my facebook account. I did what she asked. I’m no longer with her, but it was a good policy for me, so I kept it. This way, when I get married, I won’t have to start explaining to my wife who this girl is and who that girl is.

  8. I must have missed the previous firestorm this post is responding to, but I think it gives an important context to the men’s havurah.
    we live in a society that tends to devalue things that are majority female, and I often see that as a subtext to the “where are all the men” freak-outs.
    Which is not to say the question is not worth asking, but that it’s good to see that BJ’s leadership is going about this in an thoughtful manner, and being conscious of not using this to perpetuate sexism.

  9. This was an apt defense of the mens havura, if any were needed.
    If the men involved were discussing the future of men in areas of liberal Judaism where they’re underrepresented, it might even be a persuasive defense of the event.
    Neither of these men represent organizations where men are underrepresented in positions of leadership or at all.
    I believe that this was a well intentioned event planned by well intentioned people whose values I generally respect and share.
    That doesn’t make it or them immune from criticism.
    Excluding women from this event … If it is defensible, I haven’t seen an adequate defense.
    There are many other fields that are female dominated but whose leadership is overwhelmingly male. That’s no excuse for excluding women from conversations among the leadership. It’s almost absurd.

  10. Until the Men’s Havura was formed there had been no space at BJ for men alone since 1984, when Marshall Meyer became the rabbi and disbanded the congregation’s Brotherhood and Sisterhood.
    I do think it’s cool that in the BJ sanctuary there’s basically a memorial plaque for the sisterhood.

  11. The debate about this men’s havurah is so similar to debates in the 1970s and early 1980s about women’s havurot. The outcome of those debates was basically that women need a women-centric social space sometimes and that women have gender-based issues that we want to discuss in women’s only groups. I believe Rabbi Bronstein when he told me, in our Zeek interview, that now Jewish men need the same.
    What raised flags then–and now–is a question of power. Will decisions for the whole be made for the part? When is gender-based discussion inclusionary, giving those feeling left out an opportunity to join in, and when is it exclusionary?
    I must say that, pace Dan, I am baffled that the BJ’s men’s group chose as their focus a topic that is not inherently gender-based, is intellectual rather than social, and that would have been of deep interest to women. If Dan and John were speaking on masculinity in Jewish organizations, or if they were present for a social hour, I don’t think there would have been a ruckus.

  12. Jo Ellen wrote: “If Dan and John were speaking on masculinity in Jewish organizations, or if they were present for a social hour, I don’t think there would have been a ruckus.”
    That’s a good point. Having a dense monthly discussion on gender issues might be a lot for most men to handle on a Saturday afternoon. Still, the planning committee could easily have chosen a topic for Dan and John’s discussion could would relate directly to the goals of the Havura without being heavy-handed, such as the topic of masculinity in Jewish organizations.

  13. Yosef, thank you for the post, and for understanding Jo Ellen’s succinct summary of what many of us were trying to say.

  14. After a few nascent years of exploring how to better reach out to men, one of the most interesting developments in the Reform movement is the question — how we welcome trans-gender individuals? If we are creating space for those who identify as men and those who identify as women, how can we create welcoming inclusive space for those who self-identify as neither or both. The was a major question at the HUC Kallah last year, and I believe raises relevant question when we consider building gender-safe space for any gender-identification.
    Also, as men are now a minority in numbers in progressive Jewish and Christian life, to what extent do the 2nd generation feminist paradigms no longer fit? How can we build on 3rd wave feminism to remain ever-conscious of the need for egalitarianism while experimenting with “male” spaces?
    Most importantly – how can progressive Judaism address Jews in compelling ways across the entirety of the gender spectrum?
    Some ideas to ponder –
    Behatzlecha with the event this Shabbat.
    Shabbat Shalom and Chag Urim Sameach
    Owen

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