Drawing Curtains Drawing Lines-- Sexing the Political: A journal of Third Wave Feminists on Sexuality

drawing curtains, drawing lines

"Do you do that?" I am asked this question now and then, with an expression of veiled fascination and horror, when I mention casually that now and then I attend an Orthodox synagogue. "Sit in the women’s section, behind the curtain...do you really do that?"

"Of course not," I started saying after a while. "I sit up front with the men. They’re not too happy about it, but what can they really do, after all?" But the questions persist, in spite of my flippancy. The idea that I, an outspoken Jewish feminist who was raised Reform, will sit behind the mechitza, the curtain that divides women from men in a traditional Orthodox synagogue, disturbs a lot of people.

The mechitza doesn’t just physically divide women from men, it divides women who accept it--provisionally, as I do, in order to pray with a certain congregation, or completely, as a matter of law and custom--from women who see it as one of the most glaring examples of misogyny in traditional Jewish practice and will not pray in a synagogue where one stands.

In theory, this whole thing is about sexual attraction and distraction. The usual explanation for the mechitza is that if women are seated among men, the men will be pulled by sexual tension out of the concentration needed to enter into prayer with full attention. This is not like the separation of men and women among, say the celibate Shakers, however, where both sexes participated in rituals equally, although physically separated from one another. Jews are not supposed to be celibate, and women are not obligated, or expected, to complete the complex series of prayers that Orthodox men are obligated to say three times daily. The service, such as it is, takes place entirely on the male side of the mechitza.

Sounds terrible, right? What is a good feminist doing in this setting? Well, davening (praying in a traditional Jewish manner). And participating in a community of Jews, and of Jewish women specifically. I’m not comfortable with the mechitza politically or theologically. I can see which side of the curtain the power comes down on, and I would not choose to join a synagogue where I could never be called to the Torah.
I’ve also sat behind some mechitzas that bothered me--one in London behind brass bars made me feel as though the women were in a cage, watching the service. But I’ve sat in more Orthodox synagogues where I felt welcomed, and where the women’s presence was clearly essential to the community’s experience. Beyond that, though, the ideology that would demand that I refuse to set foot in the women’s section of an Orthodox synagogue troubles me.

For some women, their personal feelings or experiences make it impossible for them to have a positive spiritual experience behind a mechitza. They should honor that, and do what’s best for them. But that’s an individual choice. To say that refusing to sit behind a mechitza is a basic tenet of Jewish feminism, as some women do, divides Orthodox and non-Orthodox women from one another just as surely as a mechitza divides women from men. And it’s supremely unfair to make a feminist value out of something that’s easy, effortless in fact, for most non-Orthodox women, and impossible for any Orthodox woman who wants to remain in her own community. The value judgment is clear: my way of being Jewish is better than yours. Shape up, or suffer my condescension.

I’m aware of how shallow the thinking is that identifies sexism with separation, and equality with mixed seating. Nineteenth century Reform synagogues adopted mixed seating to be like Protestants, not for egalitarian reasons. We should be very careful, before we start identifying ‘not looking Jewish’; with ‘being liberated women’. Do all synagogues with mixed seating that call women to the Torah honor their female congregants equally with the men? (Are you kidding?)

I also want to demystify the female Orthodox world, both for other Jewish feminists, and for gentile women. The horrified expression that passes over women’s faces, and the things they say when I admit to my occasional Shabbat morning with the Orthodox presuppose a stereotype; ignorant women who believe themselves inferior to men, mumbling prayers they don’t understand, unaware of how oppressed they are. This is condescending, and ridiculous. There are smart, educated women representing a wide range of professions and lifestyles sitting behind those curtains and screens. Their Jewish knowledge usually amazing.

So, yes, I really do that. Every so often, I show up at an Orthodox service, grab a siddur, (prayer book), and sit behind the curtain with other Jewish women. There are enough lines and curtains drawn between women already, without deliberately creating others.

Charlotte Green Honigman-Smith is a twenty-seven year old writer, activist and insurance-company receptionist in San Francisco. She edits a print zine called Maydeleh, and is currently working on a book about third-wave Jewish feminism.