Aviva Cantor

Last updated

Aviva Cantor (born 1940) is an American journalist, lecturer and author. An advocate of feminism and the democratization of Jewish communal life, Cantor has been actively involved in promoting progressive Jewish causes for over 40 years. She was a co-founder in 1968 of the Jewish Liberation in New York, a Socialist Zionist organization, and served as founding editor of its Jewish Liberation Journal. JLP was among the first Jewish groups to advocate the two-state solution (1968).

Contents

Biography

Aviva Cantor was born in 1940 and raised in the East Bronx by traditional but non-Orthodox parents who had immigrated to North America from Russia after World War I. She attended Ramaz School, an Orthodox Jewish day school, graduating from High School as Valedictorian in 1957. She spent two years studying history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and graduated from Barnard College in 1961 and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1963. In the late 1969's she was involved in advocating for the struggle of Biafra for independence and served as vice president of the Committee for Biafran Artist and Writers. [1]

In 1976, she initiated and co-founded Lilith , the independent Jewish Feminist quarterly magazine, which she served as co-founding editor through 1987, and for which she wrote regularly. Her articles have appeared in many publications, including Ms. , The Village Voice , and Israel Horizons , and in a number of anthologies. Her reportage for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) on the American Jewish community, Israel, her multi-part series on foreign Jewish communities—including Cuba, Argentina, Austria, Central Europe and Kenya—and her interviews with figures such as Gerhard Riegner, Carl Sagan, David Wyman, and Renee Epelbaum, were internationally syndicated.

Writing

Cantor has written five alternative Passover ceremonies, the fourth of which she co-conducted in the Bedford Hills Women's Prison. The fifth one, The Egalitarian Hagada, was self-published under the auspices of Beruriah Books. It is a gender- and generation-inclusive Haggadah in non-sexist English containing all the memorable traditional elements of the seder plus poetry and prose about the Exodus, Israel, the Soviet Jewry movement, struggles for justice, the Holocaust and Resistance, and the American union movement.

After teaching the first Jewish feminist course in the Jewish Free High School in 1972, she compiled, edited and annotated several editions of The Jewish Woman, 1900–1985: A Bibliography, the 4th of which was published by BiblioPress in 1986 and 1987. Her children's book manuscript, Tamar's Cat: A Story of the Exodus, won first prize in the Sydney Taylor Children's Book Manuscript Contest of the Association of Jewish Libraries in 1991. She is also the author of several plays, including Esther and the Three Fools: A Feminist Purimshpiel; Moses and Tziporah with the Pesky Ex-Slaves in the Desert; and Hamlet's Secrets, a comedy.

In 1995, Harper San Francisco published her major 548-page work, Jewish Women/Jewish Men: the Legacy of Patriarchy in Jewish Life, a feminist exploration of Jewish history, culture and psychology (which has 100 pages of endnotes). The work puts traditional and modern Jewish life under a feminist microscope.

One of her central theses is that the needs for Jewish survival in the "national emergency" of 2,000 years of exile under oppressive and dangerous conditions necessitated the transformation of local communities into milieus informed by the feminist values of non-violence, cooperation, interdependence, compassion, and consensus. The ideal Jewish man changed "from macho to mentsch" through the outlawing of violence of all kinds and the redefinition of masculinity as learning and scholarship. At the same time, women were allowed a considerable amount of leeway in assertiveness, but only if it was in the interests of communal survival. She was trained to be an "altruistic-assertive enabler" (in the common, traditional meaning of the word "enabler" i.e., facilitator). Men, of course, never ceased to dominate the community, decide on its policy and laws, and choose its leadership (class played a role here).

Cantor believes that this successful transformation of roles and communal life proves that men's instinct for violence, even if it turns out to be genetic, can be overcome if men and women are sufficiently motivated and conscious of the justice of a peaceful, egalitarian world, in the spirit of the prophet Isaiah's vision.

Other activities

Cantor is also active in the animal protectionist movement and is Vice President of "CHAI: Concern for Helping Animals in Israel," founded by Nina Natelson in 1984 to assist the Israeli animal welfare community in improving conditions for domestic animals in a country with only a few SPCAs and many immigrant communities with no tradition of animal protection and an ongoing war situation. It drafted Israel's animal protection law; conducted several humane education programs (including one for Jewish and Arab children at the Tel Aviv SPCA), site of the IB. Singer Humane Education Center which it built; and held important conferences, including one for educators on the links between the abuse of animals, domestic violence, and the criminal behavior of adults who tortured animals as children, and another on alternatives to the use of animals in experimentation.

CHAI built a shelter in Tiberias, maintains a mobile spay-neuter program and a horse rehabilitation program. It and its Israeli sister organization, HAKOL CHAI, rescued countless dogs and cats hurt or abandoned in the attacks on Sderot. The late Rep. Tom Lantos, who served on CHAI's Advisory Board, was a warm supporter of its work, as was Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer. Cantor wrote a 10-lesson Humane Education unit drawing entirely on Jewish sources, which forbade cruelty to animals (though Judaism permitted slaughtering for food, Jewish law required that the process was to be as close to painless as possible; this situation does not largely obtain today, especially in South America [2] ).

In the 1980s, she initiated an ultimately successful Women's Appeal for the release of Soviet Prisoner of Conscience Ida Nudel.

Cantor also is a member of the advisory board of the Remember the Women Institute [3]

Personal life

Cantor was married for 38 years to journalist Murray Zuckoff, a self-described "revolutionary," Socialist Zionist and crusading investigative journalist (reporter for the Paterson Morning Call and editor of the JTA), who fought for truth and justice with his pen. He was also a devoted teacher at CUNY. Zuckoff loved Israel, Yiddish, cats. books, music, folk art and Star Trek. He died in 2004. [1] Cantor also composes liturgical music and photographs her cat as a hobby.[ citation needed ]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other social divisions such as in race, class, and sexual orientation. The ideology and movement emerged in the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in Judaism</span> Role of women in Judaism

Women in Judaism have affected the course of Judaism over millennia. Their role is reflected in the Hebrew Bible, the Oral Law, by custom, and by cultural factors. Although the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature present various female role models, religious law treats women in specific ways. According to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center, women account for 52% of the worldwide Jewish population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matriarchy</span> Social system with female rule

Matriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are held by women. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege, and control of property. While those definitions apply in general English, definitions specific to anthropology and feminism differ in some respects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol J. Adams</span> American author and activist

Carol J. Adams is an American writer, feminist, and animal rights advocate. She is the author of several books, including The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (1990) and The Pornography of Meat (2004), focusing in particular on what she argues are the links between the oppression of women and that of non-human animals. She was inducted into the Animal Rights Hall of Fame in 2011.

This is an index of articles related to the issue of feminism, women's liberation, the women's movement, and women's rights.

Materialist feminism is a theoretical current of radical feminism that was formed around the French magazine Questions féministes. It is characterized by the use of conceptual tools from Marxism—notably historical materialism—to theorize patriarchy and its abolition.

Phyllis Chesler is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island (CUNY). She is a renowned second-wave feminist psychologist and the author of 18 books, including the best-sellers Women and Madness (1972), With Child: A Diary of Motherhood (1979), and An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir (2013). Chesler has written extensively about topics such as gender, mental illness, divorce and child custody, surrogacy, second-wave feminism, pornography, prostitution, incest, and violence against women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debbie Friedman</span> Jewish American singer-songwriter of liturgical music

Deborah Lynn Friedman was an American singer-songwriter of religious Jewish music. She was an early pioneer of gender-sensitive language: using the feminine forms of the Divine or altering masculine-only text references in the Jewish Liturgy to include feminine language.

Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to make the religious, legal, and social status of Jewish women equal to that of Jewish men in Judaism. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of the Jewish religion.

<i>Lilith</i> (magazine) American Jewish and feminist magazine

Lilith is an independent, Jewish-American, feminist non-profit magazine that has been issued quarterly since 1976.

Partnership minyan is a religious Jewish prayer group that seeks to maximize women's participation in services within the confines of Jewish law as understood by Orthodox Judaism. This includes enabling women to lead parts of service, read from the Torah, serve in lay leadership positions, sit in a more gender-balanced format, and in some cases count as part of a minyan ("quorum") of ten men and ten women. Partnership minyanim began in 2002 simultaneously in New York and Jerusalem, and have now spread to over 30 communities in at least five different countries around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women of the Wall</span> Jewish feminist organization

Women of the Wall is a multi-denominational Jewish feminist organization based in Israel whose goal is to secure the rights of women to pray at the Western Wall, also called the Kotel, in a fashion that includes singing, reading aloud from the Torah and wearing religious garments. Pew Research Center has identified Israel as one of the countries that place "high" restrictions on religion, and there have been limits placed on non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. One of those restrictions is that the Rabbi of the Western Wall has enforced gender segregation and limitations on religious garb worn by women. When the "Women of the Wall" hold monthly prayer services for women on Rosh Hodesh, they observe gender segregation so that Orthodox members may fully participate. But their use of religious garb, singing and reading from a Torah have upset many members of the Orthodox Jewish community, sparking protests and arrests. In May 2013 a judge ruled that a 2003 Israeli Supreme Court ruling prohibiting women from carrying a Torah or wearing prayer shawls had been misinterpreted and that Women of the Wall prayer gatherings at the wall should not be deemed illegal.

Mercy Amba Ewudziwa Oduyoye is a Ghanaian Methodist theologian known for her work in African women's theologies and theological anthropology. She is currently the Director of the Institute of African Women in Religion and Culture at Trinity Theological Seminary, Ghana. She founded the Circle of Concerned African Theologians in Ghana in 1987 to promote the visibility and publishing agenda of African women Theologians.

Orthodox Jewish feminism is a movement in Orthodox Judaism which seeks to further the cause of a more egalitarian approach to Jewish practice within the bounds of Jewish Law. The major organizations of this movement is the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) in North America, and Women of the Wall (WOW) and its affiliates in Israel and internationally, known as The International Committee for Women of the Wall (ICWOW). In Israel, the leading Orthodox feminist organization is Kolech, founded by Dr. Chana Kehat. In Australia, there is one Orthodox partnership minyan, Shira Hadasha, in Melbourne.

Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term patriarchy is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in feminist theory to describe a broader social structure in which men as a group dominate society.

An independent minyan is a lay-led Jewish worship and study community that has developed independently of established denominational and synagogue structures within the organized Jewish community. Some began in the late 1990s and most since the year 2000, though some are several decades older. These new groups often combine a commitment to halakha/Jewish law with egalitarianism, and strive to create worship services where traditional prayer can become "spiritual experiences".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caroline Earle White</span>

Caroline White was an American philanthropist and anti-vivisection activist. She co-founded the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA) in 1867, founded its women's branch (WPSPCA) in 1869, and founded the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) in 1883.

Jalda Rebling is a German hazzan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Calderon</span> Israeli academic and politician

Ruth Calderon is an Israeli academic and politician. She served as a member of Knesset for Yesh Atid between 2013 and 2015.

Vegetarian ecofeminism is an activist and academic movement which states that all types of oppression are linked and must be eradicated, with a focus on including the domination of humans over nonhuman animals. Through the feminist concept known as intersectionality, it is recognized that sexism, racism, classism, and other forms of inter human discrimination are all connected. Vegetarian ecofeminism aims to include the domination of not only the environment but also of nonhuman animals to the list. Vegetarian ecofeminism is part of the academic and philosophical field of ecofeminism, which states that the ways in which the privileged dominates the oppressed should include the way humans dominate nature. A major theme within ecofeminism is the belief that there is a strong connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature, and that both must be eradicated in order to end oppression.

References

  1. 1 2 Doerr, Karin. "Saluting the Achievements of Aviva Cantor, a Mother of Jewish Feminism" (PDF). Archived from the original on August 8, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  2. ↑ "Jewish Vegetarian Society"
  3. ↑ "About the Institute". Remember the Women Institute. Archived from the original on 26 May 2020. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.