Mother Of The Year Award

When my girls grew up I decided it was finally my time  to go back to school and get a PhD. I was ready and excited, and was certain that the outside world was as excited to have me back.

Once  I started the program I came across an announcement about a special scholarship for women. In my naiveté I believed that it had my name written all over it. After all who wouldn’t appreciate the determination of a mother who decides to go back to school after a long break? The answer is that no one did. There were no scholarships or any other type of awards for someone like me

Shortly after I finished my PhD, I gave a paper at an international conference abroad. I got to talk to one of the other Israeli participants, a university professor. He said that in his department, for entry level positions, no one would even look at candidates over forty. Although he had drunk several glasses of wine, and probably would not have repeated it in public, it was clear that it was women, especially mothers, who paid the price.

So women who interrupt their career to have a family, and are ready to go back several years later, risk losing their career.

But perhaps there are other kind of awards for mothers? Today I saw on Facebook that “the city of Beer Sheva is seeking to nominate exceptional mothers for Mother of the Year Award.”

Then it transpired that one of the requirements was that the nominee would have achieved self-fulfillment. The definition of the term is “feeling of happiness and satisfaction as a result of doing something that fully uses one’s abilities and talents.”  But in today’s world, and in the context of the competition, the  term self-fulfillment  is a code word for a career.

Most of my female friends who stayed home with the children in the 1980s never got to have a career. Back then we were told that self-fulfillment is to be found in motherhood, especially if it was done full-time. We were a group of educated and capable women, but when we went back to work, it was too late to “fully use our abilities and talents.”  We found jobs, but those, usually, were not the self-fulfilling kind.

In the past it always surprised me to hear about young mothers who purposely chose to stay close to their parents once they had children of their own. However, now I think that they were practical, and knew something which I hadn’t realized: in order to have a career a mother must utilize all the resources available to her, and to make sure she receives all the help she can get.

In spite of the competition in Beer Sheva, society does not give awards to outstanding mothers. Their success is recognized privately within the family. But whether you are a young mother balancing work and children, or an older mother attempting to get back in, the workplace in general is not a friendly environment for mothers of all ages.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/mother-of-the-year-award/

The Human Face Of A Conflict: Selim Selim

A couple of years ago in London, I saw the play  #aiww The Arrest of Ai Weiweiby, by Howard Brenton, at the Hampstead Theatre.

The play is about the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei who was arrested by the Chinese authorities at Beijing airport on April 3rd, 2011 as he was about to board a flight to Taipei. Ai Weiwei spent 81 days in detention without trial. He was accused of being a subversive, a conman and a pervert, who “could damage state security.”

Edward Hall the artistic director of Hampstead Theatre explains his choice of this special topic in the program notes: ”We had been looking for a play about China since starting in Hampstead and knew that it was a subject that Howard Brenton was keen to explore. The rise of China is clearly one of the most important developments of modern times but it has hardly been discussed.”

The arrest and the disappearance, without trial, of the artist reveals a lot about  oppression in China today, and potentially could have brought about an exciting and critical play about its development. 

Please keep reading in the Times of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-human-face-of-a-conflict-selim-selim/

Brave Middle-Aged Widow: The Book Of Ruth

A while ago, when I paid a Shiva call to a friend who lost her husband, she said: “in addition to the personal pain, as a widow, my social position will be adversely affected.” I was quite surprised since I had never thought about it in this way. But she was right: Once a woman becomes a widow she loses much more than her husband:

As the hierarchy within the family shifts, her position often weakens. Moreover, as my friend observed, the new circumstances could affect the widow's public status, especially if she is left with limited resources. The widow’s fall from grace is particularly harsh since it happens through no fault of her own.

Please keep reading in the Times of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/brave-middle-aged-widow-the-book-of-ruth/

A Coal Stove In Auschwitz and Other Monuments

On the last evening of the Na’amat journey to Poland, our group of 32 women was standing next to the Warsaw Uprising Monument, in memory of the Polish rebellion against the Nazis.  Suddenly one of the friends asked me how I felt about this monument.

I didn’t know exactly what to say, but after spending five days in Poland visiting places like Majdanek, the Kielce cemetery, and Auschwitz-Birkenau, I had no more room for yet another monument, this one seemed like many others.

One of the reasons why I wanted to go to Poland at this time was to try and bring the Holocaust closer to my heart and to personalize its immensity. As a child I felt connection to the Holocaust on a personal level through childhood heroines like Anne Frank.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-coal-stove-in-auschwitz-and-other-monuments/

Bring Back Mother's Day

Growing up in Haifa in In the early 1960s, Mother’s Day was celebrated in Hanukah. Our' was the only city which made the sensible connection between the holiday of light and life, and motherhood.

Then, unfortunately, the only day dedicated to honor our mothers, was taken away and replaced by the politically correct “Family Day.” It is not  the same.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bring-back-mothers-day/

Blood, Toil, Tears, And Sweat? No, Just Luck

Several months after the Likud party had won the historic election in 1977, we left Israel. A year later, upon our return to Tel Aviv, we didn’t recognize the place: inflation was rampant and the whole life centered around it.

We needed to find an apartment to rent but prices were high and were set in dollars. When we finally found an affordable place, each month we paid a little more than the previous month. Once, in the middle of the year, when the dollar had reached yet another height, we had to beg our land lady, not to raise the rent yet again. That land lady, a girl in her mid twenties, just like us, sympathized with our plight and agreed.

Those few young people who inherited apartments, like our land lady, were especially lucky. Pleas keep reading int the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/blood-toil-tears-and-sweat-no-just-luck/

"We Do Not Know What A Jew Is. We Only Know Men"

Once you leave the reception area in Yad Vashem and start walking toward the dreaded unknown, you first encounter several small trees. Those are the threes in honor of the Righteous Among The Nations.

In my youth there was no doubt in my mind that had I lived in the time of the Holocaust I would have been one of the few brave women and men who had risked their lives to hide Jews. But once I had children of my own this certainty had started to dissipate. It was a disturbing feeling, still I knew that the responsibility of a family and having too much to lose would have prevented me from doing the right and human thing.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-do-not-know-what-a-jew-is-we-only-know-men/