Transforming Jewish Rites of Passage: Celebrating the Impact of Jewish Feminist Music

WHEN AND WHERE: SUNDAY, JANUARY 23, 2022 | 2PM E.S.T. ON ZOOM.
Early registration is advised as space is limited. $18 suggested donation.
Registration link: https://bit.ly/3t2d9ho

Join us as we celebrate the many joyful and poignant points in the lifecycle of Jewish women and girls. This concert honors and features performances by groundbreaking feminist composers, who have overcome thousands of years of patriarchal suppression to create ​the music that has helped to usher in a new era of gender-equality and inclusion in Jewish life.

This concert will feature a diverse group of award-winning composers representing diverse gender-orientations and preferences. They will each explain their motivation for creating their featured song.

Songs, musical liturgy, and commentary in this concert will encompass brit bat, infertility, weaning, abortion, adoption, naming, menses, bat mitzvah, parenting, coming out, marriage and commitment ceremonies, menopause and brit chochma, divorce, funerals and memorials. The yearning of women and girls to study and find themselves in Torah, to become Jewish clergy and lead the way to gender-inclusive Judaism will also be sung.

This is the fourth concert in the herstoric Adding Our Voices: The Torah of Women in Song series. Over 800 people have attended the first three concerts, and over 60 composers/performers have been honored to date. In this concert series, we celebrate the transformational power of the Jewish feminist ethos applied to music that has dramatically changed the content, sound, and face of Judaism after thousands of years.

TRANSFORMING JEWISH RITES OF PASSAGE CONCERT HONOREES:

Nancy S. Abraham, “Mother’s Prayer” (COVENANTING)

Sariel Beckenstein, "Tefila Atika" (GAY WEDDING)

Betsy Combs, “Batya” (NAMING)

Batya Diamond, “Miriam’s Moon” (MENSES)

Aly EvershYne, “Chut Shani” (WOMEN’S FLOW)

Tracy Friend, "Zot Dodati v'Zot Rayati" (LESBIAN WEDDING)

Beth Hamon, "Daughter of Mine" (INFERTILITY)

Elyse Goldstein, "Ordination Blues" (INACCESSIBLE RITE)

Sylvia F. Goldstein, “Our Cantor” (HONORING FEMALE CANTOR)

Shoshana Jedwab, "I Remember" (MEMORIAL)

Suri Krieger, "Bat Adama-Kol Shireha" (MOTHER-DAUGHTER)

Carol Boyd Leon, "May They Be for a Blessing" (MEMORIAL)

Abbe Lyons, "Jewish Lesbian" (BEING/COMING OUT)

Alexander Massey, "B’rucha Haba’a/Blessed Is She" (BABY GIRL BLESSING)

Bryce Emily Megdal, "Bat Mitzvah Prayer" (BAT MITZVAH)

Goldie Mara Milgram, N'shima N'shama (ABORTION, TRANSITIONS OF THE SOUL)

Elaine Moise, “Invocation of Shechinah” (STRAIGHT WEDDING WITH FEMININE GOD LANGUAGE)

Orit Perlman, "Wana Feda Lumi" (DAUGHTER/MOTHER GRATITUDE)

Geela Rayzel Raphael, Simchat Chochma (CRONING)

Julie Silver, "Where Am I in the Torah" (BAT MITZVAH/ACTIVISM)

Margot Stein, "Weaning Song" (WEANING)

Rose Zoltek-Jick, "Get Me a Get" (DIVORCE)

Co-Hosts: Goldie Mara Milgram and Geela Rayzel Robinson Raphael

Background to the Adding Our Voices Concert Series:

Only 50 years ago, it was still a radical idea in Judaism for Jewish women and girls to lead services or rites of passage; to chant from the Torah scroll; or witness, bless, or interpret Torah in their synagogue communities. Few women over the generations had been allowed to become Jewishly literate, beyond taking scrupulous care with the ritual practices ascribed to women. Now Jewish women are sacred music composers, performing artists, liturgists, scholars and professors of Judaism, Jewish educators and scribes. Now Jewish women are ordained and serving widely as rabbis and chaplains, cantors and cantorial soloists, Hebrew priestesses and spiritual guides.

The Adding Our Voices initiative also welcomes new submissions from Jewish composers which include the many ways in which gender and other forms of Jewish diversity manifest.

Our professional volunteer team includes Rabbi Dr. Goldie Milgram and Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael of the 501(c)(3) non-profit Reclaiming Judaism, and Prof. Dr. Sarah Ross of the University of Hannover.

We are also presently blessed with music transcription and notation staff: Hazzan Anita Schubert, Music Notation Editor, and Alexander Massey. Plus, our music team works with a number of wonderful knowledgeable music proofreading volunteers. We are blessed with data and contracting support from Noga Schechter, and the many levels of contributions by our Director of Innovative Jewish Programs, Mindy Rosenthal.

Adding Our Voices is the only team in Jewish life presently focused on documenting this work–via creating a Jewish feminist music database, songbook, archive, concert series, workshops on gender-inclusion in Jewish music, and a documentary on the herstory of Jewish feminist music. For more information contact: admin@reclaimingjudaism.org