re: kol isha

[ganzl azoi freyl <d6l...>]

before i dive into this conversation, i probably should introduce myself, 
since i've been lurking on this list for a while without saying anything...

my name is daniel lang; i'm more a theater than music person at this point 
(puppetry, movement, etc), though i'm working at a jewish-music booking 
agency.  i think my religious and political attachments will come through 
fine in this post, so i won't go into that now.

     two days away from the computer at work and there's so much to respond 
to....
     first, the issue of change over time in religious practice seems to me 
to be one of the most important ones.  to say 'kol isha is a time-honored 
part of the tradition and we can't expect it to change overnight' is of 
course true as a pragmatic tactical point, but as part of this discussion 
(which is not a conversation about the best way to go about overturning kol 
isha) it's purely an excuse for inaction and not challenging the 
so-called-orthodox position.  it might be worth mentioning that slavery and 
polygyny were part of the same mainstream rabbinic tradition that gave us 
kol isha....they are not now part of jewish life because they were 
challenged both through halakhic and non-halakhic channels.  but they also 
went the way of the dinosaurs because of influences from non-jewish 
practice, which was also moving towards a marginally more egalitarian 
position (though both slavery and marriage practices which hurt women are 
still with us, the latter at least in judaism as in the rest of the world).  
it doesn't appear to me, in any case, that most current supporters of kol 
isha hold "carefully arrived at positions based on differeing 
interpretations of text" <jordan>. the perpetuation of the doctrine seems 
more like an un-examined clinging to past practice that can be justified 
within 'orthodoxy' only because other interpretations of the texts are never 
even mentioned.

      related to the question of change:
eliott and steve's posts both set up an equation in which the pro-
kol isha position stands for a "revered and important" <steve> "authentic 
beauty" <eliott>, and the anti-kol isha position is a "PC religious fad".  
this attempt to declare so-called-orthodox practice to be the one and only 
way to be truly, authentically jewish is not only absurd, it's downright 
insulting -- akin to referring to women who believe that judaism should be 
egalitarian as shikses.

this is the _only_ period in jewish history when one strain of jewish 
practice has succeeded in getting so complete a hold on jews' ideas of 
authenticity.  even in the high rabbinic period, there were three or four 
main strains (not counting the karaites) of practice, and of course with 
post-rabbinic regional variations there were many more for most of the time 
since.  but the only groups that have declared the others to be non-jews 
(either explicitly or by refusing to perform marriages and recognise 
conversions) are the contemporary 'orthodox' and haredim.

       but the really troubling thing (besides the support for an 
unchallenged kol isha) that i found in these posts -- and one which seems 
quite relevant to this list -- is the seemingly unexamined opinion that the 
choice for jews is fundamentally between assimilation/disappearance and 
so-called-orthodoxy.  i'm third-generation secular myself, and like the rest 
of my family very strong in my jewish identity -- one which has very little 
to do with the religion of judaism in any direct way.  and part of that 
identity is jewish music, from 'dona dona dona' to 'di sapozkelakh' to 
'dayenu' to dylan.  it seems to me that over the years we (both my family 
and jews in general) have found ways of preserving our cultural distinctness 
without restricting ourselves to the often-problematic (and i mean sexism 
here, not the difficulty of finding a glat-kosher thai restaurant) halakhic 
stipulations, and without even using them to "root us" (as steve claims we 
must).

i'd argue that the vigorous life of (secular) jewish musics (most of which 
are immoral, if not worse, by so-called-orthodox halakhic standards) 
demonstrates this perfectly.  and all the more so because it is so often 
expressed in the voices of women, who have been so firmly excluded from full 
participation in jewish life by religious authorities.

and i guess that's my two bits (inflation being what it is)

zayt gezunt
daniel

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