Re: Kol Isha - Just the Facts, please!

[Eliott Kahn <Elkahn...>]

>
>Strict Orthodoxy today, its population burgeoning with Baale Tchuva, seems to 
>be more rigid than its forebears on many issues. I never even heard of KI or 
>yoshen wheat or other matters until recently. Separate closed off dancing was 
>something you expected in WILLIAMSBURG, nowhere else. You either participated 
>in the dancing or you didn't -- but you didn't leave until the band played 
>"Goodnight, Sweetheart."

The stories of one of my colleagues who works here support this. He has told me 
there used to not be mechitzas at wedding parties where he grew up in Crown 
Heights. His parents were Orthodox as well as Holocaust survivors. 

I went to a Chassidic wedding two years ago in Brooklyn and they rolled 
something that resembled the Berlin Wall with plastic ivy across the entire 
length of the room.

That is the point I was trying to make about laws changing. Even laws given by 
God are ultimately interpreted by people. One Supreme Court believes Dred Scott 
is the truth, another believes Brown vs. Board of Ed. 

Rabbis who write opinions are influenced by their social milieu. And, 
inevitably, I believe they will decide--probably from pressure exerted by their 
wives and daughters--that during the present times, when women are so much a 
part of the work force, KI is no longer appropriate. 

Eliott Kahn



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