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  • Interview with Judith Plaskow
  • Donna Berman (bio)

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Judith Plaskow, photograph by Joan Roth.


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Donna Berman, photograph by Christopher Phillips.

I first met Judith Plaskow in 1990 when I interviewed her for a wonderful, but sadly now defunct, feminist newspaper called New Directions for Women. Her book, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective, was about to be published, and I was to review it. Judith and I sat in a vegetarian restaurant in Queens. I was very nervous. For me, a young rabbi, meeting Judith was like meeting a rock star. I don’t use that cliché lightly. I use it with great intention because her work was rocking my world. She challenged so many of the foundational ideas I had grown up with about God language, ritual, and how history is written, and by extension, the nature of “truth,” I felt like the earth beneath my feet was trembling and . . . I liked it. I had devoured WomanSpirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion and Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, both of which Judith coedited with Carol Christ. I was thrilled to hear about this new book that brought [End Page 171] to fruition the vision she had set forth in her essay “The Right Question Is Theological,” namely that rethinking God, Torah, and Israel through a feminist lens would be fundamental to a Judaism that includes us all, to a Judaism that would, therefore, be better able to endure and thrive.

So moved and inspired was I by Judith’s thought that a few years later, I presented a paper, based largely on her work, to a committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, urging them to create a new prayer book that did away with sexist God language and introduced new images of God that celebrated the divine in all people and in all creation. After that presentation, a committee was formed and, a few years later, the first “gender-sensitive” prayer book of the Reform movement was produced, Gates of Prayer for Shabbat and Weekdays. Unfortunately, despite the recommendations of the committee, of which I was a part, this new prayer book merely removed male God language without supplanting it with new images. It was, however, a start. Judith’s work was instrumental in creating this change and the cascade of changes that have occurred in Reform liturgy since. I can only imagine that Judith’s work contributed, whether explicitly or implicitly, to the evolution of Conservative and Reconstructionist liturgies, as well.

And so, it will come as no surprise that, when the time came, I invited Judith to be on my dissertation committee. After all, in many ways, my decision to even pursue a doctorate was based on Judith’s demonstration of the fact that theology is not merely theoretical but has the power to change Jewish life in very concrete ways. As always, Judith was generous with her time, thoughtful in her suggestions, and insightful and constructive in her critique.

Over the years, Judith and I have remained friends, sharing meals and tales of the joys and challenges of our respective journeys. She has come to speak at the Charter Oak Cultural Center, the multicultural arts center of which I am the executive director. Once, when I was driving her to Charter Oak to give a lecture, I encouraged her (“relentlessly nagged” might be a more accurate description) to publish a collection of her essays. She was reluctant at first, I think mostly because, despite her accomplishments and the far-reaching impact of her thought, she remains extremely humble. Thankfully, she ultimately relented and I had the honor of coediting The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics, 1972–2003 with her.

So, Judith and I go back a long way and we have come full circle. We began with an interview and, now, twenty-five years of more informal conversations later, here is another interview. I am, once again, struck by her graciousness and deeply grateful to have had the chance to talk with her, no less now than I was...

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