Words of the Week

“From the very start, Lilith positioned itself at the place where feminism and Jewish life intersect, where the x and the y axes—the abscissa and the ordinate of our identity—meet. (Or is it the Scylla and the Charybdis?)

In 1994, for Lilith’s 18th anniversary issue, I outlined the magazine’s origin story:

“While our Jewish backgrounds ranged from Orthodox to assimilated, and our politics pretty much covered the map too, we all identified strongly as feminists and as Zionists.” We believed unwaveringly in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, while publishing writing unequivocally critical of some Israeli government policies.

This season, some have declared the intersection of feminism and Zionism unacceptable. Who has the right to confiscate either part of my identity?”

Source: “Intersections and Intersectionality,” Susan Weidman Schneider’s Editor’s Note in the current issue of Lilith magazine. Full text available online.