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BS"D


Thank G@d, my trip to St Louis was uneventful & I landed safe & sound in the arms of B'nai Amoona. I had the honour of sharing dinner with R' Dr Neal Rose & Max & Susan Brown tonight, then dropped off at my host family's home. They're totally lovely & I can see I'll be very well taken care of on this trip, barukh Ha-Shem.

I'm really looking forward to restoring their precious Sifrei this week, IY"H. & I learned so much more in Israel about kosher Torah repair - SO excited to apply my new techniques!

Other than the above (which is great), this is not a happy post.

This is a really odd time, information-wise. A strange article appeared in St Louis Today last week, with quite a few inaccuracies. It's not really surprising, since the reporter called my mother at home in her sick bed & interviewed her, but did not contact me.
I e-mailed the editor, offering corrections & mentioned how weird all this was, since I'm ALL OVER the internet & easy to e-mail. I also thought it was kind of creepy that he would hunt my Mum down at all. Mr Editor has not responded.

& the person who I mentioned in this post is also talking me down on Jewschool.

I'm very concerned about the narrowing of Halakhic Judaism. Very concerned.
To use oppresive Halakhah in an attempt to curb women's lives is an abuse of power. By stemming social change, those in authority are ignoring derekh eretz ("the way of the land", ie common civil rights taken for granted in countries such as Canada) as well as the valid expression of women's relationship with G@d. Women should be able to choose the extent to which we are willing to engage in the public sphere, choose our work, whether we marry, have children & men should not have a veto. Don't use Torah to rationalize un-Jewish treatment of others. You have an obligation to pursue justice. Don't exclude the perspective of those outside your very closed circle. Are you willing to risk cutting half of all Jewry off from our drawing closer to The Holy One through the fulfillment of mitzvot?

OK, that's today's rant.
Thanks for reading!




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