I’ll be honest; I’m shocked and saddened by some of these responses. What did I do to merit such attack? This is supposed to be an open forum, where we can all feel free to express our opinions, so long as they are politely and respectfully worded.
I won’t be changing my screen name anytime soon. I refuse to hide part of my identity just because it may not be so popular among “this crowd”. I am an observant Jew, and I’m also a feminist, hence the name “jewishfeminist” (the 02 comes from my birthday, February 2.) Whether or not others view me as “properly Jewish” is no concern of mine. I understand that some people see inherent contradictions in the idea of feminism coexisting with Judaism, but I am not one of them. If anybody would like to discuss this further, I’m perfectly willing to create a new discussion thread. Or, if you are interested in learning more about the subject, go to http://www.jofa.org, which is the website of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, of which I am a proud member. However, let’s try to stay on topic here.
I’d also like to make it clear that while I am a feminist, I am not only a feminist. That is, there is more to who I am than just feminism. That’s why I described it above as “part of my identity”. Unfortunately, there is limited room in a screen name, so I chose arbitrarily. To say that the sixteen characters of my screen name can describe everything about me is completely untrue and even offensive. To those who believe that there is no use answering my questions- fine! Don’t answer them. But it seems to me that the purpose of this Coffee Room is to provide a space for open discussion, for asking and answering questions, not for leveling unfounded accusations. I am happy to engage in dialogue with those who disagree with me; there would be nothing to talk about if we shared identical opinions! But, please, let’s take care to ensure that it remains a respectful dialogue and not a flame-throwing campaign.
As a matter of fact, I am voting for Obama. I will be delivering my absentee ballot to the post office tomorrow. However, I fail to see what relevance this has to kaporot, which is supposed to be the topic of this thread, or even to feminism, which seems to have become the topic of this thread. Again, I’ll create a new discussion thread if anyone would like to discuss the American elections, but let’s leave politics out of this thread.
As a side note, I sincerely hope that nobody in this forum suspects me of fabricating quotes. I looked them up online (on websites known for their reliability, I might add, not Wikipedia or any such site) and copy/pasted directly onto this thread.