Secret Women's Business

So this blog post isn't a chabad/kiruv 'the beauty of family purity' manifesto but it is going to be a discussion of a friend of mine's experiences at the mikvah. It just so happens that her experiences were largely positive.

For those who are unfamiliar with the subject you can check this out.

Anyway, so my friend lives in Jerusalem and being an orthodox woman she keeps the laws of family purity. The mikvah she attends is in the eclectic neighbourhood of Nachlaot. The mix of demographics in the suburb is reflected in the mikvah attendees. There are hassidic women with their heads shaved. There are hippies with dreadlocks and no shoes. There are old sephardi women. There are even women you wouldn't expect, ones with tattoos and piercings.

The mikvah itself is beautiful. It's clean and modern. Very much like a spa. It's managed to maintain some of the old Jerusalem architecture along with the renovation to allow for lots of frosted glass and good heating. Not to mention fluffy towels. There's even a hair/make-up spot with blow driers and cosmetics for prettifying post-mikvah.

The balaniot (the mikvah attendants) are really polite and considerate. There is no checking your nails or looking for bits of unbuffed skin on your feet. They simply ask if you've prepared according to your minhagim (traditions) and then get you to step into the mikvah. Obviously they hold the towel up so they don't really look at you during this.

The balanit could tell that my friend was still new at this and a bit nervous, so she told her to take a few deep breaths and to calm herself before saying the bracha and taking the dips. After each dip the balanit declared in a very calm and soothing voice "kasher." As my friend walked up the stairs the balanit congratulated her on doing a great and important mitzvah and then shook her hand. Kinda hilarious given that she was naked at the time.

Anyways what she claims is that the most positive experience out of the mikvah outings is the sense of camaraderie between the women there. In the waiting room you have women of all types chatting about the towels or about kids or about the chaggim or about the cottage cheese protests or the katzav verdict. In a world where there aren't always options for women of different creeds to meet, the mikvah is a safe place.

Obviously this is just one person's opinion and experience. But I think it's one that people should know about. Because even if you think that family purity is misogynistic there's always two sides to every coin and the cultural narrative is one that we create. So why not create a positive one?

With that - have a great week folks.

The Southern Hemisphere

Hello all,

I understand that you may be feeling more than a bit resentful/abandoned by my disappearance. My apologies but life got kinda hectic. I had to pack up my life, finish exams and get on a plane to Australia all in one day. Since then I've returned to Oz and found myself without the interwebz and with a million logistical things to deal with.

My days have largely inolved the following activities:

- booking and attending appointments for the doctor, optometrist

- Bank shit

- Phone shit

- University (both of them)

- Attempting to acquire employment

And while I do these banal activities I've also been in the process of remembering who I was when I used to live here. For example - where did I go to shule? Who did I learn with? Who do I hang out with? Where were the good places for coffee/drinks? Do I eat out? What will I eat out? What's kosher? What do I wear? and WHY IS IT FREEZING???

But basically I'm back. Here I am. And here I will be for the next 1.5 years minimum. So I guess that I'd better get used to it.

As to this old blog here - what shall become of it?

Well I have a couple more issues/items to discuss with you all, so I'll get those written and online. Once those are done, who knows? I'm not sure if my life in galus is significant enough to document.

But for now let's just take it a blog at a time.

Emigration

So I'm not sure if I've blogged about this before but since I have less than one week left in the country it seems like a fitting time to discuss why I'm a Zionist.

Ultimately it boils down two 2 reasons. The ideological and the practical. Lets start with the latter.

Practical reasons to make aliya.

Being an orthodox Jewess, a lot of the time it's simply more convenient for me to live in a Jewish state. Being able to eat in kosher restaurants really improves my quality of life. Being able to go to the super market without a kosher list is delightful. Having chaggim and erev chag off as public holidays is really necessary. Having many opportunities for left-wing learning and prayer and communal experiences is vital. Not having to constantly explain myself is lovely. I'm really grateful for the experience I had as an ethnic minority in Australia. It's given me a sensitivity to the needs of minorities everywhere. But do I actually enjoy being 'different'? Not very much at all. More than that the type of work I would like to do with my life is really only doable in Israel. I'd like to be a family lawyer in the rabbinic courts. That career is not an option for me anywhere else in the world. So yeah, practically, Israel is suited to my lifestyle and what I want to do with my life.

Furthermore ideologically I feel compelled to move to Israel. Not because of God or religion or national destiny. Far from it. Rather I see how many problems there are in the country. The poverty, the discrimination, the hatred and the unfairness. Coming from a western country with the sensitivity of having been an ethnic minority and part of the periphery of a society (being orthodox and female) I can see how much better things can work. How multiculturalism really adds to a country and how migrants and refugees, when given the right opportunities, can contribute to their adopted home. I can see how an education system should run. How social security could be improved. True, I won't be working on all these areas. I'm pretty sure that women's rights will be my chosen field. But simply being here, voting here, volunteering here should help a little. Or hopefully a lot.

So that's what I'm going to try and do. Help myself and help the middle east.

We'll see how that goes...