Path to Confirmation

Dear parents and teen girls:

Last night we had a pretty full session. Below are a few highlights of subjects we discussed.

· #MeToo, its history, and some of the issues and public figures that it has dealt with, including Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas, Christine Blasey Ford/Brett Kavanagh, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and Larry Nasser.

· Guys pressuring girls to send them nude photos, what to do when this happens, and how we wish the culture would focus on telling guys not to request the photos, instead of telling girls how to refuse to do so. The girls also brought up the fact that dress code issues are more about the needs of guys than of girls, but that the girls still have to comply, whereas the guys don’t really have such restrictions.

· Boundary setting, using a cell phone as a stand-in. For example, would you let another person use your phone to post a text? Look at your pictures?  Take pictures from your phone?  And then we equated that to physical boundary setting, and talked about “trusting our guts” when someone does something that makes us uncomfortable.

• Our personal values and whether our actual ideas, priorities, etc., are reflected on our cell phone and in our phone usage. In other words, if being a good friend is a value we hold dear,  we might realize from our instagram posts or snaps that we are contradicting this value.

· “Kol Isha,” the [ultra-Orthodox] concept of a woman’s voice not being heard in public contexts, based on the assumption that a woman’s presence or voice is always sexual. This connects to the larger issue still very present in our society and foundational to sexual harassment: that women and girls are treated as sexual objects, not full human beings, and that men’s needs are at the center.

• How blessed we are to be at Temple Israel, where women definitely have a powerful voice

· Aly Reisman’s testimony against Larry Nasser as an example of a strong young woman finding her voice and power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeoeECXFksI We also watched and discussed SNL’s Welcome to Hell video, as well as Lynzy Lab’s Scary Time for Boys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N34hehRgw9g..

• Sang May the Song I Sing with the confirmation class, who visited us again during dinner.

I wanted to talk more about power and how it is used to gain dominance, but alas, we ran out of time.

It has been wonderful working with your daughters, discussing all these various subjects. They are wonderful, bright, mature, and wise young women with great attitudes and senses of humor. I’m looking forward to the rest of the school year in which we plan to:

• Examine various modern Israeli issues through the lenses of security, peoplehood, freedom, and territory
• Examine Jewish diversity, comparing how different Jewish sects understand G-d, Torah, and Israel, and if we are personally more covenantal, communitarian, or cosmopolitan in our Jewish identity. 
• Celebrate Purim, Pesach, Yom Hashoah and Yom Haatzmaut
• Attend a Holocaust exhibit
• And more…..

Meanwhile, shavua tov!

Morah Judy