00:19.629 --> 00:23.549
This book then is a story of the birth of
Sinha's daughter.

00:23.739 --> 00:26.870
It is of the births of other daughters, of the
piercing of women.

00:27.489 --> 00:32.369
It is a story of women who are born in, or who
arrived in the land of women who are

00:32.369 --> 00:34.750
ceremonious and correct with each other.

00:35.750 --> 00:39.950
We celebrate sermons and birthrights, and death
rights and sacrificial rights.

00:40.069 --> 00:42.220
Exodus and exorcism rights.

00:42.909 --> 00:46.580
It is the story of sanity and madness in the
house of women.

00:51.990 --> 00:58.889
Each spring, during Passover, Jews sit down for
a ritual meal

00:58.889 --> 00:59.900
called a seder.

01:00.310 --> 01:06.489
The text is the Haggadah which tells of the
exodus of the ancient Israelites from Egypt.

01:08.540 --> 01:10.250
It is written in the Bible.

01:10.819 --> 01:17.750
Tell your sons of the liberation from slavery
in Egypt as if it were happening to you.

01:18.059 --> 01:23.330
The Seder, like all Jewish rituals, is led by
the man of the house.

01:25.160 --> 01:28.559
Synagogues were not our home.
Everything—the prayers,

01:28.650 --> 01:35.400
the language, the customs—everything excluded
us, whether sadly or not so subtly.

01:35.400 --> 01:39.559
Depending on which form of Judaism, but we were
excluded.

01:39.639 --> 01:40.750
It wasn't our own.

01:47.870 --> 01:51.550
By the mid 1970s, change was in the air.

01:51.900 --> 01:55.389
Women were marching in the streets, demanding
equality.

01:57.220 --> 02:01.660
Jewish women started to take their place within
traditional rituals.

02:04.250 --> 02:10.850
At the same time, another group of Jewish women,
led by Esther Broner, held the first feminist

02:10.850 --> 02:16.369
seder.
It brought a women's perspective to an ancient

02:16.369 --> 02:19.759
story of oppression, freedom, and liberation.

02:20.410 --> 02:26.729
These women were grasping the tradition
aggressively, personalizing the ritual and

02:26.729 --> 02:28.080
making it their own.

02:38.059 --> 02:44.919
Who was this woman who stood up to thousands of
years of Jewish tradition to create a feminist

02:44.919 --> 02:47.169
seder?
What chutzpah.

02:48.809 --> 02:50.800
Better, OK, 12.

02:52.720 --> 02:57.410
In the traditional Seder, there is no place for
spontaneity.

02:57.649 --> 03:02.050
One person at the head reads it rapidly, in a
language no one understands,

03:02.089 --> 03:03.190
and then it's finished.

03:03.649 --> 03:07.770
When women do it, it's so thoughtful, it's so
holy, um,

03:07.809 --> 03:13.160
it's so far reaching and it's so connected and
touching that all of us leave,

03:13.929 --> 03:14.970
um, I think enlarged.

03:26.789 --> 03:27.789
All right.

03:36.679 --> 03:43.509
I feel that my role in life is to record, and I
am recording this Seder.

03:43.919 --> 03:46.070
That was me in 1984.

03:46.759 --> 03:51.789
Now I am telling the story of Esther Broner and
the weave of women.

03:52.419 --> 03:55.449
I was sitting next to Esther, who led the Seder.

03:55.880 --> 04:00.100
Look at us.
We were all young and beautiful then.

04:00.479 --> 04:04.070
The first women's Seder was held in 1976.

04:04.809 --> 04:07.839
I became a Seder sister in its second year.

04:08.210 --> 04:11.570
Then Esther named three accomplished Seder
mothers.

04:12.399 --> 04:16.559
Bella Abzug served in the US House of
Representatives.

04:16.799 --> 04:23.440
Grace Paley was a distinguished author and
activist, and Gloria Steinem was known by

04:23.440 --> 04:26.600
everyone as the modern face of feminism.

04:27.809 --> 04:30.779
Seder means order.
The order of doing things,

04:30.850 --> 04:35.160
and the traditional Seder begins with a song
like the table of contents,

04:35.329 --> 04:38.519
but women always begin before the traditional
order.

04:38.730 --> 04:41.910
The traditional order begins when men sit down
at the meal.

04:42.239 --> 04:44.769
Women begin with cleaning the house.

04:45.480 --> 04:50.720
Women begin with cutting up the vegetables, so
women have a very different order.

04:51.089 --> 04:52.290
I will ask you.

04:53.010 --> 04:57.769
Uh, during this time, to think of what it is
that, what are the crumbs,

04:57.850 --> 05:03.369
what is it, what is the bitterness, what is it
that you want to get rid of this past year in

05:03.369 --> 05:05.730
your lives, and personally, I'd like to burn.

05:07.019 --> 05:10.179
The thing in me that makes me not be able to
live in the present but always look to the

05:10.179 --> 05:14.380
future.
I would like to burn my fearfulness and the

05:14.380 --> 05:17.869
fearfulness of all women.
I would like to burn the, uh,

05:18.720 --> 05:25.579
the, uh, products of the patriarchal system
that continues to oppress, uh, women

05:25.579 --> 05:32.049
and minorities, uh, much as the Pharaoh did the
Jews, and, uh, what do I want to

05:32.049 --> 05:33.480
burn inside of me?

05:35.510 --> 05:36.510
the smell.

05:43.049 --> 05:49.399
There I am in the spring of 1994.
I'm sitting with an illustrious group of women,

05:49.570 --> 05:56.529
and she asks the opening question, um, what
Hamitzot do you want to rid yourself of this

05:56.529 --> 06:00.970
year?
I talked about how very much I wanted to be

06:00.970 --> 06:07.489
able to put stuff in perspective and be able to
go on and started weeping powerfully.

06:08.100 --> 06:14.239
And then all of a sudden I felt this hand on my
back and being comforted, and I looked around.

06:14.880 --> 06:20.899
And there sitting next to me was Gloria
Steinem, who didn't know me, and to me that was

06:20.899 --> 06:27.130
emblematic of what the Seders represented, um,
about women supporting women.

06:33.709 --> 06:39.500
We were all Jewish feminists.
The question that Esther posed for us was,

06:39.709 --> 06:45.070
do we find a place for ourselves within the
Jewish tradition, or remain outside?

06:45.230 --> 06:49.140
We have a choice if we're going to be secular,
profane, or if we're going to be religious,

06:49.760 --> 06:56.100
but do we want to be part of the mythic structure, part of
the theological structure,

06:56.119 --> 06:59.309
or do we want to be sent out of the tent like
Miriam?

07:03.160 --> 07:09.829
That moment of am I gonna change this or am I
gonna leave is, I think, a

07:09.829 --> 07:15.640
really important moment for women and anybody
who feels themselves up against a tradition

07:15.640 --> 07:21.279
that often does not seem to want them involved.
I understand the desire to throw the book

07:21.279 --> 07:24.519
against the wall.
I understand the desire to say these tents are

07:24.519 --> 07:30.269
not mine.
Then I read the feminist Haggadah by Naomi

07:30.269 --> 07:32.140
Nimrod and Esther Broner.

07:32.510 --> 07:34.179
I was thrilled.

07:34.429 --> 07:39.390
Here was the Seder completely transformed.
Every tradition,

07:39.470 --> 07:46.190
every custom, every practice turned inside out
and made loving and

07:46.190 --> 07:48.829
whole with women at its heart.

07:54.540 --> 08:01.040
In 1975, I was pregnant with my daughter Ruth,
and Esther was here in

08:01.040 --> 08:05.440
Israel.
Esther had this wonderful idea to have a

08:05.440 --> 08:09.630
revolutionary Seder that she'd invite all her
friends.

08:10.350 --> 08:15.059
But would change the order of things, all the
men who were invited,

08:16.179 --> 08:22.519
who were preparing the food, and all the women
were studying the text that we were going to

08:22.519 --> 08:28.589
talk about on that night, sitting, reclining,
and telling the story.

08:28.799 --> 08:30.470
The Seder was wonderful.

08:30.760 --> 08:37.320
The food that the men prepared was OK, but we
were mainly excited by the

08:37.320 --> 08:42.119
texts.
Esther and I, after the Seder, were so excited.

08:42.940 --> 08:47.330
Liking each other's texts, that we decided we
must get together,

08:48.630 --> 08:55.609
search and research and learn the history.
We wanted to find out more about

08:55.609 --> 08:59.059
Miriam, about all the women who went down to
Egypt.

08:59.409 --> 09:03.719
We read the Yerushalmi and the Bavli.

09:04.369 --> 09:07.359
We read the Bible there and back.

09:07.929 --> 09:14.169
My father had just died, and we used his library,
and my mother gave us drink and food.

09:15.080 --> 09:18.080
Asking us, Esther normally, what are you doing?

09:19.080 --> 09:20.510
What are you writing?

09:20.760 --> 09:22.469
The Haggadah is already written.

09:22.679 --> 09:26.320
What are you trying to find in all these big
old books?

09:26.969 --> 09:32.929
And when we realized that my mother, who was
used to the conventional Seder,

09:33.919 --> 09:38.200
slowly
was approaching us.

09:38.940 --> 09:41.919
And wanting to take part with us.

09:42.880 --> 09:49.559
Looking for pictures, looking for the women who
took part in the first exodus.

09:49.880 --> 09:54.090
Then we knew we were onto something, something
real that we.

09:54.929 --> 10:01.760
Reached other people, other women, not only us,
it was not only our crazy idea.

10:02.619 --> 10:07.190
But people will understand, the women will
understand.

10:11.289 --> 10:17.059
Out of the mouth of the spider comes a thread,
a hair's breadth that captures dew,

10:17.070 --> 10:21.799
lasso's life, fabricates until the woven and
the weaver are one.

10:25.669 --> 10:28.580
Those of us who gathered for the first
feminists' Seder,

10:28.950 --> 10:34.349
we understood that the equality we were
fighting for in society had to extend to

10:34.349 --> 10:35.900
the traditions of Judaism.

10:36.849 --> 10:40.960
When we walked through the desert, by and large,
we left no footprints.

10:41.969 --> 10:45.210
So it's time to go back again and, uh,

10:46.330 --> 10:51.880
find something out about the original exodus,
which didn't mention women.

10:52.489 --> 10:58.140
It says in Exodus you strike this and this
and this,

10:58.359 --> 11:05.219
and you go inside and you stay till it's over,
and we declare this a safe and sacred place.

11:05.520 --> 11:07.049
No oppressor will get you.

11:13.890 --> 11:20.340
But Esther and the rest of us who were the
creators of the Seder contributed a

11:20.669 --> 11:26.070
um perspective of an educated Jewish woman.
We all had satin shoes for hours and hours

11:26.070 --> 11:27.219
throughout our childhood.

11:27.989 --> 11:30.830
We knew what we were starting with.
We had the clay.

11:31.190 --> 11:36.890
We reshaped it.
I think we put together secular feminism and our

11:36.890 --> 11:41.609
Jewish traditional education; we were the right
people at the right moment in time.

11:42.549 --> 11:47.469
It wasn't just a potluck of women getting
together and doing the rituals that men usually

11:47.469 --> 11:52.989
do.
It was transformative because it was a freshly

11:52.989 --> 11:56.419
created, literary, Jewish practice.

12:02.200 --> 12:04.159
Oh, kitty.

12:07.549 --> 12:13.090
Let's see.

12:18.200 --> 12:19.989
Oh, yeah.

12:27.739 --> 12:29.859
Yeah, but.

12:33.969 --> 12:33.989
She be.

12:41.229 --> 12:48.039
So,
I think at the first day we all knew we were

12:48.039 --> 12:53.549
participating in something really special and
at that point it seemed like rebellion.

12:53.640 --> 12:58.950
I mean, you know, because clearly we were doing
what we weren't supposed to be doing,

12:59.460 --> 13:02.409
uh, I had never been to a Seder before in my
life.

13:05.640 --> 13:09.390
I had no idea that it was going to become such
a huge tradition.

13:11.900 --> 13:16.140
The Seder felt like the community I had always
wished for.

13:16.880 --> 13:22.109
Each year, we would choose a different theme,
but our topics were often political.

13:22.440 --> 13:26.599
We were all activists and knew that the
political is personal.

13:27.549 --> 13:31.479
We brought into our Seder stories of heroic
women.

13:32.280 --> 13:38.429
Esther invited women from the new crop of
rabbis and cantors coming out of the seminaries.

13:41.469 --> 13:45.270
We welcomed our daughters, the new generation.

13:48.570 --> 13:55.059
People were struck by Esther's poetry and her
magical vision,

13:55.849 --> 13:59.099
took it into themselves and made it their own.

13:59.349 --> 14:05.539
It was the first time really that we had a way
of owning Jewish practice.

14:06.479 --> 14:09.479
We map our bodies.
We're making new trails and,

14:09.549 --> 14:14.030
and, uh, new tracings.
There have been very few tracings of ourselves.

14:14.440 --> 14:19.789
Uh, tombstones are often blank where wives, uh,
uh, are,

14:19.799 --> 14:21.760
are on them.
They often don't have names.

14:22.320 --> 14:26.280
I feel though that I have to put names on those
who died, as well as,

14:26.359 --> 14:27.640
uh, those living.

14:29.510 --> 14:30.979
We spoke of our mothers.

14:32.270 --> 14:33.969
And of our stolen legacy.

14:38.549 --> 14:43.479
In Jewish tradition, male lineage dominates
your identity.

14:44.049 --> 14:45.090
You are the son.

14:46.030 --> 14:47.869
Of the son of the son.

14:48.729 --> 14:52.940
In the feminist Seder, we introduced another kind
of consciousness.

14:54.429 --> 15:00.140
She was the one who came up with naming
ourselves by our matrilineage,

15:00.349 --> 15:05.309
and I have seen this in Jewish group after
Jewish group when women are together and they

15:05.309 --> 15:11.869
say I am Susan, but Opal, but Re, but Ida, my

15:11.869 --> 15:16.419
grandmother, whose name was Rose Naman when she
was in her 50s after.

15:17.349 --> 15:23.099
Being depressed for many years and being unable
to cope with the prisons of her life,

15:23.650 --> 15:27.669
she killed herself, and this might have
prevented that.

15:29.380 --> 15:36.280
To bring again into the presence, into the room,
into my consciousness, women who only served and

15:36.280 --> 15:39.830
cooked and stayed in the kitchen, those women,
I want to name them,

15:39.840 --> 15:44.150
and I know all of us get choked up when we name
our matrilineage.

15:49.289 --> 15:54.919
Allison, but Henrietta, but um, Hilda and um.

15:56.340 --> 16:03.280
That's what a cut
the feminists say is an amazing form to

16:03.280 --> 16:04.789
be able to encourage.

16:05.789 --> 16:11.380
Women to relate to Judaism and in ways that are
that work for for them,

16:11.590 --> 16:15.099
the more that women can be encouraged to come
into the tent,

16:15.179 --> 16:22.159
The better.
We always have, as part of our theme, a sort

16:22.159 --> 16:29.080
of a midrashic go-around where everyone at the
table, or in our case on the floor, contributes

16:29.080 --> 16:35.710
something to a theme that we all have met in
advance to determine, even electoral politics.

16:36.080 --> 16:40.989
So there's always a degree of consciousness
about the world outside of the Seder table.

16:41.479 --> 16:46.390
If we had succeeded, there would be no poverty
in America.

16:46.760 --> 16:50.729
But
there's terrible poverty and we are not

16:50.729 --> 16:52.190
marching on Washington.

16:52.979 --> 16:57.210
It gave everybody a chance to speak and
everybody a chance to listen,

16:57.619 --> 16:58.929
which is crucial.

16:59.299 --> 17:05.689
This notion of being in the desert for 40 years
that the generation born in slavery

17:06.099 --> 17:10.250
needed to die off because of the consciousness.

17:10.930 --> 17:15.439
That they were raised with, that they were not
prepared to accept.

17:16.198 --> 17:21.338
Freedom, hope and despair are things that I
know well.

17:21.389 --> 17:26.688
This is my first Seder in freedom in 20 years,
and I feel

17:27.269 --> 17:33.948
overwhelmed at the beauty and joy of it, and
part of the hope has

17:33.948 --> 17:37.438
been always for me that one day I would come to
this Seder.

17:39.750 --> 17:44.339
This Seder, for me, was where I found my
political voice as a Jewish woman.

17:45.060 --> 17:48.219
By listening and learning from everybody at the
table,

17:48.229 --> 17:50.949
it empowered me to speak my voice.

17:51.270 --> 17:55.189
And to know from such a young age that it is OK
to articulate my opinion.

17:56.150 --> 18:01.680
To be careful about that, to think about
that, and to use my voice.

18:02.369 --> 18:07.650
The first voice I heard was in Yiddish, and I
understand that my grandmother had to make the

18:07.650 --> 18:13.609
mailman a heroic character, had to make the
shopkeeper somebody saintly because she had to

18:13.609 --> 18:20.170
add legend to an unbearable past, and I began to
understand that fiction is just

18:20.170 --> 18:22.329
fact with magic added to it.

18:28.560 --> 18:34.270
She was first generation, born to Russian
parents, raised in Detroit,

18:34.359 --> 18:40.729
Michigan.
She met my father in college.

18:40.819 --> 18:46.209
The way she tells it, my mother started college
just before her 16th birthday,

18:46.459 --> 18:50.560
finishing early, and she saw this very handsome
man,

18:50.699 --> 18:54.380
who was older and indeed a grad student at a
coffee shop.

18:55.800 --> 19:02.579
And so she sat and drank sodas and almost
flunked out of her first semester watching this

19:02.579 --> 19:03.599
very handsome man.

19:05.630 --> 19:10.989
They slowly became acquaintances.
He did not date her because she was considered

19:10.989 --> 19:15.219
too young, and over time, they were both at
Wayne State University.

19:15.469 --> 19:18.660
My father was in the art department, my mother in
the English department,

19:19.030 --> 19:24.589
and over time they got to know each other and
so they dated and very quickly became engaged.

19:24.589 --> 19:28.510
They were married.
They came to New York actually before having the

19:28.510 --> 19:33.949
kids; their first years in New York were
as artists and activists.

19:34.094 --> 19:40.864
Um, her really moving towards realizing she was
gonna be a writer and developing that, and my

19:40.864 --> 19:47.584
father beginning to continue his skills and
beginning to have his shows in New York and

19:47.584 --> 19:49.094
move the career forward.

19:53.030 --> 19:55.939
A few years in, my mother got pregnant with my
sister.

19:56.150 --> 20:02.550
She had her first, and 13 months later I had twins;
or as my mother told my father as he collapsed

20:02.550 --> 20:06.229
crossing the street, she went like this and he
said,

20:07.119 --> 20:12.959
Victory, and she said 2 for twins, which became
the name of one of the books that they

20:12.959 --> 20:19.569
collaborated on.
EM Broner, as she is best known,

20:19.819 --> 20:24.329
is a novelist, playwright, ritualist, and a
leading feminist writer.

20:24.579 --> 20:27.780
She's the author of many books including The
Women's Haggadah,

20:28.020 --> 20:32.339
Weave of Women, The Telling, the story of a
group of Jewish women who journeyed to

20:32.339 --> 20:38.260
spirituality through community and ceremony.
Her latest work is the novel The Red Squad.

20:39.619 --> 20:43.040
There were black brothers, and they all spoke
of fires.

20:43.170 --> 20:47.239
He tabs thrown into the camp garbage to burn,
looting children,

20:47.449 --> 20:53.449
women and children running from burning
villages, bodies blown away with C4 anywhere in

20:53.449 --> 20:58.119
Vietnam, a free fire zone, setting a dead boy
up against a tree,

20:58.449 --> 21:01.599
putting a cigarette in his mouth, a hat on his
head.

21:01.900 --> 21:04.170
What we do to men, we do twice to women.

21:11.140 --> 21:17.939
She was always such an activist and so much
about fairness and community and really

21:17.939 --> 21:20.250
wanting to change things in the world.

21:21.959 --> 21:28.680
That idea of fairness and activism and shock at
the treatment of people whether it was

21:28.680 --> 21:35.550
women or African Americans or Jews before
children; they were in Alabama for about a year.

21:35.550 --> 21:37.989
She was stunned at segregation.

21:38.199 --> 21:39.969
It never occurred to her.

21:40.400 --> 21:45.630
She was very active in the civil rights
movement and on many of the marches.

21:46.589 --> 21:50.689
They were gonna fire my father because she had
an African American come in through the front

21:50.689 --> 21:53.589
door, so what she did is she blocked off the
door.

21:53.689 --> 21:59.250
Now this is a 19 year old; she broke the front
door so that everybody had to enter the back

21:59.250 --> 22:04.890
door of the house.
In the 1960s, a movement to protest the war in

22:04.890 --> 22:07.130
Vietnam was sweeping the country.

22:08.099 --> 22:11.530
Our students really began the anti-war movement.

22:11.739 --> 22:14.130
My husband and I both taught at the university.

22:14.500 --> 22:18.699
It was a time of great democracy in the
teaching since we're learning from the students.

22:18.699 --> 22:25.660
And their activism, uh, inspired us, but one
didn't think of danger

22:25.660 --> 22:30.780
so much.
And that was a time of great excitement,

22:31.030 --> 22:35.260
great energy, which I hope we bring into the
future.

22:35.739 --> 22:38.579
Then the women's movement exploded.

22:43.270 --> 22:47.770
There were cover stories in Life Magazine,
Newsweek, Time Magazine,

22:47.900 --> 22:54.400
Esquire, all on Women are Revolting, you know,
the double meaning of women are revolting.

22:54.859 --> 23:01.140
Confronting the issues facing women was a
natural progression for Esther's activist

23:01.140 --> 23:06.160
spirit.
I sent students on the Jane route in Chicago

23:06.650 --> 23:08.170
for necessary abortions.

23:09.489 --> 23:15.209
It, it was so much more dangerous for these
young girls to have these babies when they had

23:15.209 --> 23:17.810
no jobs and no money and no resources.

23:22.609 --> 23:25.969
Esther's passion for justice never diminished.

23:26.180 --> 23:32.400
In fact, it once got in the way of picking up
her dear granddaughter Alexandra from school,

23:32.650 --> 23:36.619
or, as she used to refer to her, Alexandra the
Great.

23:37.780 --> 23:42.890
I want to say that it was after the Amadou
Diallo shooting I'm sitting inside Heschel,

23:42.900 --> 23:47.160
and it's like after 6 o'clock and everyone has
left and Grandma's still not there.

23:47.410 --> 23:53.589
Grandma had been arrested protesting; a whole
group of older Jewish women were arrested and

23:53.589 --> 23:54.810
they were all put in the van.

23:55.310 --> 24:00.630
Um, to be taken to the precinct, some of them
had arthritis and the cuffs were hurting.

24:00.709 --> 24:04.630
One had really low blood sugar and she needed a
donut, so they had to go to Dunkin' Donuts and

24:04.630 --> 24:08.219
then they got them all coffee and it was just
an amazing,

24:08.640 --> 24:14.349
an amazing story that no matter how old you are,
you act and you fight for what you think is

24:14.349 --> 24:18.930
right.
I now understand that Esther had a dialogue

24:18.930 --> 24:22.160
with history.
We have to march in front of places.

24:22.209 --> 24:28.680
I, I don't want to be, uh, invisible anymore.
I don't even wanna be somewhat visible.

24:28.969 --> 24:30.880
I, I think I wanna be heard.

24:31.130 --> 24:37.810
I wanna be, I want my voice very loud and I
want us to figure out what we can

24:37.810 --> 24:39.530
do for that to happen.

24:40.060 --> 24:42.760
I mean, if you had thoughts of where we would
be by now,

24:42.839 --> 24:47.079
of what that women's movement that you helped
to begin, um, would bring us,

24:47.359 --> 24:50.069
uh, how is the current moment shaping up?

24:50.439 --> 24:53.589
I was sure we'd have socialism at the least.

24:58.760 --> 25:01.760
Even now, I'm wondering what they're
waiting for.

25:03.790 --> 25:06.819
I never thought the rich would get richer and
the poor poorer.

25:07.369 --> 25:09.250
That's not what we were studying for.

25:12.349 --> 25:18.430
Ritual is the exhaled breath weaving with
thread, marking a space of our own.

25:20.369 --> 25:24.020
I insist that we are an important part of
ritual.

25:24.250 --> 25:25.349
Women are not considered.

25:26.099 --> 25:29.500
As an important part, as I would like them to be.
I think that we are the leaders.

25:29.859 --> 25:34.609
I think since we are in the home and holidays
like Pesach take place in the home,

25:34.660 --> 25:37.010
it is up to us to conduct the Seder.

25:38.189 --> 25:40.170
N has a

25:47.239 --> 25:52.199
And so

25:55.839 --> 26:00.000
All of us list the plates together, and when we
say it, in English for each plate,

26:00.079 --> 26:05.939
we dip our finger into our cup and touch our
finger to our plates.

26:07.890 --> 26:09.739
So, yes.

26:14.300 --> 26:20.619
From the very beginning of the feminist Seder, we
have taken the givens of the Haggadah,

26:20.780 --> 26:27.150
the absolute staples: the four questions, and
the plagues. We always interpreted the

26:27.150 --> 26:34.109
plagues as the oppression of women, the
hardships, the adversity.

26:34.579 --> 26:39.760
The struggles of women. We used to call them out
and list them on an old tag and put them on the

26:39.760 --> 26:44.739
wall.
Starting with Gina, each person to read a plague.

26:48.180 --> 26:53.099
Women see blood in the water every 28 days or
so, and until we're ready to procreate,

26:53.140 --> 26:57.339
we actually welcome it.
But when we face an unplanned pregnancy as a

26:57.339 --> 27:03.060
result of a mistake or a failed contraceptive,
we must be able to consult with our conscience,

27:03.219 --> 27:07.030
our partner, our doctor, or our rabbi about
whether to continue it.

27:07.579 --> 27:09.579
The choice must be ours.

27:11.390 --> 27:17.770
Cattle disease.
This affliction strikes girls at young ages.

27:17.930 --> 27:23.969
It comes from being herded like cattle into a
one-size-fits-all beauty ideal

27:23.969 --> 27:29.920
that totally distorts women's perception of a
healthy female body image.

27:30.260 --> 27:32.520
It's the plague of self-loathing.

27:33.770 --> 27:39.800
Vermin: they're the men and sometimes women who
try to keep us submissive and subjugated.

27:39.930 --> 27:45.410
They're the right-wing religious fanatics who
would roll back the political and economic

27:45.410 --> 27:49.170
advances we've fought for these past 40 years.

27:50.530 --> 27:54.359
Look at this panel.
I don't see one single woman.

27:54.689 --> 27:56.219
Where are the women?

27:57.670 --> 28:00.770
Yeah, can you, yeah.

28:01.739 --> 28:08.569
Our tent expanded, and the Seder became so
popular that we had to choose whom to invite.

28:09.180 --> 28:12.930
Well, this led to tensions among the Seder
sisters.

28:13.060 --> 28:18.859
Esther wanted to invite notables, and some of
us wanted to invite friends and relatives.

28:20.109 --> 28:26.900
Well, I remember the drastic year when the, the
Seder's mothers and the Seder sisters fell

28:26.900 --> 28:33.270
into a bitter dispute over how big the Seder
group should be and who should be invited.

28:33.310 --> 28:37.780
It was an annual battle, but this
year was cataclysmic.

28:38.109 --> 28:45.020
We were protagonists and antagonists, and people
were driven mad by Esther's refusal to

28:45.229 --> 28:48.750
be combative.
Esther would not fight.

28:48.920 --> 28:50.880
This was a great weakness of hers.

28:52.170 --> 28:58.199
People stomped off unsatisfied, and some never
returned to the feminist Seder.

28:58.410 --> 29:01.579
We had lost some of the original radical
impulse.

29:02.890 --> 29:06.869
Petty squabbles interfered with our high-minded
purpose.

29:07.810 --> 29:12.439
I had hoped that women could be different after
all, if we,

29:12.479 --> 29:16.949
the peacemakers couldn't work out our conflicts.
Who could?

29:17.479 --> 29:21.750
Nevertheless, Esther kept the rest of the core
sisterhood together.

29:22.319 --> 29:26.719
She believed so passionately in her most
notable creation.

29:28.150 --> 29:33.369
When the women's Haggadah was published in Ms.
Magazine in 1977,

29:33.819 --> 29:40.780
it inspired women everywhere to make their own
seders in order to include larger numbers.

29:40.939 --> 29:45.219
Some women held mass seders like the popular
Mayan Seder.

29:46.260 --> 29:52.420
With her weaving of women, you were drawn
together in a way you could call a community

29:52.420 --> 29:55.589
because without her it doesn't really exist.

29:56.729 --> 30:03.599
The reason Esther was so effective in changing
Jewish women's minds was because

30:03.599 --> 30:06.589
she took Judaism so seriously.

30:06.920 --> 30:12.239
It was not a trivial matter for her to change
the language of prayers or to rethink the

30:12.239 --> 30:13.869
meaning of biblical stories.

30:14.199 --> 30:19.349
She did it with the most profound respect and
seriousness, and for that reason,

30:19.400 --> 30:25.760
I think she was able to reach Orthodox women
who scorned the rest of us as frivolous.

30:25.895 --> 30:32.564
Indeed, Esther the poet rewrote that
Haggadah deeply and seriously and

30:32.564 --> 30:38.604
poetically and turned it into wonderful
language that transfixed us all as we

30:38.604 --> 30:40.094
participated in it.

30:40.444 --> 30:42.375
That's a literary creation.

30:42.685 --> 30:44.834
The power is in literature.

30:46.849 --> 30:52.079
Women's literature, by and large, addresses
itself to that which is daily.

30:53.489 --> 30:57.520
Uh, to that which comes from the home and
outward, uh,

30:57.689 --> 31:00.989
men's literature very often deals with the war
out there.

31:01.170 --> 31:04.010
It's women's literature like Marante deals with
the war.

31:04.089 --> 31:09.819
It deals with the civilians in history, for
instance, so that it's

31:10.550 --> 31:17.229
familial, uh, it's ordinary and it's the
ordinary becoming heroic that women's

31:17.229 --> 31:23.859
literature is about.
It's about conquering the daily,

31:24.150 --> 31:26.380
not going out and conquering territory.

31:29.119 --> 31:33.170
Esther brought a unique poetic style to the
liturgy of the Seder.

31:34.079 --> 31:39.170
That same magical storytelling could be heard
in all her literary output.

31:42.239 --> 31:43.459
The women gathered.

31:45.199 --> 31:47.469
For the ceremony, they giggle nervously.

31:47.920 --> 31:49.229
What should it be called?

31:49.630 --> 31:50.709
Hymenectomy?

31:50.910 --> 31:52.989
No, that sounds like an appendectomy.

31:53.599 --> 31:55.880
It sounds like you're getting rid of your uncle
Hyman.

31:57.930 --> 32:01.280
I laughed at a lot of it.
It opened my eyes to a lot of things.

32:01.400 --> 32:03.079
I bristled at some of it.

32:03.489 --> 32:07.560
Um, she was a little too caustic in some, in
some parts of it,

32:07.849 --> 32:14.260
but on the whole I think I started to fall in
love with Esther Broner when I read A Weave of

32:14.260 --> 32:19.969
Women.
Cut it, says Terry, against all vestigial

32:19.969 --> 32:23.209
structures, political and physical.

32:24.540 --> 32:27.180
Gerda is swift.
The hymenal membrane is pierced.

32:27.959 --> 32:30.349
The baby starts and wails.

32:30.550 --> 32:32.300
There's a loud sigh from the group.

32:32.550 --> 32:35.619
Tova, the actress, says, now you are one of us.

32:35.989 --> 32:39.189
Terry, the godmother says.
May all orifices be opened.

32:40.119 --> 32:45.400
Dahlia the singer says, may she not be
delivered intact to her bridegroom or judged by

32:45.400 --> 32:50.140
her hymen.
DD, the Irish girl from America says,

32:50.359 --> 32:54.290
may she never suffer again from piercing of the
body or of the heart.

32:55.410 --> 32:59.099
I would be able to identify.

32:59.829 --> 33:04.640
A passage of Esther's, um, completely out of
context.

33:05.449 --> 33:11.869
Uh, which is to me the mark of, uh, or
certainly one of the,

33:11.880 --> 33:14.839
the indications of a really authentic voice.

33:16.839 --> 33:21.599
My accordion pleated navel.
I hate my navel accordion pleated because of

33:21.599 --> 33:28.310
Lena stretch marks on the sides of my hips, one
on each hip like white stripes down uniforms.

33:28.339 --> 33:30.500
I hate those.
Those are from Lena.

33:31.000 --> 33:32.229
Do you hate Lena?

33:32.479 --> 33:34.199
Oh no, that's not allowed.

33:36.949 --> 33:40.099
Her voice is in every line.
It's quirky.

33:40.390 --> 33:42.780
She's got different rhythms than most people.

33:43.150 --> 33:48.380
Um, there's a kind of a whisper, the same sort
of whisper that was in her voice in her fiction,

33:48.510 --> 33:50.540
almost as if she's letting you in on a secret.

33:52.579 --> 33:55.550
Hair.
All that hair I hate.

33:55.819 --> 34:00.319
Hair on upper lip, faintly there, long stiff
hairs on chin,

34:00.540 --> 34:02.050
wild hair on my head.

34:02.770 --> 34:07.650
Has my pubic hair, bushy curly forest, primeval
forest.

34:07.859 --> 34:11.169
People look at the top of my head and know
what's down below.

34:13.790 --> 34:16.310
A Grace Paley sentence.
You know a Grace Paley sentence,

34:16.419 --> 34:19.090
a Joan Didion sentence.
You know a Joan Didion sentence.

34:19.340 --> 34:21.969
I feel like with Esther, not so much the
sentences, but the,

34:22.330 --> 34:26.699
the larger pieces.
If I just picked one up on a piece of paper

34:26.699 --> 34:29.810
that was blowing down the street, I think I
would read it and say this is Esther.

34:29.860 --> 34:30.889
This must be Esther.

34:31.260 --> 34:33.850
What color do you associate with Esther?

34:34.100 --> 34:37.500
Orange, purple, red, purple.

34:39.120 --> 34:45.070
She dressed very distinctively as though life
were too short to waste it on drabness.

34:46.060 --> 34:52.770
Esther made up, you know, rituals that did
indeed have universals in them,

34:52.889 --> 34:58.449
but each one was really created for the
occasion and for the person.

34:58.820 --> 35:01.540
I always told her she should have a business
rituals to go.

35:03.979 --> 35:05.449
That we will bless this room.

35:06.399 --> 35:08.989
For we're all together at this time.

35:10.090 --> 35:11.360
At this place.

35:12.120 --> 35:18.639
And in this season, she was an extraordinary
creator of new

35:18.639 --> 35:23.040
ritual that saw into the heart of a matter.

35:27.250 --> 35:31.520
Well, I'm not sure that Esther went much of
any place without a wand or a miracle,

35:32.250 --> 35:38.770
so I first met Esther Broner at Gloria
Steinem's house at a dinner that Gloria had

35:38.770 --> 35:45.729
called in a break in her work, so she invited
me and Esther Broner and Marilyn French to

35:45.729 --> 35:50.929
dinner, and we sat down at, I don't know, 7,
7:30 or something like that,

35:51.010 --> 35:55.159
and we got up at 3 a.m.
And we then formed what we called from that

35:55.159 --> 35:56.449
point on our coven.

35:56.879 --> 36:03.129
And met four times a year at least for the next 20
years and the purpose of all of that

36:03.439 --> 36:09.379
getting together was to evaluate our lives, to
get feedback on what we were doing right or

36:09.379 --> 36:13.010
wrong, and then for Esther to lead us in
chanting.

36:13.219 --> 36:17.419
So we would repeat it, repeat it, and shake
wands over her head and so on and so on and

36:17.419 --> 36:21.129
laugh and carry on in order to cast a spell.

36:21.780 --> 36:27.020
Once I thought I can't remember who, somebody was in trouble and she, I thought any minute
she's gonna kill a chicken and pour her blood

36:27.020 --> 36:33.939
blood into a glass and wrap, run it
around with a feather and say drink it.

36:33.939 --> 36:39.979
I mean, it was like voodoo. What, how much different was
it than, uh, the witches, the witches.

36:39.979 --> 36:43.250
It was than the witches, the witches.

36:44.100 --> 36:50.219
Some of what we'll do is bless the baby first.
We will encapsulate her and say.

36:54.330 --> 37:00.679
Knock it.
A prayer from the baby.

37:01.739 --> 37:07.729
I think Gloria and Carol Jenkins, they speak
tenderly and with affection about being witches

37:07.729 --> 37:10.409
together.
In other words, it was a consciousness raising

37:10.409 --> 37:14.959
group.
May your mothers be your models and your

37:14.959 --> 37:17.070
grandmother, your icon.

37:17.959 --> 37:23.199
Made people happy with her feathers and her
sparkles and her wands and there was always

37:23.199 --> 37:28.429
some way that Esther had of making the ordinary
special.

37:30.290 --> 37:34.159
I think we are present at birth.
It is up to us to have the words of birth.

37:34.409 --> 37:37.010
We are the ones who usually prepare the body
for death,

37:37.489 --> 37:40.919
not the undertakers.
It is up to us to say the words of death.

37:41.110 --> 37:43.040
I think we must not give our words away.

37:46.090 --> 37:52.560
It was not the ritual-making part of her, it
wasn't the spiritualism that I cared about, but

37:52.560 --> 37:54.949
it was the genuineness. It was her genuineness.

37:55.770 --> 37:59.500
I was working on a book and I was having a
terrible time with it,

38:00.050 --> 38:03.100
but I didn't know
what to do with it, so I, I was sitting there

38:03.100 --> 38:06.370
for six months and, uh, not knowing what the hell
to do,

38:06.580 --> 38:11.649
she said to me, come to me on Sunday and bring
two pages.

38:11.739 --> 38:17.939
I don't want to discuss it and, and, and
unbelievably it made me write two pages and I

38:17.939 --> 38:23.739
went to her on Sunday with the, with, with the
whole whatever I had plus the two pages and

38:23.739 --> 38:28.889
she said, uh, this is just wonderful, marvelous,
wonderful.

38:29.139 --> 38:30.649
I said, no kidding, really.

38:31.800 --> 38:38.679
And in that way I went to her for an entire
winter, every single Sunday with my

38:38.679 --> 38:41.479
two pages.
She wasn't teaching me how to write this book.

38:41.560 --> 38:47.120
She was just teaching me how to get through it.
Esther was sort of like a rock in an

38:47.120 --> 38:49.800
otherwise calm sea.
I mean, I'm mostly in the

38:49.909 --> 38:56.820
pretty calm, controlled sea that every now and
then gets an upheaval and there are waves and

38:56.820 --> 39:00.080
there's currents and suddenly I need to cling
to a rock.

39:00.260 --> 39:02.209
She would be the rock I would swim to.

39:02.500 --> 39:07.780
I was just totally frazzled once and I could
not handle everything that was being asked of

39:07.780 --> 39:14.610
Me and Esther said, come down to the loft and
she unrolled a big

39:14.610 --> 39:18.610
bolt of butcher paper and had me lie down on it.

39:19.260 --> 39:23.250
She took a huge magic marker and she outlined
my body.

39:23.600 --> 39:28.250
I got up and I looked at my outline and she
said, you have borders.

39:28.540 --> 39:33.340
I want you to remember you have boundaries and
you can establish them.

39:33.540 --> 39:35.929
You can say no, you have boundaries.

39:37.080 --> 39:43.250
Well, Esther came through for people in ways
that were just right for them at moments when

39:43.250 --> 39:44.250
they needed it.

39:52.679 --> 39:56.399
If she had been created as Adam's equal and not
been considered a

39:56.399 --> 40:07.000
temptress,

40:07.010 --> 40:10.879
dying, if she, if our fathers had not pitted
our mothers against each other like Abraham

40:10.879 --> 40:14.239
with Sarah and Hagar or Jacob with Leah and
Rachel.

40:18.939 --> 40:22.020
All people need their history, their mythos.

40:22.290 --> 40:24.050
Women may need it most of all.

40:25.580 --> 40:32.060
Our revolution is to go to the sources and
bring the idea of the exodus of

40:32.060 --> 40:38.939
women, the importance of women, and the
importance of Miriam.

40:39.760 --> 40:41.560
As our prophet.

40:42.459 --> 40:47.199
And me.
Of

40:51.830 --> 40:57.449
the timber.
And let the women down.

40:59.169 --> 41:05.229
To the sea.
And there

41:07.360 --> 41:14.000
Esther Brower set out to create a new tradition
to tell of the Prophet Miriam,

41:14.239 --> 41:17.350
sister of Moses, who watched over him.

41:18.040 --> 41:20.070
She organized the people.

41:20.719 --> 41:25.649
We women have taken an ancient account and made
it our very own.

41:27.169 --> 41:32.129
Instead of the prophet Elijah, we sing of the
Prophet Miriam.

41:34.129 --> 41:38.550
We can think about God in a kind of a female
way, right?

41:38.669 --> 41:41.899
We can, we can think of God as giving birth to
the world.

41:42.110 --> 41:44.860
We can think of the liberation as having
included women.

41:45.149 --> 41:51.060
Miriam can take her rightful place among her
siblings and the people she leads.

41:51.790 --> 41:58.179
All the preparation of the altar and all the
honoring and in the fighting of the men up to

41:58.830 --> 42:00.550
the top of the mountain.

42:01.800 --> 42:05.209
Uh, there was no place for Miriam.

42:05.629 --> 42:10.870
Aaron, his sons, and 70 elders of the tribe
were invited to the top of the mountain,

42:11.239 --> 42:15.389
but nobody made a robe for Miriam.
No one invited her up the mountain.

42:15.959 --> 42:20.449
Miriam gets short shrift in general that we
don't have very much of her story.

42:20.600 --> 42:24.929
She's an equal partner with Moses in the Torah,
singing the Song of the Sea.

42:25.199 --> 42:30.360
Many, many people now put Miriam's cup on the
table filled with water, because she was the

42:30.360 --> 42:35.179
woman of water.
I want us to think about the Miriams who led us.

42:36.120 --> 42:43.080
Uh, out of Mitzrayim, or the Miriams who bore us,
uh, the Miriams who took

42:43.080 --> 42:44.350
us across the water.

42:44.639 --> 42:49.590
I want to honor some women that are the
mothers of handicapped children.

42:49.879 --> 42:52.860
They're Miriams.
They really are Miriams, and they were,

42:52.919 --> 42:57.679
they were wonderful with these children.
It's easy to be wonderful when you got great

42:57.679 --> 43:03.510
beautiful children, you know, but when you got
kids that nobody wants to look at,

43:03.669 --> 43:04.870
it's really hard.

43:06.159 --> 43:10.030
They did it, so I want to put them in the middle
and blast them.

43:11.010 --> 43:16.719
Uh, we saw her role of leading the women in
song and dance and the finder of water in the

43:16.719 --> 43:21.500
desert.
We saw that role as so, so emblematic of,

43:21.520 --> 43:24.800
of women's creativity, and we celebrated it.

43:27.239 --> 43:32.399
In the name of ritual, we can do anything; we can
do astonishing acts.

43:37.550 --> 43:40.520
Sina knows the song they are singing.
Her heart lightens.

43:40.709 --> 43:44.709
Her voice rises in song.
She does not notice the religious policewoman

43:44.709 --> 43:46.939
who's thrown a schmata rag over her head.

43:47.350 --> 43:50.360
The dancing men stop.
Who is singing, thunders the rabbi.

43:50.429 --> 43:53.219
It is forbidden for a woman's voice to be
raised in song.

43:54.659 --> 43:58.770
When her father died, she loved him so much,
and she wanted to honor him.

43:59.100 --> 44:04.459
She wanted to say Kaddish every day for a year,
which was rare for a woman to do.

44:04.820 --> 44:07.370
He wanted a Kaddish, a daily prayer.

44:08.379 --> 44:13.179
I have two brothers, but I, as the eldest, did
not want to give that over to them.

44:13.830 --> 44:18.909
To do that, she had to find an Orthodox minyan,
but the Orthodox minyanim that she found

44:18.909 --> 44:21.419
wouldn't allow a woman to participate.

44:21.709 --> 44:28.020
She finally found one that allowed her to stand
behind a plastic shower curtain.

44:28.389 --> 44:33.620
The fact that she chose an Orthodox synagogue
in which to recite Kaddish for her father

44:34.739 --> 44:37.870
expressed the connection that she felt to the
tradition.

44:38.580 --> 44:42.739
Uh, which she never really turned her back on
even as she went far beyond it.

44:43.889 --> 44:47.280
That mechitza, that separation, became my great
oppression.

44:48.209 --> 44:54.770
At first it was on a clothes rack, then they
hung it as a sort of cheap lace curtain

44:54.770 --> 44:56.489
made from golden threads.

44:58.770 --> 45:04.989
It was so demeaning and so painful to her every
day to be treated like an

45:04.989 --> 45:07.639
Impostor, as she very seriously said,

45:07.639 --> 45:19.500
Kaddish.

45:19.500 --> 45:19.659
for her father.
Hirotejali Mahu Behaihoha.

45:19.669 --> 45:22.120
I sent out an SOS, and I said,

45:22.889 --> 45:27.360
Dear mates, I have such a longing to extend
beyond myself,

45:27.530 --> 45:29.840
to not just be a small shadow here.

45:30.209 --> 45:33.399
Please come to me and help us have a minyan of
women.

45:35.330 --> 45:42.030
Her experience of encountering the Orthodox
minyan every morning was that she could be reverent,

45:42.030 --> 45:48.669
and irreverent; she could sort of bait some of
the men, and yet she could just walk away from a

45:48.669 --> 45:53.100
confrontation, and she could be religious and
sacrilegious.

45:53.350 --> 45:58.949
She had all these experiences sitting there, as
she remembered her father with great love.

46:03.199 --> 46:07.540
The other great significant man in Estra's life
was her husband, Bob.

46:08.550 --> 46:14.590
They were both highly respected artists who
loved their craft and continued working as long

46:14.590 --> 46:20.679
as they could.
Bob worked until his illness made it impossible.

46:28.560 --> 46:35.419
Their art was what brought them so much joy and
drive and passion, that that

46:35.419 --> 46:37.620
was really, I think, the focus of their lives.

46:40.419 --> 46:45.780
I think to understand these drawings is to
understand that my father was first and

46:45.780 --> 46:47.320
foremost an artist.

46:48.149 --> 46:49.439
And loved technique.

46:50.919 --> 46:52.620
He drew what he saw.

46:53.709 --> 46:58.810
He struggled, obviously, with this diagnosis of
Parkinson's.

46:59.260 --> 47:06.139
Dad had gotten more sick, and she wanted him to
know no

47:06.139 --> 47:12.820
matter what, that with all of this she
would recommit.

47:14.439 --> 47:17.239
And maybe she needed his recommitment.

47:18.209 --> 47:20.199
And so they asked me to throw them a wedding.

47:25.600 --> 47:32.159
While she was not only the love of his life,
but the reason he lived several additional

47:32.159 --> 47:36.389
years, he talked about how he could not.

47:37.280 --> 47:40.239
yet leave this world where he saw her face
every day.

47:41.270 --> 47:48.250
Even at the very end of Bob's sad, drawn-out
illness, Esther was still

47:48.790 --> 47:54.030
incredibly devoted and romantic.
To the very end,

47:54.550 --> 47:57.060
she was romantic about her Bobby.

47:58.989 --> 48:05.540
What we decided to do was everything they
didn't have in 19 January 18,

48:05.590 --> 48:11.060
1948: all the things they couldn't afford or
were rebellious about.

48:11.669 --> 48:17.790
So for this wedding, she wanted white but a
Mexican wedding dress with color.

48:22.560 --> 48:29.370
Yes, it was her idea, but again, you know, my
father would be the first to tell you

48:29.580 --> 48:33.689
that he's not gonna be the person that's gonna
say let's go to this party,

48:34.219 --> 48:37.169
but it's always a good idea that she took him
to the party.

48:38.030 --> 48:44.889
Um, and so indeed she was the mover
and the person of action in the relationship.

48:45.300 --> 48:46.340
And he was her rock.

48:57.199 --> 49:01.270
Ritual takes the chaos of the world and gives
it shape,

49:01.479 --> 49:03.919
order, and form.

49:07.989 --> 49:12.219
The sacred schmata originated in the Seder group.

49:12.510 --> 49:18.469
It was tacky pink chiffon or something tied
together in a long rope.

49:18.580 --> 49:24.120
All the women would hold on to it and circle
everybody at the end of the Seder.

49:26.330 --> 49:32.939
In 1984 there was a gathering of leaders of the
world's major religions at the foot of Mount

49:32.939 --> 49:37.479
Sinai where Moses had received the 10
Commandments.

49:37.790 --> 49:43.510
These leaders met in the hope of symbolically
making peace between Jews and Muslims in the

49:43.510 --> 49:47.870
Middle East.
All world religions were represented.

49:48.399 --> 49:52.989
Even Buddhism and Shinto and, of course,
Muslim and Christian,

49:53.439 --> 49:58.070
everyone, and Lily and Esther were representing
the feminist religion.

49:58.879 --> 50:05.780
And I brought it to the top of Sinai, and we
tied people around, asking Egyptians and

50:05.780 --> 50:09.860
Israelis to make peace, and they brought the
schmata with them.

50:10.189 --> 50:13.110
They used it on Mount Sinai, and brought it back
to the Seder group.

50:13.189 --> 50:20.070
So it became an absolutely sacred part of the
ritual that we would end the Seder

50:20.070 --> 50:24.469
every year by stretching this around the whole
group.

50:26.040 --> 50:30.830
It was always just an incredible blessing and a
sacred moment.

50:33.989 --> 50:38.929
Today, hundreds of women's Seders are taking place
all over the world.

50:39.790 --> 50:45.580
They may not know or remember the woman who
started it all in 1976.

50:46.229 --> 50:49.389
Recognition is always a struggle for women.

50:50.290 --> 50:56.870
It took 17 years before Esther finally got her
women's Haggadah published by Harper San

50:56.870 --> 50:59.780
Francisco in 1994.

51:00.070 --> 51:01.800
She was a true artist.
She worked.

51:01.830 --> 51:03.600
She never stopped writing.

51:03.899 --> 51:07.500
Whether she was published or not, paid or not,
recognized or not,

51:07.790 --> 51:09.899
she stuck to her vision, and she wrote.

51:10.270 --> 51:14.469
She paid a high cost.
She never had money and she rarely had her

51:14.469 --> 51:16.520
moments of fame, so gradually.

51:17.270 --> 51:22.219
As the years went on, and she saw herself
eclipsed, the satir took its place.

51:22.310 --> 51:23.899
It was her moment of glory.

51:24.310 --> 51:28.949
Her creativity shone, and we all looked up
to her so much.

51:28.969 --> 51:32.510
And it was a very notable event in the year.

51:33.679 --> 51:37.780
She worked so hard on it; she invested so much
in it.

51:37.790 --> 51:39.800
It really became her.

51:40.479 --> 51:44.260
The stage upon which she was able to really,
you know,

51:44.310 --> 51:45.580
be center stage.

51:45.870 --> 51:49.100
I think she gloried in that moment, and why not?

51:49.429 --> 51:54.620
Artists have to have a certain amount of ego to
do what they do and to live so precariously.

51:54.989 --> 52:00.989
It was so important to Esther, and it became
increasingly so over the years.

52:03.770 --> 52:06.830
But there were, but it became a performance
piece.

52:10.649 --> 52:11.969
Not the last year.

52:12.250 --> 52:13.479
The last year was.

52:14.629 --> 52:19.899
Was the intimate, powerful, uh, vulnerable, um.

52:21.850 --> 52:27.379
Profound, uh, event, I think, that touched all of
us who sat at that table that night.

52:29.310 --> 52:35.459
To create a community around Esther when she
was sick and dying—that was a weave of women.

52:35.790 --> 52:42.709
And it was, if you imagine what it's like to
actually weave and take one strand

52:42.709 --> 52:47.899
at a time, put them together and create
something that can support a tremendous weight,

52:48.469 --> 52:50.939
that's what happened around Esther's illness.

52:51.189 --> 52:53.159
I never saw anything quite like it.

52:53.590 --> 52:56.709
There was an email list; I think 30 people were
on it.

52:57.250 --> 53:01.129
We all were kept abreast of her condition.
We were all told when we couldn't, couldn't

53:01.129 --> 53:04.679
visit, when she was strong enough to maybe take
two a day or three a day.

53:05.939 --> 53:10.959
That sort of community, which social networking
and email made possible,

53:11.800 --> 53:18.280
first required a mindset, and that mindset is
something that Esther created, and we

53:18.280 --> 53:20.189
all reciprocated.

53:21.000 --> 53:23.310
It was Esther's last Friday night.

53:24.120 --> 53:29.070
Her granddaughter Alexandra was in London on a
study program.

53:29.679 --> 53:33.229
We were all coming and going from around her
hospital bed.

53:33.479 --> 53:38.000
Uh, Esther was breathing in a labored way.

53:39.149 --> 53:44.010
The family was at her bedside, along with Gloria
and myself.

53:44.909 --> 53:48.580
Nahama placed a laptop on Esther's stomach.

53:48.939 --> 53:52.010
There was Alexandra on the screen.

53:52.939 --> 53:56.850
Suddenly, there was grandmother and
granddaughter together.

53:57.860 --> 54:02.709
My mom realized that she had forgotten to ask
the school to send a rabbi or something to do

54:03.020 --> 54:09.860
um, any kind of service for Shabbat, um, and so
she called me, and I could connect with

54:09.860 --> 54:16.620
her from so far away. In times like that, really
all you can do is pray, and so

54:16.620 --> 54:23.590
I sang. Oh.

54:27.639 --> 54:32.030
I.
On

54:36.689 --> 54:37.689
I.

54:45.620 --> 54:48.050
I don't think of myself as a pioneer.

54:48.489 --> 54:54.139
I think of myself as trying something, and it
wasn't accepted.

54:55.050 --> 54:57.719
When I wrote about it, it wasn't accepted at
all.

54:58.129 --> 55:03.540
I was booed at some synagogues, so, uh, that's
it.

55:03.679 --> 55:10.489
That's an interesting way to start something
that will last forever: through disregard.

55:13.219 --> 55:19.860
And I'm in love with all these women, so that's
the best

55:20.179 --> 55:26.000
thing of all.
Hi Kael.

55:26.959 --> 55:33.080
Hi Kadesh.
Esther Broner died on June 21,

55:33.629 --> 55:36.050
2011.

55:38.620 --> 55:45.270
I brought a stone from our trip to Mount Sinai

55:45.560 --> 55:47.500
and placed it in her grave.

55:47.800 --> 55:51.280
I was one of those souls whose life she touched.

55:51.879 --> 55:54.550
She was the mother of us all.

56:04.750 --> 56:11.659
I think Esther's greatest legacy is her
legitimization of alternative rituals.

56:11.750 --> 56:17.139
The fact that you could borrow from tradition
and utilize all the feeling and all the

56:17.139 --> 56:22.139
sacredness of it and make it relevant to women,
I think has been a gift to all of us.

56:24.219 --> 56:29.100
I mean, sometimes you have to stop and
think why somebody would, but Esther

56:29.929 --> 56:32.070
was 100% unique.

56:33.129 --> 56:35.639
She stepped over boundaries.

56:36.669 --> 56:43.449
But in time, and because of her, those boundaries
shifted and the things that she

56:43.449 --> 56:49.050
taught us became acceptable.
I think a lot of orthodox homes have brought in

56:49.050 --> 56:53.840
ritual where they would not have, you know, had
she not begun that process.

56:55.040 --> 56:59.629
I'm not so sure whether women would know that
it came from Esther Broner.

57:02.020 --> 57:04.340
That's sort of the injustice of it.

57:06.810 --> 57:10.239
Are we revolutionizing this big Jewish world
from within?

57:10.340 --> 57:11.459
I don't think so.

57:11.830 --> 57:14.100
Have we touched the lives of many people?

57:15.070 --> 57:19.459
Yes, the women's theater will never be the same
without my grandma,

57:19.709 --> 57:23.540
but I think she expected it to go on.
That's what the women's theater was really

57:23.540 --> 57:26.310
about too.
She was passing on the torch to all of us

57:26.310 --> 57:31.909
individually and collectively, and I think that
that is one thing I feel an obligation to carry

57:31.909 --> 57:36.590
on and to bring to my generation, and one day
having my own women's theater.

57:39.719 --> 57:42.120
I will go with you.

57:43.909 --> 57:46.300
Through the desert, and then

57:47.000 --> 57:49.169
I will be immersed with you.

57:51.419 --> 57:52.780
I will be part of you.

57:55.050 --> 57:56.739
I, I will be with you forever.

57:57.989 --> 58:01.899
Amen, you will be, you will be. Amen.

58:03.830 --> 58:10.600
Well, we have concluded the Passover Seder in
the new tradition, and we fly homeward to the on

58:10.600 --> 58:14.620
the, yeah.

58:19.909 --> 58:22.399
I, um...

58:27.120 --> 58:28.840
and my...

58:34.149 --> 58:35.149
Uh.

58:42.139 --> 58:43.139
Um.

59:11.489 --> 59:14.459
Esther exploded into my life like a star.

59:15.219 --> 59:18.300
He was exploding, and there were shards of light.

59:41.629 --> 59:48.219
We were both teaching, and Esther, of course,
had that inimitable laugh in the, um, lunchroom.

59:48.219 --> 59:52.590
Because she was always telling fabulous stories,
and of course I gravitated to her table.

01:00:06.820 --> 01:00:12.040
I am.
I wasn't a totally irreverent secularist,

01:00:12.489 --> 01:00:15.070
and she always laughed.

01:00:15.570 --> 01:00:17.399
She always laughed at it, right?

01:00:17.610 --> 01:00:19.729
I would always say, oh, what is this God
nonsense?

01:00:19.770 --> 01:00:21.020
And she would laugh.

01:00:31.300 --> 01:00:37.669
An extraordinary capacity to make you feel that
you were one of the most important

01:00:37.820 --> 01:00:42.540
people in her life, if not the most important
at that moment.

01:00:51.510 --> 01:00:58.300
How can we imitate Esther's?
It was, it was this wild, witchy cackle.

01:00:58.429 --> 01:01:02.959
It was very, very infectious, and it was very
wholehearted.

01:01:03.090 --> 01:01:06.429
I, I don't think I could ever imitate it.
I wish I could.

01:01:10.560 --> 01:01:14.429
And she waved her hands like that, didn't she?

01:01:15.580 --> 01:01:20.360
Oh, I'm not doing her justice, but that's as
close as I can come.