The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology [Paperback]

Melanie Kaye Kantrowitz (Editor), Irena Klepfisz (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 1989

In richly diverse essays, stories, memoirs, poems, and interviews, the contributors to this collection affirm the depth of Jewish women's participation in Jewish life and give strength to feminist struggles in the Jewish community.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although uneven in literary quality and sometimes naive, this potpourri of short fiction, poetry, essays and interviews is a vigorous, stimulating celebration of a multifaceted Jewish womanhood. Cultures outside the mainstream American experience are illuminated via memories of childhoods in a Jewish Sephardic home in Catholic Argentina and in a segregated Russian-Jewish community in China. Novelist Sarah Schulman offers a walking tour through radical Jewish women's history on the Lower East Side, 1879-1919, and Jerusalemite Chaya Shalom discusses the discrimination she has faced as a Sephardi and as a lesbian in Israel. Savina Teubal reads Genesis as the usurpation of a matriarchate by a patriarchy; and Julie Greenberg, a lesbian rabbinical student, attempts to reconcile Jewish traditions with feminism. Preserved here are a 19th century Moroccan ballad of a young woman who chooses martyrdom rather than joining the Sultan's harem and converting to Islam, and an autobiographical story by an American college student who was hidden in a Polish orphanage during WW II. The editors are both writing instructors at Vermont College.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This moving collection of essays, memoirs, interviews, poetry, fiction, and artwork, an expanded and updated version of materials published in 1986 as a special issue of the journal Sinister Wisdom , traverses national boundaries to present the diversity of Jewish women's experiences and beliefs. Reflections on the Holocaust, Zionism, feminism, and the recent Palestinian uprising are juxtaposed with writing on relationships, identity, and assimilation; traditional songs and celebrations; and translations from Yiddish, Hebrew, and Ladino. The anthology attests to the existence and fruitfulness of a Jewish women's literary and cultural tradition that garners strength by examining rather than suppressing conflicts. With an excellent bibliography, resource materials, and glossary. Highly recommended.
- Deborah Gussman, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press; Rev Exp edition (August 31, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807036056
• ISBN-13: 978-0807036051
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #632,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating collection of memoirs, interviews, fiction, artwork, essays and poetry, February 4, 2007

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E. B. MULLIGAN "Bronwyn" (Tampa, Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology (Paperback)

I enjoyed this collection tremendously. Very moving and enriching. Full of detail and history. Thought provoking and intense.

In the preface the editor's stated intent for the book reads " ... DINA revealed Jewish women's participation in Jewish life, affirmed the value of that participation, gave strength for feminist struggle to continue in the Jewish community."

Book Description - Diverse essays that affirm the depth of women's participation in Jewish life and give strength to feminist struggle in the Jewish community