Lynn Feinberg

Single Mother in an Orthodox Community

[German]

The traditional Jewish family with father, mother and children is a deeply ingrained image. The father has an important role to play. It is my experience that when this element is missing, family life seems very fractured.

Being a single Jewish parent meant I took on many roles traditionally ascribed to fathers, such as saying Kiddush and cutting the bread on Friday evening. In a way, I have had to face a double set of taboos. First and foremost, I have chosen to live differently from the majority culture. Second, I have taken on roles that were not already preordained for me in our tradition. It has felt very lonely at times.

Going to the synagogue with my children proved to be most challenging. Because I am a woman, I had to sit in the gallery, where it is only possible to see the rituals going on from the front rows. My sons wanted to sit with the other children who were downstairs with their fathers. Until my boys were nine and ten, my father, their grandfather, was still alive. He was always in the synagogue during services. Of course, this was a good compensation for me. Celebrating Shabbat and holiday meals with my father and his second wife mitigated the immediate feeling of missing a proper family gathering. But in the synagogue my father was often busy with of practical issues during the service and did not always have the time to be a substitute parent for my sons.

Having to sit apart from my sons frustrated me because it disqualified me from influencing my children's understanding of the service. It also made me aware of inherent gender issues related to Judaism and spurred my interest in doing something about it. I once joined the synagogue children's choir (I was one of two grown women. There were a few men, and the rest were children.) so that my children be able to participate more actively in the services. But women and girls sing upstairs in the gallery. Boys stand downstairs by the bimah [podium].

Although it is fairly common for children to have single parents in greater Norwegian society, this was not the case in our Jewish community sixteen years ago. I was the first single mother at the time. Later, there were a few more. Still, the conventional family dominates the picture, although one partner may not necessarily be Jewish. This situation made me feel very vulnerable as a parent in the community. Today, fathers play a big part in their children's lives, and my role as a single parent was especially noticeable on certain occasions. When I drove my children to Jewish weekend camps, for example, or brought them to weekly cheider classes, which is often the father's job. Being the only parent meant being responsible for roles ascribed both to the mother and  father and at times the burden felt very heavy.

My sons both have Jewish names but they do not have a Jewish father. This means my Jewish name is used when they are called up as sons to the Torah. This emphasises theirs and my status. When my boys prepared for bar mitzvah, I was their tutor at home, traditionally a typical fathers’ activity. And, like most mothers, I was responsible for planning and holding the party, inviting guests, and preparing food etc. Helping my boys with their bar mitzvah was actually something I enjoyed. It meant I was allowed to learn how to leyn [chant the Torah] through their learning. Yet during the actual bar mitzvah service I had my place in the gallery and they were downstairs. In our community it is a custom that the family holding the bar-mitzvah say a Kiddush and provide coffee and cakes in the community centre after the Shabbat morning service. My Rosh Chodesh group volunteered to prepare this for me. Without their help I would have had additional chore on top of my already too full load. I think this situation illustrates how I despite being a single parent, I do feel I am accepted as a part of the community.

My situation has probably made me more aware of gender issues within Judaism than a woman in a more traditional situation be. In order to understand how I could find a way to feel comfortable within the tradition, it has been important to both learn about the "male" side as well as understanding more about the female roles within Judaism. I have tried to share this knowledge with other Jewish women in the two Rosh Chodesh groups I have been involved in founding. Paradoxically, this work is also what I am respected for in our community today.

I struggle with questions related to how the tradition is interpreted and how it is taught to children and adults within an orthodox framework. I revolt deeply when Judaism presents its sages of old as if they had so much more to say and claims our current understanding to be of much less value. Since these so-called sages all were men that lived within a very different socio-economic framework it gives me reason to question their absolute validity. I interpret this way of honouring our past to be a way of renouncing our own power and ability to make a difference today. So not only has being a single Jewish mother made me view  tradition differently, it has also challenged me to struggle with the tradition on deeper levels. In this quest I still feel I have more questions than answers.

Lynn Feinberg was born and still lives in Oslo, Norway. She is a single mother and activist in the orthodox Jewish Community, in which her father previously also played an important part. Feinberg is deeply involved in Jewish issues as seen from a feminist perspective. Founder of two Rosh Chodesh groups, she is looking for new ways to experience religion and wants more spiritual "inclusiveness" . She studied the History of Religions - the subject of her thesis was the relation of gender to prayer and ritual purity.