Intl: Wonder Women tour
Jewish Female Leadership and Heritage
Target Audience: Bat Mitzvah Girls, Mothers and Daughters
Tour duration: 1 hour and a half
The Tour in a sentence: A Tour of Female Empowerment for Girls and Mothers through the Stories of Women Who Shaped and Influenced the Jewish People History and culture.
| Time | Activity |
| 5 minutes | Introduction |
| 30 minutes | 3rd floor |
| 40 minutes | 2nd floor |
| 15 minutes | 1st floor |
Tour layout
Introduction: The Bat Mitzvah is an event that symbolizes the girl's entry into adulthood and her newfound responsibility and partnership in the fate and future of the Jewish people.
The tour is intended to stimulate thought regarding the role and place of the woman in the Jewish story (current and past) and therefore there is a central emphasis on the sharing and sharing of the group's members (the relevant questions is highlighted in each focus point) .
3rd floor
Must see exhibits – in order to give the participants a fundamental and general framework of the women’s role in the Jewish people.
- Individuals + Families
Free the group for 2 minutes of viewing the screens and photos of Jewish women.
Raise the following questions:
Which of the women do you identify with? Who do you hope to resemble in the future? Who does it intrigue you to sit down with for a chat over coffee/hot chocolate?
- The Jewish communities
Maternal Torah: “Yeshiva bein le-vein” (in between)
What do you see here? (the female figure, pregnancy, corset, torah scroll, parochet, veil…)– The combination of Religious and female elements.
Jacqueline Nichols- Orthodox, graduate of “Midreshet Nishmat”. Art affected by text/scripture of a ancient Jewish legend:
The Talmudic Agada that inspired the work: it’s written in the Talmud that when the fetus in his mother's womb an angel teaches him the entire Torah. Nearing the end of the pregnancy the angel touches him under his nose and thus at birth the baby forgets everything he learned in the womb. Now the baby supposedly needs to regain the knowledge and learn the Torah during his life. Explain that the womb = Beit Midrash. The pregnancy reflects a transition between "sitting" in the womb and the "yeshiva" in which the knowledge must be regained –the person has a choice of what and how to learn (a connection to the Jewish movements focal point).
"Listen, my child, to your father's instruction, and do not forsake your mother's teaching." The female role in Judaism is "Built-in" as an educator.
The Torah is within the woman– and not only for her – but also for her children. According to Orthodox law, it is the woman who endows Judaism biologically. The Jewish mother as an educator, the "profession of motherhood", and in her role as a mother she serves as the passer of tradition.
Connect to the rest of the tour: We spoke of tradition, but we can also see that the Jewish woman also plays a significant role in shaping Jewish customs and values today.
- Folklore – candlesticks + Miriam’s cup (guide both / one of them according to the time limit and group)
This area shows Folk culture in the Jewish communities that has formed by society choices alongside to the values and tradition.
Candlesticks, a classic and traditional Judaica that are used in many Jewish houses for generations, especially to light Sabbath candles.
Miriam’s cup, modern custom that began in the Reform Community. Out of a desire to perpetuate the female heritage. This custom developed from the idea that alongside the glass of Elijah the prophet on the night of the Seder, there is also a bowl/cup in memory of the well of Miriam the Prophet who traditionally accompanied the Israelites on desert journeys. Miriam is also considered one of the leaders of the people and the one who saved Moshe in the Nile – which eventually led to the exodus from Egypt.
It seems that women in the Jewish people also play a role in shaping the presents culture. This is where you send the group on a mission.
- Task – independent time for the group to explore
Take 7 minutes– for a tour of the various locations (theater, dance, music, cinema) and Try to identify the women among the exhibits. choose one female character you have already known and one female character that are new for you.
Tell the group: We'll meet in seven minutes at the glass cube.
- The "Wonder Women" focal point
What women did you meet? Who surprised you? Who impressed you? (Option for a round of answers or the popcorn method –anyone who wishes to share adds/connects to the one she spoke to)
The appeal and explanation of the focal point – it compensates for the male-dominated history. There is no glass ceiling (!) for safety reasons. Originally they wanted us to feel closed up. There is no search option, it’s so we can discover new characters – a total of 150 women from the fields of education, career and politics. We will ask to be introduced to someone we did not know.
A small tour on a female character from one of the walls – your choice and preference! (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ada Yonat, Golda Meir, Henrietta Szold, etc.)
As you can see, nowadays it is acceptable and we even made an effort to see and present women as much as possible, but now we will continue to the historic floor and meet impactful Jewish women.
2nd floor
On the 2nd floor, examples of specific women or feminine phenomena in Jewish history are presented that have had an impact on the people.
Queen Yehudit, Ethiopia (Wall of Communities)
- Opening: Take 2 minutes to see how many women you find on the wall? (14) What periods are they associated to? (Modern) to what areas? (culture, governance)
Lena Revenko, 52 characters from different communities, interactively you can find the story of 250 communities.
A Queen from Ethiopian history. Best known for destroying the Kingdom of Exum and governed the Jewish rule there for 90 years. According to tradition, the reason for the outbreak of the war is that there was an attempt to force the Jews to convert to Christianity. After her father, King Gideon, was killed in the war, she took command and formed alliances with other non-Christian peoples in the region. In this way she managed to kill the king of Exum and win the war. After the war, Judith strengthened her rule and established foreign relations and trade with neighboring countries.
(If the focal point is occupied, it is also possible to guide about: Shlomzion the Queen, Osnat Barzani, Judith Folger, Helen Suzman)
It was an example of one woman who influenced her local community. But what could be the effect of a broad female trend in the Jewish people?
The Shabbat Menorah from Belamonte (Sepharad and Ashkenaz)
In the Middle Ages, Christianity gained strength and spread throughout Europe. Under Christian rule, Jews live under humiliation and persecution – religious polemics, the burning of the Talmud, and violence. The culmination of Christian alienation comes in the 15th century, when in 1492 the Catholic kings of Spain (Isabel and Fernando) decided to compel the Jews to convert to Christianity. Those who refused to convert were deported from Spain and many of the Jews chose to live as marranos – Christians seemingly but Jews at home.
- Photo: Lighting candles in a closet, Belmonte in 1989. What are we seeing here? (A woman lights candles in a closet). Emphasize that the picture was taken in the 20th century, why does this woman need to light candles in a closet in the late 1980s?
In 1496, the anti-Jewish edict also arrived in Portugal. There, it was no longer possible to leave the country and many Jews were forced to live as Marranos. They move to isolated communities like the one in the picture, in a remote village in northern Portugal.
Showing the Marranos video
We mentioned in the focal point of the Jewish movements that according to Talmudic tradition the woman, by virtue of being pregnant, serves as the passer of tradition. In the life of the Marranos, this role intensifies and women become educators. After the expulsion of Spain, there is no public Jewish life, there is no Jewish school, there is no synagogue – the education of the children, the next generation – is carried out at home and the mother is the one who instills Jewish traditions and customs unto her children.
From the Shtetl to the Big City : Modern Times
An opening to the focal point of modern times: We are now entering a very different period. Starting in the 18th century, the trend towards Jews has changed, and for the first time instead of being persecuted and humiliated, they receive an invitation from their surroundings to be part of the general social story. The 19th century is already full of enormous revolutions: the Enlightenment Revolution, industrial revolution, colonialism, immigration. The Jews are a small part of the story and we see different reactions to these processes that affect us to this day.
- Who wants to share what she's doing / what she wants to do when she grows up?
- Family photo – Look at the older woman and the woman above her. Where do they live? What do you think each of them does on a daily basis? what do you think is the generational gap between the two women?
Europe is experiencing an educational revolution alongside the Industrial Revolution. This combination also affects the lives of Jewish women as part of the development of the bourgeois and educated class.
- Writer's video : We meet a woman here, Jewish and educated, a complex combination in the 19th century. What did she have to give up, what did she fight against, and how much did her personal identity contribute/hurt her?
In the 19th century, we meet women who fought for recognition and their place in the world; Jewish women were part of a feminist wave that to this day affects the liberal denominations of Judaism, and it was also expressed here in Israel with the induction of women as pioneers.
(Other examples that convey the spirit of this period in time/the female spirit in other rooms: Solika the Righteous, Stella Corcos, Clara Leimlich)
1st floor
The 1st floor is intended for summary and "lowering" female leadership and empowerment into practice.
Jewish Calendar
The Jewish calendar is rich (to the point of busy) with events: holidays and special days.
- What holiday in our calendar is dedicated to women? (Pesach-Cleanliness, Home, Shavuot, Woman's Day – although not necessarily Jewish…)
- If you could declare a holiday like this, how would you celebrate it? How is that a part of our lives today?
You can give as an example the girls' holiday "Eid Al-Banat"
Rosh Hashanah Tevet (1: Tevet), is commemorated during Hanukkah. The holiday brings to mind the feminine power: the heroism, wisdom and unity of women throughout the ages. The origin of the holiday is in the book of Ezra, the day when men returned to marry the women of Israel, and in the Scroll of Esther, the day that Esther was brought before King Ahasuerus and was crowned Queen under Vashti. This day marks the bravery and wisdom of two other heroines: Judith by the help of her beauty, conquered Holofernes, the minister of the army, beheaded him and saved the people of Judah by virtue of her actions, and Hannah bat Matityahu, who provoked her Hasmonean brothers to start the uprising against the Greeks.
The holiday was preserved among The Communities of Israel in North Africa and the Balkans. Women, girls and elderly women gather for a celebration in which they study, dance, sing and send each other dishes; some used to ask forgiveness from one another, as on Yom Kippur; some used to hold a celebration on this day for all the Bnot Mitzvah, after which the women came over to kiss the Torah scroll.
Ceremonies of Life – Bar / Bat Mitzvah
"Bind them for a sign upon your hands", a verse linked to the commandment of laying tefillin, but in the case of this work, is dedicated precisely to the adolescent girl. Shaday's S, when the brass section replaces the parchment (Klaf) with a verse.
The artist took a male motif (Tallit, Tefillin) and gave it a feminine dimension – jewelry, arm bracelet.
summary
How and where did we see the place of women in the Jewish world?
We started the tour on the third floor. We have seen how on the one hand the female role in the Jewish world is fundamental – by virtue of being the mother, the woman is an educator and someone who actually continues the Jewish identity and tradition. On the other hand, we met modern women who express Jewish history and culture in many other ways.
We continued to the second floor and examined how women influenced and shaped the Jewish world during the different periods in diaspora.
And we summarize precisely here, on the “basics” floor, next to the exhibit that refers to the Ceremony of the Bat Mitzvah – one of the most fundamental rituals of life in Judaism in which the youth join the adult Jewish experience that shapes their private world and to a considerable extent the continuity of the entire Jewish people.
You are more than invited to continue walking around the museum, and to think about what other ways women shape the Jewish people.
Accessory Page
Scroll of Origin + Tasks:
Individuals: Image of mother and daughter
Maternal Torah: The Talmud says that when the fetus in his mother's womb there is an angel who teaches him the whole line. Nearing the end of the pregnancy the angel touches him under his nose and thus at birth the baby forgets everything he learned in the womb and supposedly needs to regain the knowledge and learn the Torah during his life.
Folklore: What female tradition do you have in your family?
Groundbreaking women: Who's your heroine?
Modern times: What would your family photo look like in the 19th century?
Your Jewish “Women's Day” – what would it look like?
Stickers with quotes from influential Jewish women (Ruth Bader Ginsburg – "Justice, justice shall you pursue"…)
רות – צדק צדק תרדוף / Be a lady but independent
פמוטים – נידלקתי
שלומציון – את מלכה! / ה-מלכה
דונה גרציה – תודה, merci, gracia
אמה לזרוס – (ציטוט שיר פסל החירות?)
יהודית פולגר – סוס מנצח (שחמט)
תליון פטמה ממשהד – חמסה עלייך