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Speaking for Ourselves: Short Stories by Jewish Lesbians
Book by Zahava, Irene
184 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1990
84 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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May 22, 2017Review maybe a bit later but mixed feelings.
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December 5, 2016Overall I'm glad I read this even if only about half of the stories were for me. Highlighting the ones I liked:
"My Jewish Face" by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, which is also apparently available in a more recent collection of just this author: My Jewish Face & Other Stories, the story of a group of young Jewish lesbian activists who go to a play that contains anti-semitic jokes in order to demonstrate against them and wind up being joined by one of the actresses when she, from within the play, speaks out against her own oppression.
"Right off the Bat" by Lesléa Newman, author of Heather Has Two Mommies, written from the point of view of a little girl with a partnered lesbian mom. She wants to explain her family to you so you'll know everything first and won't stop being her friend later when you find out. It's a window into not only the discrimination they've faced as a family but also into their super cute domestic world.
"Bubbe Meiseh" by Ellen Gruber Garvey centers on two Jewish girlfriends in NYC and is hard to explain without spoiling but it's about connecting with your roots when your roots are her roots are everybody's roots and honestly this one is super Jewish and about grandmas, just read it :P
"Letter from the Warsaw Ghetto" by Susan Ruth Goldberg is exactly what it sounds like it is. The writer has no idea if the recipient is alive and we the audience don't know if the writer will survive. But it's a determined sort of piece.
"The Trouble with Theaters" by Judy Freespirit, about a fat woman who can only go to the Jewish film festival if they'll assure her they'll be able to accommodate her chair but she can't seem to get a straight answer, is a brilliant little piece about how microaggressions and being othered grinds you down so that even things going well starts to feel like gaslighting. You know, that thing where when someone finally helps you they act like you were so irrational to imagine any other outcome? Despite facing piles of opposition in the past?
"My Grandmother's Plates" by Elana Dykewomon is another piece about finding our own individual connection with our thousands of years of tradition.
"A Tendency Toward Rebelliousness" by Merrill Mushroom finds our narrator visiting her elderly great-aunts and enjoying their stories about rebelling against the patriarchal side the Hassidic culture in which they grew up.
"The Woman who Lied" by Jano is adorably wtf. Two Jewish women are in bed when one, doing that thing I'm sure we've all done at some point, reacts positively to being touched in a way that actually just leaves her neutral, because she wants the other woman to feel good. Her lie causes her boobs to temporarily turn into bagels and challah because a dybbuk has a very strange sense of humor. Everything works out in the end so it's basically a happy little fable about being sexually honest. Um.
"Hot Chicken Wings" by Jyl Lynn Felman is about a woman on a painfully awkward family trip to Jamaica who skips out on her parents to hang out with a bisexual polyamorous Jamaican woman instead. She wants to try Jamaican food and her new friend, who seems to be raising her children with both a male and female partner, makes her chicken wings so good it gets her to stop feeling guilty about non-kosher eating in general and even cunnilingus (which she'd been feeling guilty about for cultural reasons that I feel like at least the Reform movement has definitely moved past.)
Notes: if you are bi you probably want to skip the story by Sue Katz, and "The Woman Who Lied" is probably not for you if you have issues with body horror. Somewhere in the book there was a g-slur and I can't remember if it was in one of the stories I recommended or not. There are also a couple of examples of anti-blackness that to the best of my memory were called out by other characters or the narrator. And many of the stories that didn't appeal to me had disapproving homophobic parents so my lack of enjoyment is just personal preference; I don't want to spend my free time with people like that. These are still important stories to tell even if they're for a reader other than me.
"My Jewish Face" by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, which is also apparently available in a more recent collection of just this author: My Jewish Face & Other Stories, the story of a group of young Jewish lesbian activists who go to a play that contains anti-semitic jokes in order to demonstrate against them and wind up being joined by one of the actresses when she, from within the play, speaks out against her own oppression.
"Right off the Bat" by Lesléa Newman, author of Heather Has Two Mommies, written from the point of view of a little girl with a partnered lesbian mom. She wants to explain her family to you so you'll know everything first and won't stop being her friend later when you find out. It's a window into not only the discrimination they've faced as a family but also into their super cute domestic world.
"Bubbe Meiseh" by Ellen Gruber Garvey centers on two Jewish girlfriends in NYC and is hard to explain without spoiling but it's about connecting with your roots when your roots are her roots are everybody's roots and honestly this one is super Jewish and about grandmas, just read it :P
"Letter from the Warsaw Ghetto" by Susan Ruth Goldberg is exactly what it sounds like it is. The writer has no idea if the recipient is alive and we the audience don't know if the writer will survive. But it's a determined sort of piece.
"The Trouble with Theaters" by Judy Freespirit, about a fat woman who can only go to the Jewish film festival if they'll assure her they'll be able to accommodate her chair but she can't seem to get a straight answer, is a brilliant little piece about how microaggressions and being othered grinds you down so that even things going well starts to feel like gaslighting. You know, that thing where when someone finally helps you they act like you were so irrational to imagine any other outcome? Despite facing piles of opposition in the past?
"My Grandmother's Plates" by Elana Dykewomon is another piece about finding our own individual connection with our thousands of years of tradition.
"A Tendency Toward Rebelliousness" by Merrill Mushroom finds our narrator visiting her elderly great-aunts and enjoying their stories about rebelling against the patriarchal side the Hassidic culture in which they grew up.
"The Woman who Lied" by Jano is adorably wtf. Two Jewish women are in bed when one, doing that thing I'm sure we've all done at some point, reacts positively to being touched in a way that actually just leaves her neutral, because she wants the other woman to feel good. Her lie causes her boobs to temporarily turn into bagels and challah because a dybbuk has a very strange sense of humor. Everything works out in the end so it's basically a happy little fable about being sexually honest. Um.
"Hot Chicken Wings" by Jyl Lynn Felman is about a woman on a painfully awkward family trip to Jamaica who skips out on her parents to hang out with a bisexual polyamorous Jamaican woman instead. She wants to try Jamaican food and her new friend, who seems to be raising her children with both a male and female partner, makes her chicken wings so good it gets her to stop feeling guilty about non-kosher eating in general and even cunnilingus (which she'd been feeling guilty about for cultural reasons that I feel like at least the Reform movement has definitely moved past.)
Notes: if you are bi you probably want to skip the story by Sue Katz, and "The Woman Who Lied" is probably not for you if you have issues with body horror. Somewhere in the book there was a g-slur and I can't remember if it was in one of the stories I recommended or not. There are also a couple of examples of anti-blackness that to the best of my memory were called out by other characters or the narrator. And many of the stories that didn't appeal to me had disapproving homophobic parents so my lack of enjoyment is just personal preference; I don't want to spend my free time with people like that. These are still important stories to tell even if they're for a reader other than me.
July 30, 2023
this book is absolutely beautiful, it’s amazing reading about jewish lesbians from years ago and comparing to my experiences now<3
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews