What do you think?
Rate this book
Kaddish: Women's Voices
For centuries, Jews have turned to the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer upon experiencing a loss. This groundbreaking book explores what the recitation of Kaddish has meant specifically to women. Did they find the consolation, closure, and community they were seeking? How did saying Kaddish affect their relationships with God, with prayer, with the deceased, and with the living? With courage and generosity, 52 authors from around the world reflect upon their experiences of mourning. They share their relationships with the family members they lost and what it meant to move on; how they struggled to balance the competing demands of child rearing, work, and grief; what they learned about tradition and themselves; and the disappointments and particular challenges they confronted as women. The collection shares viewpoints from diverse perspectives and backgrounds and examines what it means to heal from loss and to honor memory in family relationships, both loving and fraught with pain. It is a precious record of women searching for their place within Jewish tradition and exploring the connections that make human life worthwhile.
273 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
7 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 15, 2020
The book is comprised of 52 "honest and personal essays" (16) followed by a section by experts - rabbis and therapists - and a discussion of the meaning of the prayer. Although the personal narratives on Kaddish are by diverse women, most are told in relation to the structures and strictures of halacha; most described how interpretations of Jewish law impacted them due to their gender. Some accounts explained that while it is not customary for women in many Orthodox communities to say Kaddish for their immediate relations upon their deaths, halacha permits it. Others described increasing numbers of women saying Kaddish in Orthodox communities. The women described rabbis, family and community members who supported them in reciting Kaddish regularly and those who dissuaded them and made the practice more difficult. Some described the practice of paying someone to say Kaddish, especially when a male relation was not able to do so.
Still, most accounts in the book depicted women saying Kaddish alone and seemingly against the grain. Moving, and at times heart-rending narratives tell of the discipline and sacrifice of time, family, and work required to be at prayer services 3 times a day for 11 months, and the journey of understanding, connection, and grieving bought with 11 months devoted to prayer: "Through holy days and fasting days, through festive days and grieving days, and through many ordinary days, none of which has felt ordinary during this mourning year, I have walked – more often run – to shul. Through seasons of dazzling light or brutal cold, through the darkening days and the lengthening ones, I have sat and stood and recited, almost never alone in the women’s section and occasionally, refreshingly, in a mixed minyan. I have said Kaddish in New York, Vermont, Atlanta, Toronto and Israel. I have been in shul for the early minyan on sunday mornings and for the latest Maariv of spring evenings" (120).
Women spoke of the practical challenges of joining prayer services daily, three times a day - or even once a day - to say Kaddish, while attempting to meet their work and family obligations. Some described having to search in advance for prayer services located outside of their home congregation - when traveling or working. These difficulties made women appreciate the "brilliance of Halacha" (58) both in providing a regular space to connect to community and God while grieving, and in releasing women from the obligations to engage in the practice: "I found the idea of preset, daily times to think about my father – and something concrete to do for him – very appealing. It seemed like somewhere firm to walk in a world where very many things had become uncertain, out of balance. But life with four children of varied ages has long since convinced me of the wisdom of exempting mothers from time-bound mitzvot. It’s complicated; I spend every weekday Shacharit, Mincha, and Maariv driving my children to and from their yeshiva, an hour round-trip. How, then, could i be in shul at the same time?" (110).
Many women - not supposed to be heard or seen in Orthodox houses of prayer - shared feelings of invisibility and frustration, and both the comfort and oppression of the mechitzah. Orthodox women described elation and anxiety when their words were acknowledged in the male preserve of the synagogue, and their dismay, embarassment, and anger when all-male minyanim ignored their presence or refused to say "amen" to their recitations of the mourner's kaddish. One Orthodox woman questions why women are not permitted in her community to say kaddish alone: "I feel silenced, invisible, as if there is something wrong with my Kaddish that it has to be said with the chazzan. I don’t really understand what is wrong with women saying Kaddish alone. After all, I am safely behind a mechitza and I am not singing. Male guests respond to my zimmun (invitation to pray) when eating in my home and eat challah after I say Hamotzi. They have come to hear me teach Torah on shavuot night from the bima (podium), so why is Kaddish still taboo?" (125). Another attempted to not take offense to her being dismissed: "There were times when it was lonely on my side of the mechitza, times when I was keenly aware that we were waiting for a minyan and I was the tenth person in the room. I struggled to make sense of my place in the minyan, where I was praying as part of the group, yet extraneous to its functioning" (134). Non-Orthodox women who had to attend Orthodox services to recite Kaddish expressed indignation at not being counted in minyanim. Many women described obstacles to their access to male minyanim in which they were not expected or obligated to attend. They described being treated rudely by men who viewed them as trespassing male preserves. In "A Sacrifice of Time," Belda Kaufman Linderbaum describes second class status as a lone women saying kaddish among the men in Orthodox synagogues, where women are thought of as "guests," and where the prayers written by men refer to God in masculine ways. Jennie Rosenfeld in "Into the Void" writes about the frustrating consequences of such invisibility -- incidents during her year of mourning when she would attend a prayer minyan only to discover at the end that there would be no kaddish said because no man needed to say it, and others when the men refused to say "amen" in response to her prayer.
Accounts from non-Orthodox women almost always told of their interactions with Orthodoxy via Kaddish. Some told of becoming more observant, beginning with weekly recitations of Kaddish in Orthodox environs. In "The Prayers of Other Hearts," Laura Sheinkopt, a Reform rabbi, tells of when, while serving as a chaplain, an Orthodox woman asked her to say kaddish over her father, as it was something she did not feel able to do herself. Non-Orthodox women committed to the practice of saying kaddish daily, described having to join non-egalitarian services in order to do so.
The women wrote about the many reasons they engaged in saying the kaddish on a regular basis for their loved ones, and the many consequences that this practice bought them. Marlyn Bloch Jaffe summed these reasons: "At its basic level, the act of saying Kaddish is to acknowledge . . . the loved one who has died, one’s own role as a mourner, and ultimately, God" (73). Most common was the desire to lift the spirit (neshama) of the beloved dead. ("I understood the prayer to be a vehicle for exalting God on behalf of my father, its purpose to facilitate the journey of his soul to eternal rest" [26]). Saying Kaddish in minyanim was described as a final gift, as a duty, and as a sacrifice for the loved one who had passed.
Women also wrote about how saying Kaddish enabled their healing and growth. This occurred in part because the necessity of attending regular prayer services drew them as mourners into community: "By the time I uttered my last Kaddish, I understood the brilliance behind this prayer that compelled me to be a part of, and not apart from, a social group. It provided me with a tool to engage others to help me heal, and facilitated for me the creation of new and lasting bonds of friendship in my community" (27). A woman who had been estranged from her father wrote that "Kaddish brought a healing to my relationship with my father" (163). Women used Kaddish as a means to connect with those who had passed: "I wanted desperately to be able to connect to him. Kaddish was a means for me to continue doing for Nathaniel" (30). Others spoke of reciting Kaddish as a rite of passage, marking their adulthood. One woman wrote that "the Kaddish means to me that the survivor publicly and markedly manifests his wish and intention to assume the relation to the Jewish community which his parent had, and that so the chain of tradition remains unbroken from generation to generation each adding its own link" (72). Rachel Mesch wrote that "davening for me suddenly meant speaking my mother’s language, and inhabiting a space I had never quite adopted as my own" (35). She also wrote of her appreciation for he public space that was carved out for me as a mourner in shul, a space in which to recognize my loss" (36). Fiona Hallegua wrote that kaddish eased her "pain by sharing the prayers with other mourners and realizing that my prayers would actually help my departed father" (41). Saying Kaddish, "the mourner is herself acknowledged by the congregation. Acknowledgment of this kind composes part of our humanity; we can recognize others, and their reciprocal recognition helps us to define ourselves. Martin Buber referred to it as an “I-Thou” relationship. I-Thou, between man and fellow man; I-Thou, ultimately between man and God" (73). Another woman made similar connections: "For me, Kaddish was a way to continue the conversation – with my father and with God." (135). Several women told stories of deepening their connection to or commitment to Judaism via the practice of Kaddish: "saying Kaddish changed who I was and, perhaps more importantly, who I wanted to be. It made me realize how important Judaism was in my life and rekindled my love for Torah. My father’s death showed me how much I had lost. saying Kaddish made me realize how much there still was to gain" (163).
Some women spoke of the 11 months of prayer as enhancing their relationship with God: "during the eleven months of Kaddish, I grew to think of Hashem as a truly close personal friend. He invited me three times a day to have a talk." (71). The need for acknowledgement in grief, described above, may have exacerbated women's feelings of rejection when Orthodox men dismissed their attempts to engage in the practice of Kaddish. But many women spoke of making connections - inside themselves, to others in their communities, and to God, despite the obstacles. As one woman explained: "It never occurred to me that God would not acknowledge my Kaddish, even if some mortal men did not. The God I believe in hears without prejudice the prayers of males and females, regardless of obligation." (26)
One woman explained why she chose not to say kaddish, due to her understanding of women's roles in maintaining intimate/personal rather than the work of creating public holiness: "My not saying Kaddish is a reminder to me, and I hope to others, to actualize the words of Kaddish themselves, to draw the focus higher, to seek inward, to highlight the centrality of personal kedushah. As a Jewish woman, I have been entrusted to safeguard personal kedushah not only for myself, but also for my community, my world" (192).
Beautiful, moving stories. I only wish the "liberal" Jewish perspective - Reform, Humanist, and Reconstructionist - was more visible in this book.
Still, most accounts in the book depicted women saying Kaddish alone and seemingly against the grain. Moving, and at times heart-rending narratives tell of the discipline and sacrifice of time, family, and work required to be at prayer services 3 times a day for 11 months, and the journey of understanding, connection, and grieving bought with 11 months devoted to prayer: "Through holy days and fasting days, through festive days and grieving days, and through many ordinary days, none of which has felt ordinary during this mourning year, I have walked – more often run – to shul. Through seasons of dazzling light or brutal cold, through the darkening days and the lengthening ones, I have sat and stood and recited, almost never alone in the women’s section and occasionally, refreshingly, in a mixed minyan. I have said Kaddish in New York, Vermont, Atlanta, Toronto and Israel. I have been in shul for the early minyan on sunday mornings and for the latest Maariv of spring evenings" (120).
Women spoke of the practical challenges of joining prayer services daily, three times a day - or even once a day - to say Kaddish, while attempting to meet their work and family obligations. Some described having to search in advance for prayer services located outside of their home congregation - when traveling or working. These difficulties made women appreciate the "brilliance of Halacha" (58) both in providing a regular space to connect to community and God while grieving, and in releasing women from the obligations to engage in the practice: "I found the idea of preset, daily times to think about my father – and something concrete to do for him – very appealing. It seemed like somewhere firm to walk in a world where very many things had become uncertain, out of balance. But life with four children of varied ages has long since convinced me of the wisdom of exempting mothers from time-bound mitzvot. It’s complicated; I spend every weekday Shacharit, Mincha, and Maariv driving my children to and from their yeshiva, an hour round-trip. How, then, could i be in shul at the same time?" (110).
Many women - not supposed to be heard or seen in Orthodox houses of prayer - shared feelings of invisibility and frustration, and both the comfort and oppression of the mechitzah. Orthodox women described elation and anxiety when their words were acknowledged in the male preserve of the synagogue, and their dismay, embarassment, and anger when all-male minyanim ignored their presence or refused to say "amen" to their recitations of the mourner's kaddish. One Orthodox woman questions why women are not permitted in her community to say kaddish alone: "I feel silenced, invisible, as if there is something wrong with my Kaddish that it has to be said with the chazzan. I don’t really understand what is wrong with women saying Kaddish alone. After all, I am safely behind a mechitza and I am not singing. Male guests respond to my zimmun (invitation to pray) when eating in my home and eat challah after I say Hamotzi. They have come to hear me teach Torah on shavuot night from the bima (podium), so why is Kaddish still taboo?" (125). Another attempted to not take offense to her being dismissed: "There were times when it was lonely on my side of the mechitza, times when I was keenly aware that we were waiting for a minyan and I was the tenth person in the room. I struggled to make sense of my place in the minyan, where I was praying as part of the group, yet extraneous to its functioning" (134). Non-Orthodox women who had to attend Orthodox services to recite Kaddish expressed indignation at not being counted in minyanim. Many women described obstacles to their access to male minyanim in which they were not expected or obligated to attend. They described being treated rudely by men who viewed them as trespassing male preserves. In "A Sacrifice of Time," Belda Kaufman Linderbaum describes second class status as a lone women saying kaddish among the men in Orthodox synagogues, where women are thought of as "guests," and where the prayers written by men refer to God in masculine ways. Jennie Rosenfeld in "Into the Void" writes about the frustrating consequences of such invisibility -- incidents during her year of mourning when she would attend a prayer minyan only to discover at the end that there would be no kaddish said because no man needed to say it, and others when the men refused to say "amen" in response to her prayer.
Accounts from non-Orthodox women almost always told of their interactions with Orthodoxy via Kaddish. Some told of becoming more observant, beginning with weekly recitations of Kaddish in Orthodox environs. In "The Prayers of Other Hearts," Laura Sheinkopt, a Reform rabbi, tells of when, while serving as a chaplain, an Orthodox woman asked her to say kaddish over her father, as it was something she did not feel able to do herself. Non-Orthodox women committed to the practice of saying kaddish daily, described having to join non-egalitarian services in order to do so.
The women wrote about the many reasons they engaged in saying the kaddish on a regular basis for their loved ones, and the many consequences that this practice bought them. Marlyn Bloch Jaffe summed these reasons: "At its basic level, the act of saying Kaddish is to acknowledge . . . the loved one who has died, one’s own role as a mourner, and ultimately, God" (73). Most common was the desire to lift the spirit (neshama) of the beloved dead. ("I understood the prayer to be a vehicle for exalting God on behalf of my father, its purpose to facilitate the journey of his soul to eternal rest" [26]). Saying Kaddish in minyanim was described as a final gift, as a duty, and as a sacrifice for the loved one who had passed.
Women also wrote about how saying Kaddish enabled their healing and growth. This occurred in part because the necessity of attending regular prayer services drew them as mourners into community: "By the time I uttered my last Kaddish, I understood the brilliance behind this prayer that compelled me to be a part of, and not apart from, a social group. It provided me with a tool to engage others to help me heal, and facilitated for me the creation of new and lasting bonds of friendship in my community" (27). A woman who had been estranged from her father wrote that "Kaddish brought a healing to my relationship with my father" (163). Women used Kaddish as a means to connect with those who had passed: "I wanted desperately to be able to connect to him. Kaddish was a means for me to continue doing for Nathaniel" (30). Others spoke of reciting Kaddish as a rite of passage, marking their adulthood. One woman wrote that "the Kaddish means to me that the survivor publicly and markedly manifests his wish and intention to assume the relation to the Jewish community which his parent had, and that so the chain of tradition remains unbroken from generation to generation each adding its own link" (72). Rachel Mesch wrote that "davening for me suddenly meant speaking my mother’s language, and inhabiting a space I had never quite adopted as my own" (35). She also wrote of her appreciation for he public space that was carved out for me as a mourner in shul, a space in which to recognize my loss" (36). Fiona Hallegua wrote that kaddish eased her "pain by sharing the prayers with other mourners and realizing that my prayers would actually help my departed father" (41). Saying Kaddish, "the mourner is herself acknowledged by the congregation. Acknowledgment of this kind composes part of our humanity; we can recognize others, and their reciprocal recognition helps us to define ourselves. Martin Buber referred to it as an “I-Thou” relationship. I-Thou, between man and fellow man; I-Thou, ultimately between man and God" (73). Another woman made similar connections: "For me, Kaddish was a way to continue the conversation – with my father and with God." (135). Several women told stories of deepening their connection to or commitment to Judaism via the practice of Kaddish: "saying Kaddish changed who I was and, perhaps more importantly, who I wanted to be. It made me realize how important Judaism was in my life and rekindled my love for Torah. My father’s death showed me how much I had lost. saying Kaddish made me realize how much there still was to gain" (163).
Some women spoke of the 11 months of prayer as enhancing their relationship with God: "during the eleven months of Kaddish, I grew to think of Hashem as a truly close personal friend. He invited me three times a day to have a talk." (71). The need for acknowledgement in grief, described above, may have exacerbated women's feelings of rejection when Orthodox men dismissed their attempts to engage in the practice of Kaddish. But many women spoke of making connections - inside themselves, to others in their communities, and to God, despite the obstacles. As one woman explained: "It never occurred to me that God would not acknowledge my Kaddish, even if some mortal men did not. The God I believe in hears without prejudice the prayers of males and females, regardless of obligation." (26)
One woman explained why she chose not to say kaddish, due to her understanding of women's roles in maintaining intimate/personal rather than the work of creating public holiness: "My not saying Kaddish is a reminder to me, and I hope to others, to actualize the words of Kaddish themselves, to draw the focus higher, to seek inward, to highlight the centrality of personal kedushah. As a Jewish woman, I have been entrusted to safeguard personal kedushah not only for myself, but also for my community, my world" (192).
Beautiful, moving stories. I only wish the "liberal" Jewish perspective - Reform, Humanist, and Reconstructionist - was more visible in this book.
November 28, 2016
this is my favorite kind of womens' theology: some scholastic perspectives, but mostly personal testimony from thoughtful, respectful, diverse voices working through their tradition and their place in it
October 29, 2018
I expected something really different than what I got. The book flap claimed that it was writings from women from all different backgrounds. It was overwhelmingly Orthodox women's writings, and I got why, but that's not 'all different backgrounds.' These women were also overwhelmingly straight, married, and had two or more children. Again, I get why, but again, that is certainly not 'all different backgrounds.' Somehow I thought women would talk about grief in a way that would help me with my own, whereas it focused on immediate grief. That was a me thing, not the book flap at all. However, the writing about actual Kaddish and being a woman reciting it--that was exactly what this was. My congregation, a Sephardic-influenced one with people from Orthodox Ashkenaz backgrounds who wanted something different, recites Kaddish frequently. I noticed right away that women here--they -can,- but they don't really, or they are so quiet. This book helped me understand that in a different way. I've always been allowed to say Kaddish, but I'm from a Sephardic-Conservative background and male. I'm really glad I read this book.
March 29, 2025
As I approach shaloshim I found it meaningful to read why different women choose to say Kaddish and how they experienced it. I would love for the authors to create a second addition with new essays. I’m sure some woman will still face negativity around their saying Kaddish but I believe for many that has changed and therefore more of the essays could focus on the act of saying Kaddish rather than the obstacles they faced.
December 26, 2017
Super meaningful. A must read for any woman who has lost a loved one and is considering saying Kaddish.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews