Aviva Cantor
Encyclopedia
Aviva Cantor is an American journalist, lecturer and author. An advocate of feminism
and the democratization of Jewish communal life, Cantor has been actively involved in promoting progressive Jewish causes for over 40 years. She was a co-founder in 1968 of the Jewish Liberation in New York, a Socialist Zionist organization, and served as founding editor of its Jewish Liberation Journal. JLP was among the first Jewish groups to advocate the two-state solution (1968).
by traditional but non-Orthodox parents who had immigrated to North America from Russia
after World War I. She attended Ramaz School
, an Orthodox Jewish day school, graduating from High School as Valedictorian in 1957. She spent two years studying history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
, and graduated from Barnard College
in 1961 and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
in 1963. In the late 1969's she was involved in advocating for the struggle of Biafra
for independence and served as vice president of the Committee for Biafran Artist and Writers.
In 1976, she initiated and co-founded Lilith
, the independent Jewish Feminist quarterly magazine, which she served as co-founding editor through 1987, and for which she wrote regularly. Her articles have appeared in many publicatins, including Ms., The Village Voice
, and Israel Horizons, and in a number of anthologies. Her reportage for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
(JTA) on the American Jewish community, Israel, her multi-part series on foreign Jewish communities -- including Cuba, Argentina, Austria, Central Europe and Kenya -- and her interviews with figures such as Gerhard Riegner, Carl Sagan
, David Wyman
, and Renee Epelbaum, were internationally syndicated.
ceremonies, the fourth of which she co-conducted in the Bedford Hills Women's Prison
. The fifth one, The Egalitarian Hagada, was self-published under the auspices of Beruriah Books. It is a gender- and generation-inclusive Haggadah in non-sexist English containing all the memorable traditional elements of the seder
plus poetry and prose about the Exodus, Israel, the Soviet Jewry movement, struggles for justice, the Holocaust and Resistance, and the American union movement.
After teaching the first Jewish feminist course in the Jewish Free High School in 1972, she compiled, edited and annotated several editions of The Jewish Woman,1900-1985: A Bibliography, the 4th of which was published by BiblioPress in 1986 and 1987. Her children's book manuscript, Tamar's Cat: A Story of the Exodus, won first prize in the Sydney Taylor Children's Book Manuscript Contest of the Association of Jewish Libraries in 1991. She is also the author of several plays, including Esther and the Three Fools: A Feminist Purimshpiel; Moses and Tziporah with the Pesky Ex-Slaves in the Desert; and Hamlet's Secrets, a comedy.
In 1995, HarperSan Francisco published her major 548-pp. work, Jewish Women/Jewish Men: the Legacy of Patriarchy in Jewish Life, a feminist exploration of Jewish history, culture and psychology (which has 100 pages of endnotes). The work puts traditional and modern Jewish life under a feminist microscope.
One of her central theses is that the needs for Jewish survival in the "national emergency" of 2,000 years of exile under oppressive and dangerous conditions necessitated the transformation of local communities into milieus informed by the feminist values of non-violence, cooperation, interdependence, compassion, and consensus. The ideal Jewish man changed "from macho to mentsch" through the outlawing of violence of all kinds and the redefinition of masculinity as learning and scholarship. At the same time, women were allowed a considerable amount of leeway in assertiveness, but only if it was in the interests of communal survival. She was trained to be an "altruistic-assertive enabler" (in the common, traditional meaning of the word "enabler" i.e., facilitator). Men, of course, never ceased to dominate the community, decide on its policy and laws, and choose its leadership (class played a role here).
Cantor believes that this successful transformation of roles and communal life proves that men's instinct for violence, even if it turns out to be genetic, can be overcome if men and women are sufficiently motivated and conscious of the justice of a peaceful, egalitarian world, in the spirit of the prophet Isaiah
's vision.
CHAI built a shelter in Tiberias, maintains a mobile spay-neuter program and a horse rehabilitation program. It and its Israeli sister organization, HAKOL CHAI, rescued countless dogs and cats hurt or abandoned in the attacks on Sderot
. The late Rep. Tom Lantos
, who served on CHAI's Advisory Board, was a warm supporter of its work, as was Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer
. Cantor wrote a 10-lesson Humane Education unit drawing entirely on Jewish sources, which forbade cruelty to animals (though Judaism permitted slaughtering for food, Jewish law required that the process was to be as close to painless as possible; (this situation does not largely obtain today, especially in South America).
In the 1980s she initiated an ultimately successful Women's Appeal for the release of Soviet Prisoner of Conscience Ida Nudel
.
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
and the democratization of Jewish communal life, Cantor has been actively involved in promoting progressive Jewish causes for over 40 years. She was a co-founder in 1968 of the Jewish Liberation in New York, a Socialist Zionist organization, and served as founding editor of its Jewish Liberation Journal. JLP was among the first Jewish groups to advocate the two-state solution (1968).
Biography
Aviva Cantor was born in 1940 and raised in the East BronxEast Bronx
The East Bronx is that part of the New York City borough of the Bronx which lies east of the Bronx River; this roughly corresponds to the eastern half of the borough...
by traditional but non-Orthodox parents who had immigrated to North America from Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
after World War I. She attended Ramaz School
Ramaz School
The Ramaz School is a coeducational, private Modern Orthodox Jewish prep school located on the Upper East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It consists of a lower school , a middle school , and an upper school .The Ramaz Upper School is a college preparatory school...
, an Orthodox Jewish day school, graduating from High School as Valedictorian in 1957. She spent two years studying history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
, and graduated from Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
in 1961 and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is one of Columbia's graduate and professional schools. It offers three degree programs: Master of Science in journalism , Master of Arts in journalism and a Ph.D. in communications...
in 1963. In the late 1969's she was involved in advocating for the struggle of Biafra
Biafra
Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a secessionist state in south-eastern Nigeria that existed from 30 May 1967 to 15 January 1970, taking its name from the Bight of Biafra . The inhabitants were mostly the Igbo people who led the secession due to economic, ethnic, cultural and religious...
for independence and served as vice president of the Committee for Biafran Artist and Writers.
In 1976, she initiated and co-founded Lilith
Lilith (magazine)
Lilith magazine is an independent, Jewish-American, feminist non-profit publication that has been issued quarterly since 1976. The magazine features award-winning investigative reports, first-person accounts both contemporary and historical, entertainment reviews, fiction and poetry, art and...
, the independent Jewish Feminist quarterly magazine, which she served as co-founding editor through 1987, and for which she wrote regularly. Her articles have appeared in many publicatins, including Ms., The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, and Israel Horizons, and in a number of anthologies. Her reportage for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is an international news agency serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world. The JTA was founded on February 6, 1917, by Jacob Landau as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau in The Hague with the mandate of collecting and disseminating news among and...
(JTA) on the American Jewish community, Israel, her multi-part series on foreign Jewish communities -- including Cuba, Argentina, Austria, Central Europe and Kenya -- and her interviews with figures such as Gerhard Riegner, Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
, David Wyman
David Wyman
David S. Wyman is the author of several books on the responses of the United States to Nazi Germany's persecution of and programs to exterminate Jews....
, and Renee Epelbaum, were internationally syndicated.
Writing
Cantor has written five alternative PassoverPassover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
ceremonies, the fourth of which she co-conducted in the Bedford Hills Women's Prison
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women is a prison for women in Bedford Hills in the Town of Bedford, Westchester County, New York, USA. Bedford Hills, the only New York State Department of Correctional Services women's maximum security prison, is the largest women's prison in New York State...
. The fifth one, The Egalitarian Hagada, was self-published under the auspices of Beruriah Books. It is a gender- and generation-inclusive Haggadah in non-sexist English containing all the memorable traditional elements of the seder
Passover Seder
The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted on the evenings of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, and on the 15th by traditionally observant Jews living outside Israel. This corresponds to late March or April in...
plus poetry and prose about the Exodus, Israel, the Soviet Jewry movement, struggles for justice, the Holocaust and Resistance, and the American union movement.
After teaching the first Jewish feminist course in the Jewish Free High School in 1972, she compiled, edited and annotated several editions of The Jewish Woman,1900-1985: A Bibliography, the 4th of which was published by BiblioPress in 1986 and 1987. Her children's book manuscript, Tamar's Cat: A Story of the Exodus, won first prize in the Sydney Taylor Children's Book Manuscript Contest of the Association of Jewish Libraries in 1991. She is also the author of several plays, including Esther and the Three Fools: A Feminist Purimshpiel; Moses and Tziporah with the Pesky Ex-Slaves in the Desert; and Hamlet's Secrets, a comedy.
In 1995, HarperSan Francisco published her major 548-pp. work, Jewish Women/Jewish Men: the Legacy of Patriarchy in Jewish Life, a feminist exploration of Jewish history, culture and psychology (which has 100 pages of endnotes). The work puts traditional and modern Jewish life under a feminist microscope.
One of her central theses is that the needs for Jewish survival in the "national emergency" of 2,000 years of exile under oppressive and dangerous conditions necessitated the transformation of local communities into milieus informed by the feminist values of non-violence, cooperation, interdependence, compassion, and consensus. The ideal Jewish man changed "from macho to mentsch" through the outlawing of violence of all kinds and the redefinition of masculinity as learning and scholarship. At the same time, women were allowed a considerable amount of leeway in assertiveness, but only if it was in the interests of communal survival. She was trained to be an "altruistic-assertive enabler" (in the common, traditional meaning of the word "enabler" i.e., facilitator). Men, of course, never ceased to dominate the community, decide on its policy and laws, and choose its leadership (class played a role here).
Cantor believes that this successful transformation of roles and communal life proves that men's instinct for violence, even if it turns out to be genetic, can be overcome if men and women are sufficiently motivated and conscious of the justice of a peaceful, egalitarian world, in the spirit of the prophet Isaiah
Isaiah
Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...
's vision.
Other activities
Cantor is also active in the animal protectionist movement and is Vice President of "CHAI:Concern for Helping Animals in Israel," founded by Nina Natelson in 1984 to assist the Israeli animal welfare community in improving conditions for domestic animals in a country with only a few SPCAs and many immigrant communities with no tradition of animal protection and an ongoing war situation. It drafted Israel's animal protection law; conducted several humane education programs (including one for Jewish and Arab children at the Tel Aviv SPCA), site of the IB. Singer Humane Education Center which it built; and held important conferences, including one for educators on the links between the abuse of animals, domestic violence, and the criminal behavior of adults who tortured animals as children, and another on alternatives to the use of animals in experimentation.CHAI built a shelter in Tiberias, maintains a mobile spay-neuter program and a horse rehabilitation program. It and its Israeli sister organization, HAKOL CHAI, rescued countless dogs and cats hurt or abandoned in the attacks on Sderot
Sderot
Sderot is a western Negev city in the Southern District of Israel. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , at the end of 2009 the city had a total population of 20,700. The city has been an ongoing target of Qassam rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip...
. The late Rep. Tom Lantos
Tom Lantos
Thomas Peter "Tom" Lantos was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 until his death, representing the northern two-thirds of San Mateo County and a portion of southwest San Francisco...
, who served on CHAI's Advisory Board, was a warm supporter of its work, as was Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer – July 24, 1991) was a Polish Jewish American author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978...
. Cantor wrote a 10-lesson Humane Education unit drawing entirely on Jewish sources, which forbade cruelty to animals (though Judaism permitted slaughtering for food, Jewish law required that the process was to be as close to painless as possible; (this situation does not largely obtain today, especially in South America).
In the 1980s she initiated an ultimately successful Women's Appeal for the release of Soviet Prisoner of Conscience Ida Nudel
Ida Nudel
Ida Nudel is a former refusenik and an Israeli activist. She was known as the "Guardian Angel" for her efforts to help the "Prisoners of Zion" in the Soviet Union.-Biography:...
.