Local Leaders Reflect on their Personal Heroes
Getting Inspired by the Jewish Women Who Inspire Me
By Sarah Rabin Spira, Manager, PJ Library
It’s Women’s History Month, and I wanted to celebrate those women who have influenced my Jewish life by asking them who has inspired theirs. By example, through their sermons or from their writing, I have looked to Anita Diamant, Rabbi Shira Stutman and Marion Usher for guidance through many stages of my life. This includes celebrating holidays, getting married, having and raising children, being part of the community, co-planning family programs and more. I would not be the woman, professional, mother or wife I am today without their inspiration.
I asked each one which Jewish women, current or historical, inspired them. Here are their answers:
Anita Diamant
Inspired by Aliza Kline and Carrie Bornstein
Young women leaders inspire me; two of my favorites are Aliza Kline and Carrie Bornstein, both of whom have served as Executive Director of Mayyim Hayyim.
Aliza moved to Boston in 2001 and really built our community mikveh and education from the ground up. A lot of people worked hard, but she was the engine and the engineer who made it possible to open within three years of her arrival. Aliza is a kind, creative, thoughtful leader, and she led us to live up to our principles, which included being a truly family-friendly employer. She was a mentor to a lot of interns who have gone on to leadership positions in other Jewish organizations—and secular—institutions. She pays it forward and demonstrates and models tremendous respect for volunteers.
Carrie had a tough act to follow, but she made the position her own leading Mayyim Hayyim from a start-up to a mature organization that now leads an international open-mikveh movement.
Being the ED of a non-profit is a stressful job. Both Carrie and Aliza handle their position with graciousness, intelligence, and passion ensuring that Mayyim Hayyim will always be welcoming the full diversity of the Jewish community.
I’ve learned a lot from both, and I am grateful for their friendship.
Anita Diamant is the bestselling author of the novels The Boston Girl, The Red Tent, Good Harbor, The Last Days of Dogtown, and Day After Night, and the collection of essays, Pitching My Tent. An award-winning journalist whose work appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine and Parenting, she is the author of six nonfiction guides to contemporary Jewish life, The Jewish Wedding Now and How to Raise a Jewish Child. She lives in Massachusetts.
Rabbi Shira Stutman
Inspired by Bella Abzug
Today, I’m thinking about The Honorable Bella Abzug, a 20th-century attorney, member of Congress, social activist and a leader of the Women’s Movement. She started speaking truth to power at the age of 13 when her father died, and she defied the rabbis who told her that she wasn’t allowed to say kaddish (the mourner’s prayer)–and did it all year anyway. Her fierceness propelled her through a full and influential life, as she worked incessantly to help bend the arc a little closer to justice.
As Sixth & I’s Senior Rabbi, Shira Stutman’s focus is to make Jewish meaning and build Jewish community for young professionals. She supports several boutique communities, including workshops for interfaith couples and those interested in joining the Jewish community. When not at Sixth & I, she serves as the scholar-in-residence for the National Women’s Philanthropy program at the Jewish Federations of North America. She is a member of the board of directors of Jews United for Justice and on the J Street rabbinic cabinet. Rabbi Shira graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2007, where she was a Wexner Graduate Fellow. She is an alumna of Columbia University and the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. She married someone whom she met while interning on Capitol Hill, they now have three kids. Her favorite T-shirt reads: “This is what a real rabbi looks like.”
Marion Usher
Inspired by Jean Caplan Lazar, Ruth Polacheck Usher and Margorie Schneller Lazar, and Hinda Ordower
I am grateful to so many Jewish women who have impacted my life and will divide my comments about them into the personal and professional parts of my life.
Starting with the personal, I look to my mother, Jean Caplan Lazar, who taught me what is important about being Jewish and being a Jewish woman. My mother felt very strongly that the religion in the home was the woman’s responsibility. In the traditional hierarchical arrangement, my father looked after us financially, and it was my mother’s responsibility to transmit Jewish values and beliefs. My mother was an excellent cook, and Friday night was a festive occasion with the table set with all its finery, silver kiddush cups, crystal glasses, and her “fancy” china. She handed down this tradition, which is how my children were raised and how they do Shabbat when they are not with us. She taught us Jewish values through doing, not talking. My sister and I accompanied her on visits to the “Old Peoples’ Home” where we gave all the residents fresh oranges. We learned about taking care of others through my parent’s generosity to local causes, Israel and their synagogue.
My mother-in-law, Ruth Polacheck Usher, affirmed my strong sense of personal agency, encouraging me to go to graduate school and have my own career. She herself had been a social worker, and after the birth of her two children, went on to create professionally oriented services for those in need. She had graduated from Smith College and was the first person of her generation that I knew intimately well who had not only gone to college but also had an advanced degree. She helped me shape how I thought and how I understood the world.
I can’t leave out the Jewish woman, Margorie Schneller Lazar, who married my uncle. She taught me how to drink martinis and have fun!
In my very first professional job as a social worker, I was lucky enough to be supervised by this dynamic Jewish woman, Hinda Ordower, who for me was the perfect role model. She was a practicing Jew, married, had children, loved art and nurtured me both personally and professionally. At every turn, she encouraged me to explore and take chances; two processes that I still rely on.
Yes, I adored Golda Meir and Emma Lazarus for what they stood for and their courage, but it is these intimate relationships with my relatives and friends that impacted me the most!
Marion Usher, Ph.D., has always been passionate about helping Jewish interfaith couples examine the role of love and religion in their relationships. Over two decades ago, she created “Love and Religion: An Interfaith Workshop for Jews and Their Partners” and has since worked with over 600 interfaith couples. In addition to conducting these workshops, s consult with larger organizations such as synagogues, community centers, and out-reach agencies to help them create new programs focusing on welcoming and incorporating interfaith couples and families into their institutions. Between the workshops, blog posts, consultations, and interfaith family programs, she has become a trusted resource for anyone touched by a Jewish interfaith relationship. Marion was a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the George Washington School of Medicine and Behavioral Sciences and worked with individuals and couples in clinical practice.