“Biblical women” mantle

1991

COMMISSIONED BY THE SISTERHOOD OF TEMPLE SHAAREI BETH EL • OAKVILLE ONTARIO

In the film, Half the Kingdom, Rabbi Elyse Goldstein relates a contemporary midrash: if Judaism is like a tree, when the winds of feminist change blow on it, it will become uprooted and die. If, however, Judaism is like the reeds and grasses, it will be able to sway and adapt to the winds of feminism.

Lines of fine red ribbon running horizontally amid a few impressionistic grasses represent the winds of feminism. Into these are incorporated, in roughly chronological order, the names of 24 Biblical women, with Sarah (“the priestess”, according to Savinah Teubal’s book) at the centre front where the breastplate sits.