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 childrearing, 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 explores 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.

Michal Smart teaches widely on Jewish texts and philosophy, with a focus on Jewish women. A Fulbright scholar in Jewish Thought, she pioneered Jewish outdoor and environmental education in the United States. She is a founder of the TEVA Learning Center and the coauthor of Spirit in Nature: Teaching Judaism and Ecology on the Trail. Barbara Ashkenas has been professionally involved in the arts for more than 30 years. She conducts seminars for staff development on the integration of the arts into Jewish educational settings and has served as the educational outreach coordinator at the Stamford Center for the Arts and as an adjunct professor of art education at Housatonic Community College. Barbara is an active member of Congregation Agudath Sholom in Stamford, Connecticut, where she is a founding member of the Women’s Tefillah Group. They both live in Stamford, Connecticut.