Karen Armstrong, author of "Twelve Steps To A Compassionate Life"
Gender and Judaism at the Western Wall
Begins at 22 min 30 sec
The Western Wall is the holiest site in Judaism, the spot where Jews have gone to pray and mourn for 2,000 years. It is segregated by gender, though not very equally. On the smaller, women’s side, worshippers cannot sing too loudly, read from the Torah or wear a prayer shawl. Rabbi Sue Morningstar tells us how she is trying to change long-held attitudes about gender at the Western Wall.
Pictured: The wall's Mechitza, or partition dividing men and women.
Rabbi Sue Morningstar, an international vice chair for Rabbis For Women of the Wall
Joy Ladin: The Other Side of The Wall
Begins at 40 min 30 sec
In 2002, Jay Ladin went to the men's side of the Western Wall to pray with his son. Six years later he returned — this time as his true self: a woman named Joy. This is Joy’s story: of faith and family, gender and space, of a journey from male to female. This reading is an excerpt from her memoir, "Who Will Be: A Woman in the Act of Becoming."
Joy Ladin, poet and a professor of English at Yeshiva University's Stern College for Women