New donation from Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah
New donation!
The Library recently received an incredible donation from Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah, one of the first lesbian Rabbis to be ordained in the world (see her website here). She gives some context for her donation, and pays tribute to feminist scholar Dale Spender below. These items won’t be on the shelves just yet, but if you would like to come in and see them, please get in touch with collections@feministlibrary.co.uk
My name is Elli Tikvah Sarah and I’ve been asked to write a few words about my recent donations to the Feminist Library, which are chiefly from the late 1970s early 1980s era of the Women’s Liberation Movement. They include Women’s Studies International Quarterly/Forum, some issues of various lesbian and feminist journals, an array of feminist pamphlets, an anthology I edited about the early feminist movement, which started out as a special issue of WSIF (Reassessments of ‘First Wave’ Feminism, Pergamon Press, 1982), two books I co-edited – one with Dale Spender (Learning to Lose. Sexism and Education, the Women’s Press,1980) and one with Scarlet Friedman (On The Problem of Men. Two Feminist Conferences, the Women’s Press, 1982) – and a 266-page report I wrote with Dale for the Equal Opportunities Commission on our EOC-funded research project (‘Investigation of the Implications of Courses on Sex Discrimination in Teacher Education’, EOC, 1981).
In addition to these items, I’ve also donated two of my more recent publications that are relevant: Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, 2012) and Women Rabbis in the Pulpit – co-edited with my rabbinic colleague, Barbara Borts (Kulmus Publications, 2015). A collection of the sermons of women rabbis, we created this book to mark the 40th anniversary of the first woman rabbi being ordained in Britain (Jackie Tabick), and the 80th anniversary of the ordination of the very first woman rabbi, Regina Jonas, who served the Berlin Jewish community before being deported to Terezin concentration camp in 1942 – and subsequently, to Auschwitz in 1944, where she was murdered.
I’m making these donations now because 32 years after I was ordained as a rabbi under the auspices of Leo Baeck College in London on 9 July 1989, I’ve recently retired. Of the five ordinands, two of us were lesbian feminists – Sheila Shulman and me. Sadly, Sheila died a few months after we celebrated the 25th anniversary of our ordinations in 2014. We were the first lesbians to be ordained as rabbis in the world.
So, my donations reflect my engagement in the Women’s Liberation Movement as a lesbian feminist in the 1970s and 80s – and then, my engagement in the Jewish community as a lesbian feminist determined to make Jewish life more egalitarian and inclusive. If you’re interested in knowing more about that obstacle-strewn journey, do read the prologue to Trouble-Making Judaism.
I’ve just spent the last 20 years of my rabbinate as rabbi of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, where, finally, I had the opportunity to work with a congregation to make inclusion, in particular LGBTQI + inclusion, a reality. But, as I mark my donation to the Feminist Library, I want to recall the days between 1979 and 1982, when my lesbian feminist engagement included spending a great deal of time at the Feminist Library – then the Fawcett library – researching the publications of the early feminist movement. I would also like to pay tribute to a remarkable woman, Dale Spender, who became a prolific feminist writer. Author of innumerable books, including the landmark publication, Man-Made Language (Routledge, 1980), having started out her working life as a teacher, Dale didn’t just spend long hours writing, she devoted her time to enabling women to write, including me. When I met Dale in September 1977 as a PGCE student at London University’s Institute of Education having graduated from LSE that summer, I thought I was on course to becoming an English teacher. Dale was a brilliant tutor, but I decided that secondary school teaching wasn’t for me.
When I made the decision to leave the programme, Dale invited me to join a feminist writing group, and then to work with her as assistant editor on the ground-breaking journal she founded and edited, Women’s Studies International Quarterly, which became Women’s Studies International Forum. At that time, I was married with the last name, Galloway. In 1979, I came out, and after my divorce in 1980 I chose to make my middle name – Sarah – my last name. I will always be eternally grateful to Dale for her generosity and support and for giving me the confidence to write. Dale’s generosity extended to providing me with a reference for my application to the rabbinic programme of the Leo Baeck College in 1983. When I started my rabbinic studies in the autumn of 1984, I embarked on a new path. Not long after, Dale returned to her native Australia. I hope that the donations I have made will remind us of a key period of recent feminist history and also highlight the extraordinary contribution made by Dale Spender.
Elli Tikvah Sarah, July 2021
