Personal Narrative: Sisterhood Of Schomre Israel

I will be continuing my Jewish life over the summer as I will be working at Tel Yehudah, the Teen leadership camp of Young Judaea, and after that I will be traveling to Israel to spend 9 months on a Gap Year Program, taking college classes, volunteering and most importantly living how Israelis live.

Mogahed is an Egyptian-American that started her career as an engineer. She’s a Muslim that decided to wear her head covering by the age of seventeen. In the Ted Talk “What Do You Think When You Look At Me?”, Dalia Mogahed discusses the predicaments and accusations Muslims have encountered, including her personal experiences. Through the use of all three rhetorical appeals, pathos being the dominant appeal, Mogahed skillfully conveys her message to the audience that 1.6 billion Muslims shouldn’t be shunned because of the actions of a minority.

Though the veil forms an inconvenience in the lives of all Iranian women, it serves as a form of protection in their lives against the dangerous religious extremists fighting for the revolution. Marjane and her mother did not believe in the religious importance of wearing the veil but knew they had to wear them for their own protection against radical religious men that could try to take advantage of them. The president claimed that “women’s hair emanates rays that excite men” (74). Supported by this proposition, men could claim that a woman without a head scarf excited him and he would rape her because that is what she deserved for being a “little

With the recent interest of the media on the topic of hijab and the oppressive symbol that it is portrayed to be, I have decided to write my paper on the hijab and what it means to various Muslim women. This topic is important and worth studying because most of the information that is relayed about the hijab by the media is not based on the opinion of Muslim women who actually wear the hijab in North America. Currently, feminists around the world have started a campaign for a “#nohijabday.” Although this movement initially began in order to speak out against the Iranian government for forcing Iranian women to don the hijab, it quickly spiraled out of control on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. This event has led to an influx

Abayas, shailas, burkas, and chadors: all are forms of veiling in the Middle East, and all are perceived as symbols of oppression and patriarchy by the West. The veil worn by a Middle Eastern woman is striking and beautiful in its simplicity and elegance. The hijab, the most common form of veiling, leaves only the face visible with the neck and hair completely covered. Onlookers are in awe at the mystery and symbolism associated with the many veils created out of fine, exotic silk. But such notions of oppression and patriarchy often associated with veiling are not only inherently biased and ironic – it would be interesting to explore the symbolism behind a mini-skirt or a pair of five-inch heels, no? – but they are also inaccurate. Although veiling has most definitely been used in the Middle East as a “mechanism in the service of patriarchy, a means of regulating and controlling women’s lives” (Hoodfar, 5), it has also been used as a mode for rebellion and self-expression. Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian woman who grew up during the Islamic revolution, resisted the regime and the universalizing nature of the veil in the hope that she could maintain her individual identity whilst communicating her political ideologies. By examining the way in which the veil is represented in Satrapi’s graphic memoir, Persepolis, while also considering the history of veiling in Iran, it will become evident that the veil is not just a political tool used by male chauvinists; it also presents an

Today, I went on a guided tour of the Lloyd Street Synagogue. This synagogue was the first synagogue built in Maryland by the Hebrews in 1845. It is also, the third-oldest synagogue remaining in the country. The Greek Revival style building was designed by architect Robert Cray Long, Jr. In 1861, due the Synagogue had to be expanded by architect William H. Resin due to the growing number of members needing additional space. The original interior and exterior décor was not affected. The building is pink in color. The outside did not have any visible Jewish symbols so the building did not appear as a Jewish structure and was less distinctive. The star of David, the ten commandments, nor Hebrew saying adorned the exterior of the building as it does today.

Based on the way Yasmeen dresses, in traditional, Muslim hijab and black, Islamic dress, the knowledge she is different than the dominant, American cultural and religious norms follows her everywhere (p. 76). In middle school, her fellow students called her “Terrorist” and

Abu Lugod argued that in order to move past this separation, we must: “First, we need to work against the reductive interpretation of veiling as the quintessential sign of women's unfreedom. Second, we must take care not to reduce the diverse situations and attitudes of millions of Muslim women to a single item of clothing.” (2002:786). As a result, creating a better understanding and better terminology of the “east” will allow feminists in these different social locations to communicate and to create a better strategy to move beyond the basic and into the complicated nature of feminism around the world.

The discrimination the immigrants encounter conflated with the oppressive practices that takes certain cultural symbols such as the ‘headscarf’ as its aim is one of the most prominent embodiment of symbolic violence. The headscarf which might be equal to any other symbolic object such as the skullcap in Judaism, the cross necklace for Christians, or probably the turban for the Hindus, was constructed as a symbol of oppression against woman, threatening to freedom values, and worst of all a reminder of the radical violence associated with extreme political movements.

Growing up I never truly identified with my jewish community, yet I was forced to participate and be a part of it. From a young age I questioned the things that I was taught in school and by my family. I am very lucky that at the age of 8 my parent let me and my siblings decide if we wanted to continue practicing strict religion in our household or not. But although I had more freedom at home after that, I was still forced to attend religious schools, we still lived in a religious community and all my extended family still were extremely orthodox. Although I had the freedom to question things at home and get straight answers from my parents, at school I was not so lucky. Any question I ever asked any of my teachers eventually came back to the

One of the Olympians’ names were Doaa Elghobashy, a 19-year-old Egyptian wears a hijab and the majority of her body was covered. The other Olympians’ name is Kira Walkenhorst a 25-year-old German who wears a “typical” beach volleyball uniform. This article interviews two women and their opinions on Hijabs. One of the women has a very powerful and positive outlook on hijabs while the other has an extremely

The article "Size six: The Western women's harem" by Fatema Mernissi is a contemplative look at the difference in "harem" experienced by women from cultures highly distinct from each other. Mernissi analyzed the portrayal and subordination of women both in the eyes of a Muslim woman like her, and from the perspective of Western women. Interestingly, the author argued that the subordination and repression of Western women by their own society particularly men are harsher and worse than the general perception of Muslim women as the more repressed and considered subordinate because they wear the veil, among other restrictions implemented to women in Islam.

If you really want to know, dad, it’s simply that I find most Jewish girls rather unattractive, is what I would like to tell my father. Instead of this, I tell my father over the phone in the middle of the precariously quiet bus, in a voice so ridiculously hushed it seems as if I have produced a sound so quiet it could quite possibly gauge below the audible human decibel level, that; “No, I am still depressingly and unwaveringly single, and yes I know that I am a handsome young man and any girl would be lucky to have me, and I know that when you say any girl would be lucky to have me you really mean any Jewish girl, dad, just admit it.” When I say unwaveringly single, little does he know this is not because I haven’t found the right Jewish

One of the main disputes in the battle of Islamic women’s rights is the conflict over dress. According to a popular Islamic leader and Egyptian television personality, the sight of women is so alluring that it can be “intolerably distracting to men” and can “even

An individual’s identity can differ depending on several different physical and biological factors including sexuality, gender, age and class. Throughout Ruby Tabassum’s article entitled Listening to the Voices of Hijab, identity is related to gender in a number of ways. I have decided to discuss this specific article because the idea of how femininity is portrayed is a significant aspect of Canadian culture nowadays. I am also interested in focusing on how the identities of Muslim women are recognized in society and how individuals interpret the meaning behind wearing the hijab. Throughout this article, I have distinguished several different reasons for wearing