At different times in my life I have wanted to push away one or the other burden of inheritance, to say merely I am a woman; I am a lesbian. If I cal… - Adrienne Rich

When someone with the authority of a teacher describes the world and you’re not in it, there’s a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing. It takes some strength of soul--and not just individual strength, but collective understanding--to resist this void, this non-being, into which you are thrust, and to stand up, demanding to be seen and heard. And to make yourself visible, to claim that your experience is just as real and normative as any other... ("Invisibility in Academe")

I've said that "American Jews" have paid an intellectual and spiritual price for the narrowing of sight demanded by conformity and reliance on Israel as surrogate identity. Part of this price has been estrangement of many Jews from any Jewish affiliation. But, of course, in reality American Jews disagree like all other Jews, past and future.

A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.