Non­fic­tion

Kad­dish: Wom­en’s Voices

Michal Smart and Bar­bara Ashkenas
  • From the Publisher
December 23, 2013
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 child rear­ing, 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 exam­ines 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. 

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