The poems in this post are part of a special section, curated by Ori Z Soltes and Robert Bettmann, The Jewish Experience.
Bas Mitzvah
The boys did it on Saturdays
so I Refused
Refused because Saturdays
the Shabbos Bride
presided
Friday nights for the girls a pokey prelude
Refused
because we were taught
by the Rabbi’s wife
all hugs and bluster
not the taut scholar I aspired to be
Refused because when I asked
the Rabbi who Cain and Abel married
if not their sisters he pulled
my ears and scolded “You are too
curious for your own good” Good
I fumed what is not good about
being curious
Refused then to actually learn
to read Hebrew
so couldn’t go with my friends in the class
who I urged
Refuse But they didn’t
My parents not too upset because I was
a girl after all—
Gutsy, huh?
Not when I relive
the shudder of standing
before the Ark of the Law
Torah unveiled
expecting to be—Refused
by a God of favoritism.
Born in Brooklyn, NY, Ivy Schweitzer has lived for many years in Vermont and taught English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College. She is the creator of White Heat: Emily Dickinson in 1862, a weekly blog, and writes about women’ issues, social justice and identity. Most recently, her poems have appeared in the Passager Poetry Contest for 2022, Ritualwell, Tikkun, New Croton Review, Mississippi Review, Spoon River Poetry Review and The New England Poetry Club’s Prize Winners’ Anthology 2024. A collection of poems titled Within Flesh: In Conversation with Our Selves and Emily Dickinson, co-written with Al Salehi, appeared in February 2024 from Transcendent Zero Press. They are working on another co-written collection titled Broken Open: Practicing Humanity with Rumi, about the conflict in Israel and Gaza. Her solo collection of poems, Tumult, Whitewash, and Stretch Marks, will be published next year by Finishing Line Press. Visit her author page at https://sites.dartmouth.edu/ivyschweitzer/.
Featured image in this post: Torah Reading at Robinson’s Arch, Michal Patelle, creative commons via wikimedia commons.
