Don’t Mansplain God to Roseanne Barr — She’s a Hebrew Priestess
You may know rabbis, cantors, and gabbais, or prayer leader, from synagogue. But have you met a Jewitch, healer or priestess?
You may soon. There is a growing movement to carve out alternative spaces for distinctly female leadership roles in Jewish life, as well as honor feminine characteristics of the divine — some call it Goddess Judaism.
One of the movement’s most enthusiastic advocates is onetime presidential hopeful, comedian, activist and overall outsize character Roseanne Barr.
Among other priestess-associated activities, Barr inaugurated a “Women’s Temple for transformation and tikkun olam” (repairing the world) in Hawaii and co-hosted a Priestess Purim celebration at the Isabella Freedman Center, in Connecticut.
Barr peppers her social media with references to priestesses, Hebrew queens and the feminine divine. Here are some of the standouts, with hashtags like #princess, #Shekinah (feminine divine) and #treeofLIFE.
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO