On a separate note, I hate the kol isha concept. For the 2nd light, I was over at my older brother’s (ultra religious – hozer btshouva) and started singing hannukka songs with my younger brother, when I noticed I was the only female to sing… All the other women (and there were a few) were standing back and letting the men sing. This is not how I was brought up… Felt really strange so I stopped singing :(

Aren’t the Maccabeats from Yeshiva University? So, no, there are no women at their college.

I agree with you about kol isha in general, but in this specific case, I’d cut them some slack. All the guys in that apartment are the singers in the group, no? Do any men appear in the video besides group members?

Really? There are no women at their college, either? Mothers and daughters don’t celebrate Hanukkah? They thanked a Melissa in the credits; apparently, there were women around doing something. What, cooking the latkes?

As for Miriam’s song, quite a few midrashim on Miriam’s song are more of the same. Let’s see what I remember off the top of my head: that Miriam and the women sang separately from the men, that the purpose of their timbrels (a kind of drum) was to prevent the men from hearing their voices, and that there was an argument as to which group would sing first (after the men, of course): the women on earth, who had just been saved from disaster, or the angels, who needed no salvation….

The concept of “kol isha” (short for the entire phrase, “kol be-isha erva,” a woman’s voice is tantamount to her nakedness) is much stronger today than it ever was. I know elderly people who were raised Orthodox who say that kol isha was never such a big deal when they were younger. But in observant Jewish communities today, there are restrictions on women singing in public, singing in mixed groups, and even singing in their own homes, with their own families, when male guests are present. I’ve observed that there’s often a generation gap: the older women, who received a more liberal Jewish education, sing in public settings, while the girls and younger women, who have received a stricter education, do not.

This is a manifestation of a larger phenomenon: the increasing obsession with modesty in women. Photos containing women are not shown in the Haredi community or in Haredi publications. Even recordings of women speaking (not singing!) are restricted to women-only audiences. I have seen one website for observant Jewish women artists that states that before a woman may register, she must call the office and speak to the people there in order to prove that she is a woman. (I don’t think that they’re trying to guard against male infiltrators there, but rather to prove to the religious world that they’re “kosher.”)

It goes on, and it gets worse. I could tell you so many stories. At a public celebration here in Jerusalem in 1992, the mixed Bnei Akiva choir performed. Now, only male performers appear at public celebrations in the city — I mean here celebrations that are funded by the municipality, not concerts by specific artists. Women artists can still give those….

I like to joke that if you want to watch me explode, all you have to do is whisper two words in my ear: “kol isha.” This is not the religion that I grew to love and chose to practice, nor do I believe that our God demands the silencing of women. On the contrary — the concept of “kol isha” makes me think of Jeremiah 32:35 — God never commanded such a thing, nor did it ever come into His mind.

(For more on kol isha, please see here under “Female singing voice: Orthodox Judaism.”)

I figured that for the singing part. But for them to show a Hanukkah celebration with fathers and sons, but no mothers and daughters—well, that’s just bullshit. I’m pretty sure the Orthodox are allowed to eat together. /sarc

And if that bit about singing is so, how do they explain Miriam’s song at the crossing of the Red Sea?