Aviva Cantor (born 1940) is an American journalist, lecturer and author. An advocate of

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and the democratization of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

communal life, Cantor has been actively involved in promoting progressive Jewish causes for over 40 years. She was a co-founder in 1968 of the Jewish Liberation in New York, a

Socialist Zionist Labor Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת סוֹצְיָאלִיסְטִית, ) or socialist Zionism ( he, תְּנוּעָת הָעַבוֹדָה, label=none, translit=Tnuʽat haʽavoda) refers to the left-wing, socialist variation of Zionism. ...

organization, and served as founding editor of its ''Jewish Liberation Journal''. JLP was among the first Jewish groups to advocate the two-state solution (1968).

Biography

Aviva Cantor was born in 1940 and raised in the

East Bronx The East Bronx is the part of the New York City borough of the Bronx which lies east of the Bronx River; this roughly corresponds to the eastern half of the borough. Neighborhoods include: Baychester, Castle Hill, City Island, Co-op City, ...

by traditional but non-Orthodox parents who had immigrated to North America from

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

after World War I. She attended

Ramaz School The Ramaz School is an elite American coeducational Jewish Modern Orthodox day school which offers a dual curriculum of general studies taught in English and Judaic studies taught in Hebrew. The school is located on the Upper East Side of Manha ...

, an Orthodox Jewish day school, graduating from High School as Valedictorian in 1957. She spent two years studying history at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

, and graduated from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

in 1961 and from the

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism s ...

in 1963. In the late 1969's she was involved in advocating for the struggle of

Biafra Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a partially recognised secessionist state in West Africa that declared independence from Nigeria and existed from 1967 until 1970. Its territory consisted of the predominantly Igbo-populated form ...

for independence and served as vice president of the Committee for Biafran Artist and Writers. In 1976, she initiated and co-founded ''

Lilith Lilith ( ; he, Wiktionary:לילית, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian Mythology, Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. ...

'', the independent Jewish Feminist quarterly magazine, which she served as co-founding editor through 1987, and for which she wrote regularly. Her articles have appeared in many publications, including ''

Ms. Ms. (American English) or Ms (British English; normally , but also , or when unstressed)''Oxford English Dictionary'' online, Ms, ''n.2''. Etymology: "An orthographic and phonetic blend of Mrs ''n.1'' and miss ''n.2'' Compare mizz ''n.'' The pr ...

'', ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

'', and '' Israel Horizons'', and in a number of anthologies. Her reportage for the

Jewish Telegraphic Agency The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international news agency and wire service, founded in 1917, serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world as well as non-Jewish press, with about 70 syndication clients listed on its web ...

(JTA) on the American Jewish community, Israel, her multi-part series on foreign Jewish communities—including Cuba, Argentina, Austria, Central Europe and Kenya—and her interviews with figures such as Gerhard Riegner,

Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on ext ...

David Wyman David Sword Wyman (6 March 1929 – 14 March 2018) was the Josiah DuBois professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Renee Epelbaum, were internationally syndicated.

Writing

Cantor has written five alternative

Passover Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday that celebrates the The Exodus, Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Ancient Egypt, Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew calendar, He ...

ceremonies, the fourth of which she co-conducted in the Bedford Hills Women's Prison. The fifth one, ''The Egalitarian Hagada'', was self-published under the auspices of Beruriah Books. It is a gender- and generation-inclusive

Haggadah The Haggadah ( he, הַגָּדָה, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each J ...

in non-sexist English containing all the memorable traditional elements of the

seder The Passover Seder (; he, סדר פסח , 'Passover order/arrangement'; yi, סדר ) is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted throughout the world on the eve of the 15th day of

Harper San Francisco HarperOne is a publishing imprint of HarperCollins, specializing in books that aim to "transform, inspire, change lives, and influence cultural discussions." Under the original name of Harper San Francisco, the imprint was founded in 1977 by 13 em ...

published her major 548-page work, ''Jewish Women/Jewish Men: the Legacy of Patriarchy in Jewish Life'', a feminist exploration of Jewish history, culture and psychology (which has 100 pages of endnotes). The work puts traditional and modern Jewish life under a feminist microscope. One of her central theses is that the needs for Jewish survival in the "national emergency" of 2,000 years of exile under oppressive and dangerous conditions necessitated the transformation of local communities into milieus informed by the feminist values of non-violence, cooperation, interdependence, compassion, and consensus. The ideal Jewish man changed "from macho to mentsch" through the outlawing of violence of all kinds and the redefinition of masculinity as learning and scholarship. At the same time, women were allowed a considerable amount of leeway in assertiveness, but only if it was in the interests of communal survival. She was trained to be an "altruistic-assertive enabler" (in the common, traditional meaning of the word "enabler" i.e., facilitator). Men, of course, never ceased to dominate the community, decide on its policy and laws, and choose its leadership (class played a role here). Cantor believes that this successful transformation of roles and communal life proves that men's instinct for violence, even if it turns out to be genetic, can be overcome if men and women are sufficiently motivated and conscious of the justice of a peaceful, egalitarian world, in the spirit of the prophet Isaiah's vision.

Other activities

Cantor is also active in the animal protectionist movement and is Vice President of "CHAI: Concern for Helping Animals in Israel," founded by Nina Natelson in 1984 to assist the Israeli animal welfare community in improving conditions for domestic animals in a country with only a few SPCAs and many immigrant communities with no tradition of animal protection and an ongoing war situation. It drafted Israel's animal protection law; conducted several humane education programs (including one for Jewish and Arab children at the Tel Aviv SPCA), site of the IB. Singer Humane Education Center which it built; and held important conferences, including one for educators on the links between the abuse of animals, domestic violence, and the criminal behavior of adults who tortured animals as children, and another on alternatives to the use of animals in experimentation. CHAI built a shelter in Tiberias, maintains a mobile spay-neuter program and a horse rehabilitation program. It and its Israeli sister organization, HAKOL CHAI, rescued countless dogs and cats hurt or abandoned in the attacks on

Sderot Sderot ( he, שְׂדֵרוֹת, , lit. ''Boulevards'', ar, سديروت) is a western Negev city and former development town in the Southern District of Israel. In it had a population of . Sderot is located less than a mile from Gaza (the c ...

. The late Rep.

Tom Lantos Thomas Peter Lantos (born Tamás Péter Lantos; February 1, 1928 – February 11, 2008) was a Holocaust survivor and American politician who served as a U.S. representative from California from 1981 until his death in 2008. A member of the Democr ...

, who served on CHAI's Advisory Board, was a warm supporter of its work, as was Nobel Prize winner

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer ( yi, יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער; November 11, 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Polish-born American Jewish writer who wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated himself into English with the help ...

. Cantor wrote a 10-lesson Humane Education unit drawing entirely on Jewish sources, which forbade cruelty to animals (though Judaism permitted slaughtering for food, Jewish law required that the process was to be as close to painless as possible; this situation does not largely obtain today, especially in South America). In the 1980s, she initiated an ultimately successful Women's Appeal for the release of Soviet Prisoner of Conscience

Ida Nudel Ida Yakovlevna Nudel ( he, אידה נודל; russian: Ида Яковлевна Нудель) (27 April 1931 – 14 September 2021) was a Soviet-born Israeli refusenik and activist. She was known as the "Guardian Angel" for her efforts to help ...

. Cantor also is a member of the advisory board of the Remember the Women Institute

Personal life

Cantor was married for 38 years to journalist Murray Zuckoff, a self-described "revolutionary," Socialist Zionist and crusading investigative journalist (reporter for the ''Paterson Morning Call'' and editor of the JTA), who fought for truth and justice with his pen. He was also a devoted teacher at CUNY. Zuckoff loved Israel, Yiddish, cats. books, music, folk art and Star Trek. He died in 2004. Cantor also composes liturgical music and photographs her cat as a hobby.

Bibliography

*Cantor, Aviva. ''The Jewish Woman, 1900–1985: A Bibliography''. New York, NY: Biblio Press, 1985, 1986. *Cantor, Aviva: "The Egalitarian Hagada." New York: Beruriah Books, 1991, 1992, 1994. *Cantor, Aviva. ''Jewish Women/Jewish Men: The Legacy of Patriarchy in Jewish Life''. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1995.

References

External links

* Stone, Amy F.J
"Aviva Cantor"
Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia
Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution
from th
Jewish Women's Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cantor, Aviva 1940 births Living people American animal welfare workers American people of Russian-Jewish descent American socialists American Zionists Barnard College alumni Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Jewish American journalists Jewish American activists Jewish feminists Jewish socialists New York (state) socialists People from the Bronx American socialist feminists Jewish women writers American expatriates in Israel Jewish American dramatists and playwrights Labor Zionists Jews from New York (state)