The EditMaydl's Page by Charlotte Honigman-Smith c. 2001 The Maydeleh Mission Statement Nu, so what is this about? A Jewish grrrl zine? A literary, political, angry, (or at least irritable), unbearably hip Jewish grrrl zine? Do we need one? Is it good for the Jews? Don't we already have Lilith? (Yes, so subscribe.) Wasn't there a piece by a Jewish feminist in Moment just last year? Another zine the world needed already? Sorry, that was just the sound of your editor having a justification attack. Now that I'm done with that, allow me to introduce Maydeleh, which as far as I know is the only zine in the Jewish feminist literary ethno-activist world. (Okay, it's kind of a small world.) A zine, by definition, is a small, idependent publication, often Xerox-and-staple, occasionally glossy and indistinguishable from a normal magazine. The one in your hands is one of the Jewish/grrrl/feminist/activist/artist/kettle-banging sort. It's a prototype. Some reasons for Maydeleh: I'm regularly dazzled by the work being done in zines by other ethnic and feminist writers. I see what's happening with Bamboo Girl, Brillo, Pocho, Feminista, Angry Little Asian Girl, Bust, Chicana Writer, Bitch, HipMama, Oriental Whatever, Moxie, Fat!So? and whole lot of others. There isn't much of a Jewish-identified presence in this arena (although there are some wonderful exceptions if you hunt around a little), and what there is tends to be online, funded by Jewish mainstream organizations, and, well, it can be a little mainstream. (Maydeleh does not DO feature pieces of SpeedDating.) I really wanted to read Jewish zines. I wanted to get the jokes. I wanted to write the jokes. And that brings me to the next reason: Jewish women can be pretty invisible in the feminist/activist/young-rebel-with-a-cause world. There are a lot of people who figure that anti-Semitism is okay as long as you mask it as anti-Zionism or disdain for patriarchal religions. There isn't a lot of interest in Jewish culture. There are a lot of magazines and zines and anthologies that figure that if they run one Jewish identity piece every so often, preferably one that focuses on alienation from Judaism, they're doing their bit. There are a lot of crazies and anti-Semites out there, and even more people who wish you would just stop insisting on being so Jewish...and if all this makes you so crazy that you decide you;ll just focus on Jewish issues, there's reason number three: Jewish women don't get much in the way of air time or column inches in Jewish publications. Have you ever picked up the magazines at your grandma's house, or in the Hillel lounge, and counted not noses, but bosoms? There are precious few of them out there. The average Jewish magazine runs at about a bare third female writers, and that's being given a boost by Moment, which (for all the jokes I am likely to make about it in these pages) gives women half. Tikkun runs at about 25%. Commentary is at about 12%. (Don't let anyone tell you that the right and left are equally sexist. There is a difference of 13%.) And women do not cover the Big Topics, women write personal essays, poems, and moody pieces about Jewish nostalgia. Famous women write about Women's Issues, not The Future of American Judaism. Out of any panel of twenty-five American Jews weighing in on a weighty topic, four will be women. One of them will be someone's wife and co-author. Hence, my farbrente little zine. This zine's main focus is Jewish feminist literature and politics, but these things don't exist in a void--we all have too many hyphens in our identities for that. Your EditMaydl is a loudmouthed, bluntly bleeding-heart Ashkenazi-Irish troublemaker who aspires to be (as Rosie O'Donnell said of Camryn Manheim) a compassionate maverick. I want this zine to present Jewish feminist identity in all its myriad ethnic and religious forms. And I want to explore what that means--what creating a cultural life and awareness for yourself as a woman or man in the twenty-first century demands of us. Maydeleh will be publishing work from all corners of the Jewish world. We'll be looking for things that aren't Jewish in theme or origin, things that cast light on ethnic identity, feminism and activism, or things that are just fascinating, eciting or wonderful. Being a Jewish woman is the coolest thing I do. I am an unabashedly ethnic (Jewish and Celtic, for heaven's sake) rabble-rousing, justice-seeking, essay-writing type. I believe that The world is full of magnificent Jewish girls, and that we have something in common because we are a.) magnificent and b.) Jewish. Maydeleh is pages for us to fill, space for us to rant, room for us to dialogue, discuss and yell. A zine for straightforward (or sideways) talk about sexism, anti-Semitism, racism homophobia, fear, hope, joy, coolness, art, work, being... Shalom aleichen. *EditMaydl's exhortation: Yes, we have Lilith. And if every Jewish woman in North America buys a subsciption, we will get to keep Lilith. So take out your checkbook and subscribe. Todah rabah.