Beware a flawed compass in the kol isha brouhaha

Nadya Wynchank

Traditionally, women always sang at funerals, births, weddings – and then something changed in the Jewish relationship to women and their music.

This prohibition of women singing was introduced after Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein walked out at the Yom Hashoah ceremony in 2005, while Hilit Milner, a teenage girl sang. Those present witnessed Hilit’s embarrassment and distress at the rabbi’s departure.

In an interview with “Jewish Action” in 2013, Rabbi Goldstein justified his actions by saying: “If your leadership is going to be based on what is most pleasing to people, you have no compass.”

The focus of this letter is not about that single event, but rather its long-standing repercussions.

I cannot help but consider the impact of his actions on Hilit Milner. I refer to the Talmud Bava Metziah: “Better to throw oneself into a furnace rather than embarrass another” (59a) and “He who publicly shames his neighbour is as though he shed blood” (58b).

The prohibition of women’s voices as Erva in the context of a Yom Hashoah ceremony, undermines men and their capacity to manage their sexual responses. The men I have spoken to consider this principle humiliating, particularly in the context of a ceremony which honours the victims of genocide.

They perceive this prohibition as a reductionist stereotype of men’s sexuality as “unbridled and fickle”. If indeed a man fears he might be sexually aroused by a woman singing at a Yom Hashoah ceremony, then perhaps he should take it upon himself not to attend.

A blanket prohibition according to this Erva principle is just as incongruent as banning all young boys from shul choirs due to the risk that a paedophile in the community might be stirred. Both men and women in our community need to take responsibility for their sexuality and their capacity to channel it responsibly.

In April 1951 the Israeli Knesset declared 27^th of Nissan to be the official Yom Hashoah commemoration day. This date was created as a secular day of mourning and draws Jews, irrespective of their position on the spectrum of religious belief and practice.

Numerous ceremonies take place each year across the world; many of them involving women singing (such as women soloists at the Yad Vashem ceremony in Jerusalem). 

Other official days of commemoration were introduced by the Knesset and include Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha’atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim. Might a ban be placed on women’s singing at these events too? And why stop at singing – there are many other proscriptions placed on women (such as [s1] in relation to modesty).

I came across what could be considered the first-ever recorded Holocaust memorial ceremony. It occurred after the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated in April 1945. Rabbi L H Hardman, the Jewish chaplain to the British Second Army, held a service consisting of surviving men and women.

In this recording, women’s singing voices are clearly heard. Their voices, although taut and uneven, so clearly express their humanity and survival. To simply sexualise their voices, or our voices now, is to trivialise and censor the breadth and depth of our experience as Jews and as humans among humans.

So, in contrast to Rabbi Goldstein’s statement to “Jewish Action”, I shall conclude by saying that if your leadership is based on dismissing the discrimination and distress this prohibition has created in the community, your compass is flawed.

Cape Town