25 Questions to Ask a Jewish Woman in Your Life
- What is the story of your first and/or last name?
- What were the house and neighborhood you grew up in like? Who lived with and around you?
- What languages were spoken in your home and neighborhood?
- What kinds of newspapers and books did you have in your home? Who read them?
- If you were raised Jewish, what about your family felt Jewish? How was your Jewishness expressed?
- How did you celebrate holidays (Jewish and/or secular)? What roles did the women in your family play in holiday preparations and observance?
- What special foods do you associate with your family and family celebrations?
- Where did you go to school? Did you like it? What were your favorite subjects?
- Did you go to religious school? If so, where? What was it like? Did you find it meaningful?
- What did you want to be when you grew up, and why? What options seemed open or closed to you?
- What did you do for fun as a teenager? As a young adult?
- How did you spend your summer vacations? Where did you go and what did you do?
- If you are in a relationship, how did you meet your partner? What was your courtship and/or wedding like? What were your expectations about roles and responsibilities within your relationship? If you’re not in a relationship, was this a conscious choice or did your life just take that turn?
- What volunteer or paid work have you done, and what has it meant to you?
- What values do you bring to your relationships with your children/siblings/partner/friends?
- Who have been your role models? What about them do you admire?
- What words of wisdom did your mother/grandmothers/aunts share with you?
- What world and national events have significantly influenced your life?
- Were/are you involved in any political activism? If so, around what causes? What has it meant to you?
- What impact has feminism had on your life?
- Women have taken a greater role in Jewish life and practice over the past several decades. Have these changes had a personal impact on you? What do you think of them?
- What identities shape you and your life, e.g. racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, disability?
- What in your life has brought or given you the greatest satisfaction or fulfillment? Looking back, what would you have done differently? What would you do again?
- Who is a Jewish woman who is/was ahead of her time and inspires you?
- Describe a time in your life when you felt you were ahead of your time.
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