David S. Kogan, Class of 1950

In addition to hostessing and nannying this summer, I've been doing some part-time research for Cornell as part of the Sesquicentennial celebration. The task at hand is to collect first-person accounts of different areas of campus life in various categories. One of my sources is a wonderful book by Carol Kammen called "First Person Cornell," and it includes short excerpts from students' diaries and blogs over the years.

Today I was reading one that really piqued my interest, that of David S. Kogan, class of 1950. I read at the beginning of the chapter that he was a reconstructionist Jew in a bio that Kammen wrote for him. I only read the first sentence of the bio paragraph, eager to hear what he had to say about life on the hill.

"October 19, 1946. There's a lot of neck going around in these parts. And even more serious activities. Ah, the Spirit of Co-Education...Crossing the Bridge of Sacred and Profane. First Hillel Service was not particularly impressive, being about seventy-five percent Reform and twenty-five percent Conservative (that is merely hats, no organ, a bit of chanting). Nevertheless it is a necessary compromise.

October 25, 1946. I've been studying the Jews here on the campus. Of the approximately fifteen hundred, about one hundred are truly tied to Jewish values and traditions in the modern sense of the term. Then there are about sixty who are Orthodox and do not have anything to do with conservative Hillel House. Another one or two hundred enjoy going to services and are sympathetic to Jewish tradition. A factor almost unknown among Yonkers youth are the three hundred-odd radicals who work for the PAC and the Negroes and Russia, but have nothing to do with anything Jewish, even refusing to come to Hillel House for social activities. Nevertheless they hang together at the "Universal" meetings where Jews predominate. The remaining nine hundred are in between; some come to occasional services; most going to Hillel House, but not at all really concerned with Jews and Judaism.

November 24, 1947. What are my wants: to study the Jewish heritage--to be well-groomed and in the best physical health--to catalogue my faults and correct them--to satisfy sexual desire consistent with an honorable character and wholesome personality--contemplate, evaluate, and improve my living--to successfully pursue Cornell studies--to read wisely and record the reading--to plan and complete the action which make me a better being...to honor my father and mother...and perhaps more...

May 15, 1948. I am thrilled about the formation of the Jewish State. Last night the beautiful Cornell Chimes played the songs of the modern Jewish Palestine for a full half hour...This weekend I was elected President of the Hillel Foundation for the coming school year."



At this point, I stopped reading and turned back to the beginning of the chapter to finish reading Mr. Kogan's biography, with a dim hope forming in my mind of finding him and writing him an email or beginning some sort of correspondence.

I found this:

"His diary spans his four years at Cornell, though the entries taper off in his final year, when he was diagnosed with a lymphoma and began a series of treatments in both Yonkers, his hometown, and Ithaca. Kogan graduated in June 1950 and died in March 1951."


I felt very sad after reading that, and finished the chapter. Then there was a moment when I paused, sensed some significance in my reading excerpts from his diary, and decided to write this blog post. Funny how souls and personalities can connect and transcend time and existence in the physical realm. In that way, I think there is something metaphysical about writing one's personal reflections in a diary or journal or blog. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I've always kept one, at least since I was 12. Also because I've always assumed that I will be at least slightly famous one day and people will care to read my memoirs.

I would have loved to be present that day on May 15, 1948 as the chimes rang out with "HaTikvah" and "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" and perhaps some folk songs we used to dance to in Israeli Dance. I would have sung along on Ho Plaza and clipped the newspaper the next day and kept it my whole life.

Thank you to Carol Kammen for compiling these diary entries and to David S. Kogan for remembering this special day for me.

"...but first it will piss you off"

reblogged from The New Agenda (my own words)  http://www.thenewagenda.net/2014/04/23/but-first-it-will-piss-you-off/ 

In an instant, I opened my eyes to the gender inequality in portraits that adorned the walls of my alma mater, Cornell University. I was studying in the nutrition building this past Fall when I glanced up and noticed the faces of three white men in suits watching over me from where their portraits hung. This is despite the fact that Cornell granted the first Ph.D. in nutrition to an African-American woman (Flemmie Kittrell in 1936) and that the female undergraduates of the Nutritional Sciences department outnumber the males 495:190 (from the department administration as of April 2014).

Upon noticing this imbalance in one building, I started noticing the same imbalance in other buildings. Portraits of men hung everywhere, and the rare female portrait was most often a famous man’s mother or wife. Again, this is despite the fact that Cornell University has been admitting women since 1870 and boasts some of the most notable alumnae in a variety of fields. These portraits and the names of the buildings that housed them were sending us clear messages about who is important and valued, and it went something along the lines of wealthy, male, and white. If I asked the average Cornellian today to list some famous alumni, they could easily rattle off the names of the libraries, auditoriums, administrative and academic buildings. They would be naming men. But they would be forgetting Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Frances Perkins, Janet Reno, Pearl Buck, Barbara McClintock, and hundreds of other impressive women of Cornell.

I couldn’t think of a good reason for this besides that portraits reflected who had the money and the power, and I couldn’t think of a good reason for who had the money and the power besides that it was the way it’s always been in our patriarchal society. This seemed less than satisfactory to me.

It’s like Gloria Steinem said, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

The next logical thing to do was to get other people pissed off with me. I started posting on facebook, twitter, and instagram about the problem, and would upload pictures of the offending portraits with the hashtag “#showmethewomen.” It was a call for Cornell and its students to wake up and take notice of the gender inequality that surrounded them.

The hashtag caught on and my friends started uploading photographs and tweeting about gender inequality in portraits, building names, gender ratios in certain departments, business club leadership, and so on. More and more people were beginning to see that the women of Cornell were being short-changed. It was time to act.

My friends and I secured $800 in funding from the university for a special project and got to work naming notable Cornell women, listing their accomplishments, and finding their photographs. We went as far back as Class of 1873 and even included a Class of 2014 member, Olympic Gold Medalist Brianne Jenner (Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey). We asked students to nominate female professors and administrators who had made an impact on the Cornell community and included them as well. This culminated in an art exhibit of 250 black and white photographs of Cornell women that was displayed in the student union for the month of March.

The exhibit attracted students, community members, professors, faculty, and even the women featured! About 25 of the women whose photographs hung on the walls of the exhibit were able to come and view their “portraits.”

The exhibit received enormous praise and great press. Hundreds of people filtered through the gallery over the course of the month and I received countless emails of encouragement and gratitude for the project.

There were people who didn’t get it though, as I knew there would be. Some of my male friends who helped me put the exhibit together couldn’t help but comment on the attractiveness of each woman’s portrait we hung. Others still claimed that it was “only a matter of time” before women’s portraits hung in equal numbers beside men’s at Cornell, and that the exhibit was unnecessary or even wrong.

Although the exhibit has been taken down, #showmethewomen is just getting started, and so am I. The experience taught me to be confident, to take action, and to gather my friends and champions around me. I started seeing the world in a whole new way, and I helped other people start to see it too. I learned that social media can only take a cause so far, and sometimes you need to make things happen in the physical world. Today, I am constantly disappointed (and often pissed off!) by all the places that still need to #showmethewomen, but I feel prepared and excited to start doing something about that.

Fearless Women of Passover

Moses gets most of the press when it comes to Passover, the epic story of

freedom from slavery we are commanded to repeat every year around this time.

Moses is the Prince of Egypt, the Prophet, the face of the Israelites. He gets

credit for splitting the Red Sea and for leading the Israelites out of bondage.

But who gets credit for Moses?

There is a saying that “behind every great man, there is a great woman.” In this

case, there’s a whole softball team of great women behind Moses. And these

women had no reassuring chats with God in a burning bush, no magic rods, no

plagues to back them up. These women were just fearless.

First, there were the women who gave Moses life. These were the midwives who

did not follow Pharaoh’s command to put all newborn Israelite boys to death. As

Rashi understands it, Pharaoh gave this command to Joheved (Moses’ mother)

and Miriam (his sister) directly, and they directly disobeyed, allowing the baby

boys to live. This included Moses.

Then, there were the women who saved Moses’ life. This was Pharaoh’s own

daughter, who found the floating baby Moses and recognized him as “one of

the children of the Hebrews” and had compassion on him (Exodus 2: 5). She

raised him as her own, knowing from day one that Moses was alive because

her father’s orders were disobeyed. Then came Moses’ wife, Zipporah. In one of

the Torah’s most mysterious dramas, an angel of death swallows half of Moses’

body while they are camped in the desert, and Zipporah recognizes this as a sign

to circumcise her son. “So Zipporah took a sharp stone and severed her son's

foreskin and cast it to his feet” in order to save Moses’ life (Exodus 4:25). This

tale of “the bridegroom of blood” is an often overlooked example of Zipporah’s

bravery and quick-thinking.

Finally, after Moses has led the people of Israel on a dangerous, miraculous, and

utterly exhausting chase through the desert and the sea, Miriam sees the people

are in need of a pick-me-up. “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a

timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with

dances” (Exodus 15:20). Miriam’s energy was contagious, and all the women

joined in without being asked. Miriam’s selfless style of leading by example and

inspiring people to action through her own enthusiasm is a model for all of us.

So this year, when you tell your children of our exodus from Egypt, don’t forget to

give credit to the fearless women in the Passover story who made it possible.

And may you love life like the midwives, be brave like Joheved, have the

compassion of Pharaoh’s daughter, be quick-witted as Zipporah, and exuberant

like Miriam.

Finding Your Inner Esther--Some words on Purim

Esther does not assume her post as Queen of the Persian Empire with a passion or

expectation for activism. She does her own thing in the harem, listens to the advice of her

“uncle” Mordecai, pleases King Ahasuerus, asks for little, and follows directions. Unlike

her predecessor Vashti, Esther seems content with a degree of passivity in her role.

Even when it is her time to step up and save the Jewish people living in the 127 provinces

of the empire, ranging from India to Ethiopia, Esther devises a plan to first please the

king with banquets before requesting anything of him. When Esther finally speaks

up on behalf of her people, the king is eager to reverse the decree and punish the man

responsible.

Perhaps the impetus for Esther’s bravery comes from Mordecai’s advice to her, “For if

you will remain silent at this time, relief and salvation will come to the Jews from another

source, but you and the house of your father will be lost. And who knows if it is not for

just such a time that you reached this royal position” (Esther 4:14). Queen Esther breaks

her silence to save herself as well as her fellow Jews.

Mordecai scares Esther into taking action, but he also reminds her that she is in the right

place at the right time to make a difference for herself and for her community.

The story of Purim tells a grand tale of the Jews’ survival, but it is also a step-by-step

guide to advocacy.

Step 1: Keep your friends close. Mordecai and Esther are the winning team in Shushan,

but neither could do it without the help of the other. Foster your friendships and gather a

circle of champions around you who will support you, advise you, inspire you, and give

you a kick in the right direction when the time comes.

Step 2: Choose your battles. Find your inner Esther and be agreeable. Avoid extraneous

demands. Use humor to diffuse tension instead of exacerbating it. Give people the

benefit of the doubt if they misspeak or are unaware of their privilege. Allow thoughtless

offensive remarks to be an opportunity for education. Make people want to help you

when it’s really time for a fight.

Step 3: Make the Ask. It can be difficult to address people of authority with a request.

Whether you are speaking on behalf of yourself, your community, or both, feel entitled

to ask for something directly (especially if you’ve done a good job with steps 1 and 2!

). While Esther addresses the king humbly, she doesn’t beat around the bush when she

asks for her life and the lives of her people to be spared. The clarity of her request makes

it even easier for the king to grant it. A strong “ask” can mean the difference between

getting what you want and getting what someone else feels like giving you.

And who knows? Perhaps you have reached your position for just such a time as this.

My Speech for the Athena Award Ceremony, January 16th 2014

I just graduated from Cornell University about three weeks ago, and it seems like everyone has some advice for me and my future. A friend of mine gave me a book called “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20” by Tina Seelig. The author tells this story about a mechanical engineering professor who had several female friends from her university who were also engineers in different disciplines. 

They often came over to her house for dinner. Her young son was usually around, watching and listening to their conversations. As he got older and proved to be good at math and science someone said to him, “Gee, you should study engineering.” He twisted his face and said, “Absolutely not, engineering is for girls.” 

***

It has now been four and a half years since I was honored as a Young Woman of Distinction by the Women’s Council. In those four and a half years, I left the security of my home and my high school, where women ruled, and I learned why this story is funny. 

Immediately after I won the Young Woman of Distinction Award in 2009, I worked for six weeks at the Susan B. Anthony House in an internship funded by The Women’s Council. I was inspired by the work of Susan B. Anthony and her tireless devotion to her causes, but I also began opening my eyes to just how far we have to go to reach gender equality.

After a gap year in Israel, I packed up again and moved to Ithaca. At Cornell, I was pre-med and became a leader in the Jewish community, in my sorority, and my residence hall. It was my joy to serve these communities that I loved so deeply, and I was well on my way to becoming a doctor. 

But, I started to notice that people always used the words “strong” and “female” when they referred to my leadership. I noticed the surprised looks I got when I told people I wanted to be a surgeon. I noticed that the walls of the Cornell libraries were lined with portraits on portraits of important men. 

I noticed that a lot of people don’t think engineering is for girls. 

That’s where YWOD comes in. Winning the prize during my senior year of high school, speaking at the award’s ceremony last year, and standing before you today: all of these experiences are like one big THANK YOU NOTE from the world. The recognition is validation for what I have done and motivation to keep working hard, even when the jobs I’m doing feel thankless. 

So this is my Thank You Note to you: Thank you for being role models, for what you do for the community, for showing the world what women can be and what we are. Engineering IS for girls, as is business, entrepreneurship, medicine, law, administration, politics, media, and more. And this room proves it. 

Show Me the Women

This is what's been keeping me up at night lately, and what I plan to do about it.

I was sitting in the Savage Hall lobby before my class on Mineral Nutrition and Chronic Disease when I noticed three portraits of white men looking down at me. I began to notice that portraits of white men adorn the walls of every building at Cornell University.

That same day, I read an article in the New York Times about women in science, which revealed that even women do not hire other women for science positions as often as they hire equally qualified men. I started to think that part of this is purely what we think a scientist looks like, and that part of this problem is the messaging we are getting through the portraits on the walls at our universities.

When I started talking to friends about the portraits, many people wanted to know why it bothered me that the department founders, big donors, and administrators of the past were mostly men--they saw it as merely a function of history and that surely, these people deserve it.

While I do not want to discredit the people who have had a profound impact on our university, I do believe that they send a message about what merits a portrait at Cornell. That message connects being important with being rich and male and white.

I wish to widen the net of what we consider "important" at Cornell.

My plan is an art exhibition in the spring coinciding with PCCW (President's Council of Cornell Women) Weekend. The exhibit will be located in the Memorial Room of Willard Straight Hall and will feature portraits of prominent Cornell women from over the years. Alumnae who have made significant contributions to their fields, as well as prominent female faculty and administrators, will be featured. The portraits will be edited to look as much like an oil painting as possible, and framed.

Throughout the exhibit, framed mirrors will be installed with titles underneath them, to encourage exhibit-viewers to see themselves as part of the exhibit. A central piece of the exhibit will be a large, blank, framed canvas with the title card: "Cornell's First Female President."

My hope is that this exhibit raises questions about whom we honor in society, what we value in people, and the progress (or not...) of work place equality. I want every student to identify with the people featured, based on gender, race, ethnicity, or area of expertise.

The exhibit will be coupled with programs and discussions with different groups around campus. I am excited to partnering with my friend Lizzie on curated film screenings that feature women as writers, directors, and actors.

Cornell needs a change, and it’s not going to “happen on its own.” While women have begun to outnumber men as college grads, the hopeful trends stop there. Women are paid less for the same jobs as men once they leave college, and often self-select into “female professions” which pay less to begin with. Even here at Cornell, the gender gap starts to widen with the leadership of business clubs being mostly male. If we continue to study underneath the watchful eyes of rich white men in big, important portraits, we will continue thinking that being important means being rich, white, and male.

Cornell cannot change history, but we can change the messages we promote to our students. We can balance out the movies shown at Cornell Cinema to include movies directed by women. We can balance out the featured keynote speakers invited to campus by Hillel and other large organizations. We can balance out the portraits on the walls by featuring women in an art exhibit. We can balance out administrative leadership by hiring more women and encouraging them to apply for top positions. We can balance out STEM degrees by providing mentoring programs for women in these majors. We can balance out gender inequality, bit by bit, step by step, in our little corner of the world.
We deserve this. And it is time.

Show Me the Women does not solve the problem of gender inequality at Cornell University. But it begins the conversation, and provides a platform for discussion about the issue. It will bring women and allies together across differences to start working on the tough problems we face today. These problems require creative solutions, and this is just a start.

#showmethewomen

A few words of (last week's) Torah

Written for the Cornell Hillel Weekend Update last week.

From what I gather from the internet, this week’s Torah portion is Vayigash. This is a packed portion, telling the story of Benjamin’s release and Joseph’s reunion with his family. Benjamin is freed when his brother Judah offers to be taken as a slave in his brother’s place. At this point, the truth comes out as Joseph reveals his identity and learns that his father is still alive. The brothers are remorseful about selling Joseph into slavery. Ultimately, seventy of Joseph’s relations make their way down to Egypt, including his father, Jacob.

While Joseph’s family starts off pretty dysfunctional, they get it right by the end. The family comes together after some self-sacrifice and amends are made. The big happy family thrives in Egypt, where Joseph provides for them during the famine.

While I am sure many of you reading this can relate to the lessons we learn here about our immediate families, I would like to challenge you to think of Joseph’s family as a metaphor for a larger community. That may be the world community, the Jewish community, the Cornell community, the Jewish community at Cornell, or your home community. Whatever community you most strongly identify with, picture that in your mind. Right now. After you finish reading this sentence, close your eyes, picture your community, and then open them soon to keep reading the rest.

Now, my question for you is, how will you give of yourself to better your community? What would you sacrifice part of yourself for, as Judah did when he offered himself as a slave in place of his brother to protect his father from heartbreak? How will you plan for and protect members of your community, as Joseph did when he fed his extended family throughout the famine?

As my time as Hillel President draws to a close, I can’t help but reflect on what the past three years on Hillel board have meant to me and how I have served my communities.

I think that my “Aha” moment about service came this past summer when I was volunteering in Israel. I was on a service-learning trip through Repair the World/Onward Israel (you should apply this spring!) and living in Be’er Sheva, the desert city. There, my small cohort volunteered during the day and learned about service in the evenings. I learned about upstream/downstream interventions, about empowerment, about sustainability, about the importance of being a part of the community which you are helping.

These ideas are eloquently summed up by Lilla Watson, an Australian aboriginal leader: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”  This has become the guiding principle of my life.

Many of you reading this know me as “Jordana Gilman, Student President of Cornell Hillel.” But I am writing this dvar torah about service to share with you an important part of me that you may not know about, my experience working with victims of domestic violence and their children.

Seeing the reality on domestic abuse on a daily basis completely changed the way I see the world. I began to see these victims of domestic abuse as victims of societies that prioritize honor over everything--including life itself. I saw how common domestic abuse is across cultures and countries.

I befriended many of the women and I adored the children. Because of the nature of the shelter, though, the families came and left unexpectedly. I never knew if my favorite women would be there the next day. I began to understand what it must be like for the ~40 children who spend months of their lives in that shelter.

Working with three 15 year old girls from Ethiopian families had the biggest impact on me, however. We talked about race, racism, Ethiopia, Israel, President Obama, relationships, and regular teenage girl things like The Vampire Diaries. These young women taught me so much about strength and overcoming adversity. Their mothers were victims of domestic abuse, and that is why they were living in the shelter. However, they were determined to not experience the same cycle of abuse. They worked diligently on their English and other skills so they would be able to be financially independent as adults. It was an honor for me to know them and for me to help them for a summer.

The girls have since moved out of the shelter and I keep in touch with them by facebook. My summer of service is over, but it has opened my eyes to service as a way of life. It is a lifestyle that requires sensitivity, humility (not my strong suit, for those of you who know me, but certainly a goal), compassion, and sacrifice to your community.

Now that I am back on the hill, I have turned my attention to what I can give to Cornell, and what I have given over the past three and a half years. I challenge you to reflect as well.

What will be your service to Cornell? What can you offer of yourself that will leave this place a little bit better than you found it?

And for the Jews in the room, how have you contributed to the Jewish community at Cornell? Have you graced us with your presence at events, have you joined a Jewish Student Group, have you served in a leadership position? Are you a regular at Shabbat, did you light the Hannukah candles in your dorm? Have you led a Super Seder, or hosted a holiday meal at your house through Shabbat Across Cornell? Do you serve as a Hillel Big and mentor Jewish freshmen?

Find a service that speaks to you, and live it.

It has been my honor to serve Cornell Hillel for three years, and I thank you all for supporting me and being a part of that incredible journey.