Passover Traditions

In her letter to the editor in the April 1, 2018 New York Times, Professor Susannah Heschel comments on Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's recent article about "the changes in women's roles in our religions and his awarenes that the issue is not merely equality of women, but also radical transformations of our religious practices and theological understandings." She also clarifies the custom she originated - out of solidarity with gay and lesbian Jews (not out of support for women in the pulpit, as Kristof suggests) - of placing an orange on the Seder plate. "Women are on the bimah," she observes, but "there is much more we still need to accomplish."