E.M. Broner and the Orange on Your Seder Plate

Each week, we select the most interesting Jewish obituary. This week, it is that of E.M. Broner, who died Tuesday at 83. If you have ever held or attended a feminist Seder, you likely have the author of 1977’s A Woman’s Haggadah, to thank: Likely the first of its kind, it decrees that the door be opened for Miriam, not Elijah, and that the First Question be, “Why is this Haggadah different from traditional Haggadot? Because this Haggadah deals with the Exodus of women.” Beyond her haggadah (which was initially published in Ms., and not as a book until 1994), Broner was a celebrated novelist and memoirist who, as the Times puts it, “was among the first writers to consider feminism and Judaism as parts of a seamless if difficult-to-integrate whole,” and especially focused on the spiritual characters of the two.

E.M. Broner, Jewish Feminist, Dies at 83 [NYT]