“A few years ago … I started working on storytelling with my twelve-year-old granddaughter. After she chose a Jewish story to learn, we began to visualize the characters in her story. When asked to describe how she saw Elijah the prophet, she said, without hesitation, 'I see a woman.'
“I was floored…. [Her] response illustrated the cognitive dissonance [between her generation and mine].
“Although I’d been slipping female characters into oral stories for years, as I’m sure other storytellers have done, I was hesitant to commit that experiment to print. The haunting question of 'Who am I to change the sacred tradition?' remained. However, when I witnessed my granddaughter’s innocent effort to imagine a major Jewish character as female, it become obvious that these changes needed to be published, and an answer emerged. Who am I? A Jewish storyteller, that’s who. And my colleagues and I have the responsibility and privilege to provide a turning point for future generations of storytellers, readers, and listeners.”
