The Changing of Times, the Changes of Roles :: Essays Papers

The Changing of Times, the Changes of Roles After braving the hard travels and experiencing even worse, almost unbearable, living conditions of the pioneer life, the Jewish women gained a sense of a new freedom and a new reality that was only offered in the harsh, wild desert of the Southern Arizona territory. During these times of pioneers, many great histories and legacies of the small, scattered Jewish communities were established. Although these groups were small in numbers, there was a very large and dynamic impact. For example, of the Goldwaters of Phoenix, one of the more better known descendants, the late Senator Barry Goldwater impacted the federal as well as the state governments in politics until his death. Or the Capins, whose mercantile enterprise produced various large business chains throughout Arizona.(1) Or perhaps, the Bloom family, whose Bloom and Sons stores provided for the Tucson community for over eighty years!(2) The Jewish women of such families, although many unnamed and unrecognized for their work, have also help shape the fledgling Southern Arizona territory. These women broke the traditional guidelines of how to behave and how to live, which would have normally kept them in the home. â€Å"The escape from the ‘kosher beds’, from early marriage, the rituals accompanying menstrual purity, the continual burden of childbirth, was particularly dramatic in the case of the women revolutionaries...(3)† These Jewish women became, in a sense, revolutionaries; their generation produced radical changes in what a women's roles should be. Their source of strength can almost be credited to the Southern Arizona environment of those changing times, where etiquette and grace were not necessary nor needed in an area where rogues, flash floods, and the heat existed. Some Jewish women began to drop their traditional roles as mothers and wives to become doctors, nurses, teachers, even lawyers and active members in the community to better help the growing communities. In this paper, I plan to introduce my theory that the changes that led to the trailblazing of America also led to the trailblazing of the Jewish women, and I am using specific examples of local Jewish women of Tucson and Nogales, Arizona to show that the destruction and reconstruction of the ideal Jewish woman occurred during this dramatic time of mass migration, pioneerism and growth of America herself. The new times called for changes, and these changes were evident in the Jewish women's increasing involvement in their communities.