ARE YOU MARRIED, DO YOU HAVE CHILDREN?
By: Suri Davis
I was moved to tears yesterday, as my female friend was sworn in as judge. She was inducted with two other male judges, who were introduced to those present by colleagues, judges and attorneys with whom they worked. The male judges had a familiar trajectory, having worked in the District Attorney’s office or as a judge’s law clerk or a big firm.
Not my female friend, she was introduced by someone who knew her work well, her son. He talked about her long days as an attorney, and how he and his siblings knew that they were their mother’s number one priority. She chose to have her three children as a single mom/single income mom. And he was so very proud of her, that he is attending law school in her footsteps.
When my friend spoke after she was sworn in by her uncle, she spoke about having her first opportunity in a law firm. When she was called out one day because her son had to be brought from school to the doctor for stitches, when she returned the next day to work, the managing attorney warned her that her job was at stake, if she ever had to care for her child again in the middle of the day. He suggested to her that she get a nanny who could drive, and take care of these “errands” for her. This was a seminal moment for her, the day she decided to go out on her own. How proud her mother was of her becoming an attorney.
Decades passed and she built her practice and became well known for her work defending minors and protecting minors in their family, and her devotion to the political party and the grit required for her to make it to the top without the traditional male trajectory. I cried when her son and when she spoke. I could feel her jubilation, but I saw the dust at her feet as well. She made it to the end of the marathon, but I could see the journey in her as well.
I called up my friend who I met in Hillel Day Camp 40 years ago, we were lifeguards together. She came to my home a few weeks ago for Shabbos dinner and my daughter was present with her husband and daughter. And in context Sue looked at me and asked “Suri, did it take 90% of your efforts to defy gravity in your profession.” I looked at her with tears and said, no 100% of my efforts. It was an opening to walk down memory lane.
I remember how those around me who heard that I wanted to go to law school were clear that it would be difficult for me to find a shidduch, that men would be intimidated by my intelligence, as my bubby told me several times when we baked together, “Surileh, don’t be so smart.” Sue reminded me how a woman graduating from law school in our community was so rare, that when I graduated law school, the White Shul president announced it in shul, and there was a communal gasp, and eventually mazel tovs. Defying gravity.
I worked on Wall Street for seven years. First in commodities, then in mergers and acquisitions and finally mortgaged back securities. In an effort to break the glass ceiling, I smoked cigars and drank great scotch with the best of them, to no avail, other than to smoke good cigars and drink great scotch. There were no women on the on the trading floor, and I made it to Junior Vice President, and that’s where I stalled.
I married and started having children. I was attending court in New Jersey several times a week. I was picked up via limousine, brought my son, his knapsack and my briefcase in the car, dropped him off at Gan, and went on my way. He told his morah that he comes to school in “ema’s court car.”
Headhunters called me for interviews in firms. The lawyers, well versed in the law, ignored the law, and inevitably, 100% of the time, I was asked if I was married and had children. The inevitable regrets that I couldn’t be hired for one reason or another. In those days, you wouldn’t sue a firm, because that would blacklist you from other future opportunities, which all ended up the same, after the question of family.
And on the days, the kids woke with strep, or the flu, or didn’t want to go to school, there was no question who was taking off from work, and how I scrambled to find per diem attorneys who could cover for me in court, so I could be the one to take my son to the doctor, sit with him when he was feverish, squirt the bubble gum medicine in his mouth and watch Barney videos with him. It was my pleasure, but it was exhausting.
We orthodox working women, we have grit. Shabbos starts on Wednesday, and ends Sunday evening, when the cholent pot is finally scraped clean.
And when my marriage was coming to an end, I received warnings, “what will happen with your children’s shidduchim prospects.” Honestly, I wanted to scream, WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT BAS KOL WHO ANNOUNCED WHEN THE CHILD WAS 40 DAYS IN UTERO WHO MY CHILD WOULD MARRY? Presumably, the bas kol, would have known, should have known that by the time my kids were ready to marry, I would be divorced, and bh, they all came home during Covid in 2020, and within 15 months, three of them were married to the nicest people ever. Man, that bas kol had it spot on.
I have lived in the Five Towns all my life. My family is living here for 6 generations. We moved from Brooklyn because we didn’t want the constraints of those who came from Europe where men dominate and women cant ride a bicycle or in some cases drive a car, under the guise of modesty. But now these men have come to our community and have taken control of government and allocated token spaces for women. What a shame.
My grandmother, Florence Bogner, was born in New York in 1915. She was born January 28, 1915. She graduated with honors from Hunter college at the age of 16 and got in to New York University Medical School. She became a bacteriologist and worked in the penicillin lab during World War II and New York’s first blood bank. Aside from this job, she was a rebbetzin to a pulpit Rabbi, and at the end of the day, she would choose a chicken, have the shochet kill it, pluck the chicken, kasher the chicken and make dinner.
My grandfather’s sister, Esther Steinberg, was the first woman Editor in Chief of the Brooklyn Law School Law Review.
My name Lenore is for my great great aunt Lenore Ohrbachs, yes who owned the Ohrbachs store. She died childless in 1964, and I was named after her a few months later.
Strong women run in my family, and yet it appears that women’s rights have not progressed as one would have thought in 100 years since my grandmother was born. The casting couch, the judicial bench are still active, the glass ceiling is now made of plexiglass and harder than ever to break through.
I have put in my efforts to smash the glass ceiling, but the men’s club inside Orthodox Judaism and in the general public is stronger and more influential than ever. It is notoriously difficult for women to convince women of influence and power to mentor them. I don’t know why, but it has to change.
I write this today to say, that I am so very proud of my friend for getting the powers that be in Nassau County political parties to nominate her as judge, but we women should not have to continue to work 10x hard to be given opportunities against men who have a fraction of the capabilities or equal capabilities, but are considered at more than double the number of women who are equally or better qualified to serve as judges and executives in the C-Suite. Caring for our family should be considered as all skills of management, to the benefit of the women, and not to their detriment.
I am so grateful to HKBH for the opportunities provided to me, and those not provided to me. I have a practice in the Five Towns and New Jersey that has been strong for 35 years, SOLELY with the watchful eye of G-d. I adore my clients, now four generations strong. When I get the call for Business Succession Planning, Medicaid Planning, RL caring for those who are dying, or who have passed on, and the estate is at peace, and those connected with them are at peace, I am so very grateful for the yeses and especially the no’s throughout my life. So very grateful for these 35 years.
It’s all in G-d’s hands, we are where we are supposed to be.
The challenge of faith and trust in G-d.
Good Shabbos.
-Suri