{"id":108,"date":"2010-01-07T09:32:50","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T09:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisabravermoss.wordpress.com\/?p=108"},"modified":"2022-06-07T20:31:04","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T20:31:04","slug":"rotten-acceptances-a-writers-favorite-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisabravermoss.com\/rotten-acceptances-a-writers-favorite-nightmare\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotten Acceptances: A Writer&#8217;s Favorite Nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We\u2019ve all chuckled over the \u201crotten rejections\u201d writers have endured on the way to fame. <em>\u201cI\u2019m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don\u2019t know how to use the English language.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Well, I seem to rack up \u201crotten acceptances.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s the price I pay for choosing a controversial religious subject to write about.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">First I should mention that I\u2019m proud of my Jewish heritage, and that I\u2019m actively affiliated with a local synagogue and several Jewish groups.\u00a0 I do, however, wrestle with my tradition, and years ago, started writing articles questioning infant circumcision.\u00a0 With its medical, spiritual, sexual, and ethnic complexities\u2014and because I\u2019d like to inspire thoughtful inquiry into a topic too often dominated by sophomoric jokes and inflammatory rhetoric\u2014this issue has become a significant area of interest for me as a writer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Soon after my first article appeared in a progressive Jewish magazine, I submitted another to a conservative Jewish intellectual journal.\u00a0 The result was my first rotten acceptance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cI find your arguments against [Jewish circumcision] utterly destructive,\u201d begins the typo-filled missive, going on to describe one of my points as \u201csheer idiocy\u201d that \u201ctakes the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It continues.\u00a0 \u201cHowever, it seems to me very penetrating;\u201d\u2014I still have no idea whether that was meant as a pun\u2014\u201cI look forward to printing it, sometime in the spring.\u00a0 Most cordially\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Last week, I got another rotten acceptance.\u00a0 This time, I had sent a Jewish publication an essay about what I see as a hidden feminist issue within the circumcision controversy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I\u2019ve always found it odd that trailblazing Jewish feminists generally defend the circumcision tradition, focusing on girls\u2019 baby-naming ceremonies in an attempt to counter the obvious gender inequity of this ritual. \u00a0The idea has apparently been to make things as equal as possible for girls from the get-go.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Meanwhile, grown Jewish women who are ethically opposed to their sons\u2019 circumcisions are often dismissed or marginalized, either subtly or overtly, in Jewish life.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if, when it comes to this particular practice, women\u2019s ethics and spirituality matter less than men\u2019s.\u00a0 Why, I ask, do Jewish feminists continue to accept such condescension?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201c[Your article] ends with so, so many questions,\u201d says the e-mailed response to my submission.\u00a0 \u201cThe piece we\u2019re looking for should reach conclusions, not invite women (and the reader) to ask all these questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">And I thought my job was to get people to think.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I had to read the letter through several times before realizing that at the end was an offer to print the piece\u2014as written\u2014in a special issue of the journal rather than in its weekly incarnation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cRottenness\u201d aside, I feel deeply grateful that I can get my work published in Jewish periodicals even if it\u2019s considered provocative, with no fear of reprisal any more serious than being verbally criticized.\u00a0 How many religious groups can embrace their own iconoclasts to that degree?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Meanwhile, I\u2019ve written a contemporary literary novel which I\u2019m currently shopping to agents and small presses.\u00a0 So far, only rejections.\u00a0 <em>Doesn\u2019t fit our list\u2026 Original idea, but not for me&#8230;\u00a0 It\u2019s a difficult time in publishing\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I\u2019m bracing myself for the acceptance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Published in <em>Piedmont Post<\/em> January 6, 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019ve all chuckled over the \u201crotten rejections\u201d writers have endured on the way to fame. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don\u2019t know how to use the English language.\u201d Well, I seem to rack up \u201crotten acceptances.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s the price I pay for choosing a controversial religious subject to write about. First I&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[193],"tags":[91,92,93,94,95],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rotten Acceptances: A Writer&#039;s Favorite Nightmare - Lisa Braver Moss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lisabravermoss.com\/rotten-acceptances-a-writers-favorite-nightmare\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rotten Acceptances: A Writer&#039;s Favorite Nightmare - Lisa Braver Moss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We\u2019ve all chuckled over the \u201crotten rejections\u201d writers have endured on the way to fame. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don\u2019t know how to use the English language.\u201d Well, I seem to rack up \u201crotten acceptances.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s the price I pay for choosing a controversial religious subject to write about. 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