Feminist Seder Pioneer Esther Bronner Is Subject Of New Documentary

by Sandee Brawarsky for The Jewish Week

At the feminist seders led by novelist E.M. Broner, the women would go around and introduce themselves matrilineally, naming as many ancestors as they knew. Broner wanted to be sure that they remembered the generations of women who spent the seder in the kitchen, preparing and serving, leaving the telling of the Passover story to the men.

In 1976, Broner, who is perhaps best known for her experimental and critically acclaimed novel “A Weave of Women,” created the first feminist seders, held in Manhattan and Haifa. Now hundreds of women’s seders are held around the world, but few credit Broner, who died in 2011 at age 83, as the pioneer.

Lilly Rivlin’s new film, “Esther Broner: A Weave of Women,” the story of Broner’s life and career woven together with her leadership of the feminist seder, spotlights Broner’s contributions and her uncommon spirit. Her life was a weave of connections — between past and present, and among the women whose lives she threaded together.

In an interview with The Jewish Week, Rivlin explains that she first met Broner when she was invited to the second feminist seder in 1977; Rivlin was then anointed one of the seder sisters. But she only decided to make this film a few days before Broner’s death, when she and a group of the closest circle of friends — who called themselves the weave — got together after visiting Broner in the hospital and going to Shabbat services. They knew their friend was dying.

“I felt like I had to make a film about her,” Rivlin says. But she never sat down to interview Broner, as she did with subjects of her other films, like novelist and short story writer Grace Paley. Instead, Rivlin unfolds the story through archival footage of the seders and other events, along with her own narration and interviews with leading feminists Gloria Steinem, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Michelle Landsberg and others. She also includes footage of Broner’s second wedding, held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her marriage to painter Robert Broner.

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