Participants from around the country gathered at Hillel this weekend to explore the issues facing modern Jewish women as they try to balance secular and religious life.

The conference, entitled Jewish Superwomen: Living in Two Realms, brought together secular and religious perspectives to examine the two aspects of a Jewish woman's life--feminist career ambitions and traditional religious values--through a series of panels and workshops.

The motivation for the conference, sponsored by Harvard Hillel, came from its organizers' experiences trying to juggle a traditional religious life and a career-oriented secular education.

"There are discrepancies between the life I lead as an Orthodox Jew and the life I lead as a secular egalitarian," said Conference Co-chair Rebecca A. Rakow '01.

Wendy Wasserstein, a Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist, and Dr. Susan J. Blumenthal, the Assistant Surgeon General and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Women's Health, spoke Friday about the secular successes of Jewish women.

"We wanted to provide examples of women who had succeeded in a secular world while maintaining their faith," Rakow said.

Novelist Rebecca Goldstein led a workshop about how she draws on her personal conflict as a Jewish woman in her writing.

"Choosing Orthodoxy limits you; it closes off options," Goldstein said. "That's fine for some women and it is a voluntary choice, but some of the rules of Orthodoxy unnecessarily limit women."