How Should We Remember Dina? Parashat Vayishlach

The Silence of Dinah and Other Rape Victims by Rabbi Laura Geller
While many commentaries understand that by locking Dinah in a box Jacob intends to protect her from marrying his brother Esau, we know the truth of the story. Hiding Dinah — locking her up — is a powerful image about silencing women. And that silence echoes loudly through the rest of the Torah.
What happens next? Dinah gets an ultimate act of silencing: The commentaries understand Dinah’s rape as Jacob’s punishment for withholding her from Esau. Dinah’s rape is Jacob’s punishment? What about Dinah? What has she done? How does she feel? Out text is silent. We only know what her brothers and father think: that she has been defiled (34:5-7), that she must not be treated as a whore (34:31). No one in the Torah or the midrashic accounts asks her what she wants, what she needs, or how she can be comforted.

from Dina's Own Story, by Vanessa Ochs
Source: A Woman's Commentary
Dina tried to imagine having a story of her own to tell, of connections she had made that could widen their world. Her story would make her brothers lean forward with curiosity and jealousy, their elbows on their knees, their faces lit orange by the fire.
What if it were she, and not her father, who had encountered angels of God ascending and descending a ladder? She would have learned the name of each angel. She would have held on to their wings, climbed on their backs, and followed them homeward--and then she'd reciprocate, inviting them to her home. If she could only meet people outside her world, hear their languages, eat their foods, shop for red ribbon in their bazaars, wear their clothes, style her hair as they did. She would make a friend, who would reach for her hand...

A Poem written to Anita Diamant from the perspective of Dina, by Muktha Nair
To my daughter
Through whose words,
my soul lives on.
Some say I was raped,
But the world is yet to know the truth,
One that cannot be avenged, in my name.
But you, my Anita,
You have given me voice.
No longer just a forgotten name
Among words,
Written by men who know not.
You, as a fellow woman,
Have fulfilled the secret womanly vow,
By ensuring utterance of my name
giving a life to my name,
Thoughts to my name,
A voice to my name.
Giving me a place in the hearts of all;
Realizing the debacles of debates
Only wither away at the little felicity
Left for me.
Now my name
will be remembered,
In love,
In pain,
At birth
At death.
Not as a cursed whore;
But as a knowing Woman.

(A poem written to Anita Diamant from the perspective of Dina)
A Note to Anita by Sara Milic
(source: https://lilith.org/2019/08/talking-back-to-the-red-tent-in-the-metoo-era/)
I am being stripped of my story
You’re covering my mouth
I can’t breathe, I’m panicking
You were supposed to be the knight on the white horse,
The foreign prince coming to save me
You tricked me with your stories of sweet bread
And nights of cuddling in the tent
I trusted you, my sister, to let my soul go free
To unleash me from this burden I’ve been carrying
To tell my truth, to expose my aggressor
Anita, I’m crying – can’t you hear me?
Tell them he raped me, Anita
Are you listening?
You changed my story
I know it’s hard to read
My sister, I wish I could forget it
You’ve taken from me, just as he did,
My voice and my sense of self
Will there ever be justice for me,
Or for the sisters before me?
Will the sisters after me be believed?
Anita, will you be the savior of the silenced?
Or will you lay your hand over their mouth,
And take from them what isn’t yours to keep?
Don’t tell them he loved me,
Don’t lie and say I loved him
Please, don’t tell them I was happy
When will my rape end?