I had left New York three months earlier, desperate for air. My decision to join the team—a city girl who would be the only woman, a dancer who would wear mountain boots, a medical student who would serve as team doctor—didn’t make sense to most people. But often, when seized by an instinct, I followed it. It’s taken me over three decades to understand that the great peace I felt in the mountains was the perfect antidote to the manic pace of my New York City life, to the divisions and dysfunction of my childhood, to the expectations I felt compelled to fulfill.

—Tap Dancing on Everest

As a young medical student, Dr. Mimi Zieman became the medical expert—and the only woman—on a team scaling Mount Everest. Her memoir, Tap Dancing on Everest, is an adventure story and coming-of-age epic that touches on intersecting themes of feminism, medicine, reverence for nature and her Jewish identity, including how her upbringing as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and of immigrants influenced her life’s journey.

Local book groups are a vital part of Hadassah for many members. If your chapter doesn’t already have one, now’s the time to start! We encourage groups to have their own discussions about Tap Dancing on Everest before or after watching the virtual interview with the author. To facilitate those discussions, we present the following discussion guide.

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1. In Tap Dancing on Everest, author Dr. Mimi Zieman describes her challenging childhood. How did her relationships with her mother and father as well as their parenting styles influence her decisions as a teenager and young woman? How did their life stories both limit her and teach her about the possibility of reinvention? In the book, Mimi reflects on her mother’s best friend’s words: “What you are at seven, you are at seventy.” Do you believe that people mostly stay the same or change over the course of their lives?

 

2. Mimi’s grandmother, whom she called Amama, was a strong female influence on her life. Describe the impact Amama had on Mimi’s abilities and life choices. Do you have a grandparent or other family member who influenced you growing up? Has reading about Amama affected the way you view your interactions with younger generations?

 

3. The importance of travel—seeing and experiencing new places—is embedded in this memoir. Mimi vividly evokes her time in the Rocky Mountains in western America, Israel, Tibet and other locales. Discuss how a sense of wanderlust influenced her and her story. Do travels and adventures make you feel empowered, or do you prefer to stay close to home?

 

4. Another thread woven into Mimi’s account is the priority of learning different languages. How has Mimi’s family experience and childhood emphasized the importance of language? Discuss some of the ways language is used in the book, from German to Hebrew. Did you grow up in a multilingual household? How do you think that has impacted your worldview?

 

5. Tap Dancing on Everest focuses on human strength and frailty. In her travels on the Annapurna Circuit, a long-distance trek in the Annapurna mountain range in Nepal, and as part of the support team for an expedition up the dangerous East Face of Mount Everest, Mimi learns a lot about human endurance, both physically and mentally. What does endurance mean to you in the context of personal challenges? Have you ever pushed yourself through a difficult journey, and if so, what did you learn about yourself in the process?

 

6. Discuss how Mimi shares very candid descriptions of the human body, from her own body discomfort and “fear of fat” as a child to the intense physical discomforts and indignities of her expeditions. How did her attitude toward her body change throughout the book? What were your first thoughts when reading about the frostbite, infections and illnesses as well as the lack of privacy and physical discomforts of her trips? Did your perspective change as you continued reading Mimi’s story?

 

7. Throughout the memoir, Mimi frequently describes breaking gender norms by making certain choices. For example, she describes being one of the few women trekking alone through the Annapurna Circuit. What do you think about her decision to travel solo? How do you think being the only woman on the Everest team impacted her experience, potentially resulting in additional risks or challenges? Describe how she breaks other boundaries in her journeys, both personal and societal.

 

8. Explore how Mimi’s relationship with Judaism and with spirituality evolve throughout the book, from her early childhood adherence to Orthodoxy to her finding spirituality in nature. How did you relate to Mimi’s descriptions of her Jewish life and identity?

 

9. Mimi lists the random circumstances that landed her on the Everest team in a format that mimics the Passover song “Dayenu,” writing that these circumstances feel like a symphony of the universe playing in the background. What do you think of her drawing a parallel between the song of the Jewish nation’s path to Israel and her own path to Everest? Her “Dayenu” traces the path—both direct and indirect—that led her to the expedition on Mount Everest. Do you regard her journey toward becoming a doctor as equally circuitous?

 

10. Mimi is searching for her identity and place in the world, finding both spiritual meaning and resonance in nature and solitude, and in her book, she makes a connection to how Hasidic rabbis would recommend meditation in the fields  Discuss experiences you’ve had that helped you with self-discovery. Has this book changed the way you think about belonging? Does nature have a place in your life?

 

11. In the epilogue, Mimi jumps forward several years to describe the impact of the Everest expedition on its members and concludes with another story about taking risks in her career and personal life. What do you think of the risks she and the other members of her team took? Were they worth the prices they paid? Did reading this story make you reconsider your approach to taking risks? Did it inspire you to move forward with a risk you’ve been hesitant to take?