Jewish feminism
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Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to improve the religious, legal, and social status of women within Judaism and to open up new opportunities for religious experience and leadership for Jewish women. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of Judiasm.
In its modern form, the movement can be traced to the early 1970s in the United States. According to Judith Plaskow, who has focused on feminism in Reform Judaism, the main issues for early Jewish feminists in these movements were the exclusion from the all-male prayer group or minyan, the exemption from positive time-bound mitzvot, and women's inability to function as witnesses and to initiate divorce. [1]
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[edit] Origins of the movement
According to historian Paula Hyman, two articles published in 1970 on the role of women in Judaism were particularly influential. "The Unfreedom of Jewish Women," published in the Jewish Spectator by its editor, Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, criticized the treatment of women in Jewish law, followed in 1972 by an article by Rachel Adler, then an Orthodox Jew and currently a professor at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, called "The Jew Who Wasn't There: Halakhah and the Jewish Woman," published in Davka a countercultural magazine. [2]
[edit] Conservative Judaism and feminism
In 1972, a group of ten New York feminists calling themselves Ezrat Nashim (the women's courtyard or the women's section in a synagogue), took the issue of equality for women to the 1972 convention of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly, presenting a document on March 14 that they named the "Call for Change." The rabbis received the document in their convention packets, but Ezrat Nashim presented it during a meeting with the rabbis' wives.
The "Call for Change" demanded that women be accepted as witnesses before Jewish law, be considered as bound to perform all mitzvot, be allowed full participation in religious observances, have equal rights in marriage and be allowed to initiate divorce, be counted in the minyan, and be permitted to assume positions of leadership in the synagogue and within the general Jewish community. Paula Hyman, who was a member of Ezrat Nashim, wrote that: "We recognized that the subordinate status of women was linked to their exemption from positive time-bound mitzvot (commandments), and we therefore accepted increased obligation as the corollary of equality." [3] Eleven years later, in October 1983, the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), the main educational institution of the Conservative Movement, announced its decision to accept women into the Rabbinical School. Hyman took part in the vote as a member of the JTS faculty
[edit] Orthodox Judaism and feminism
Orthodox feminism, like its Conservative and Reform/Reconstructionist counterparts, seeks to improve the position of women in Jewish law, life, and leadership. However, it differs in several key respects. Firstly, it fundamentally accepts and is loyal to the Divinity of Jewish law. Accepting that Jewish law is God's, not ours, it seeks change only in a manner that can be defended as a traditional and legitimately Jewish and halakhic process, and it seeks to work with rather than against the rabbinate and the halakhic process. Therefore, in conflicts between halakha and arguments from egalitarianism, Orthodox feminists have remained loyal to halakha, even in the face of severe criticism from both anti-Orthodox feminists and anti-feminist Orthodox. Secondly, Orthodox Feminism neither requires precisely equal roles between men and women, as has been the tendency in Conservative Judaism, nor does it seek to overthrow the religious tradition and substitute new sources and traditions, as has been suggested by Reform feminists such as Rachel Adler and Judith Plaskow. Rather, accepting the possibility that somewhat different approaches may be appropriate for men and women, Orthodox feminism generally seeks support for acceptable means to improve women's halakhic (religious-legal) status, a significant presence and role within the public communal service, and new, supplemental traditions, or the reinstitution of old traditions, of importance to women's lives and worship, within what it regards as the traditional manner in which laws are interpreted and new prayers and customs adopted within traditional Judaism historically. Orthodox Feminism tends to focus on specific, practical issues, such as the problems of agunah, fostering women's education, leadership, and participation, and arguments for involvement in specific rituals.
One reason for a different agenda for Orthodox feminism is its need to focus on issues which became largely non-existent in more liberal branches of Judaism prior to the appearance of Jewish feminism in the 1970s. These issues include the agunah problem arising from a lack of legal power in certain circumstances to initiate a divorce, problems of access to advanced religious education, and matters of physical access and personal comfort in matters of tzniut (modesty), such as, for example, the construction of mechitzot which permit women to see and hear services. (See Mechitza#Proper height of synagogue mechitza) [4] [5]
In 1997, Blu Greenberg founded the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance to educate and advocate for women's increased participation in Orthodox Jewish life and to create a community for women and men dedicated to such change. [6]
[edit] See also
- Role of women in Judaism
- Rachel Adler
- Blu Greenberg
- Judith Hauptman
- Susannah Heschel
- Paula Hyman
- Judith Plaskow
- Trude Weiss-Rosmarin
- Tamar Ross
- Shira Hadasha
- Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance
- Partnership Minyan
- Role of women in religion
- Gloria Steinem
[edit] Notes
- ^ Plaskow, Judith. "Jewish Feminist Thought" in Frank, Daniel H. & Leaman, Oliver. History of Jewish Philosophy, Routledge, first published 1997; this edition 2003.
- ^ Adler, Rachel. ""The Jew Who Wasn't There: Halakhah and the Jewish Woman." Davka (Summer 1972) 7-11.
- ^ Jewish Women's Archive
- ^ Greenberg, Blu. On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition. Jewish Publication Society of America, 1981. ISBN 0-8276-0226-X
- ^ Ross, Tamar. Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism. Brandeis University Press, 2004. ISBN 1-58465-390-6
- ^ Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance
[edit] References
- Hymen, E. Paula & Dash Moore, Deborah. (eds) (1997) Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Routledge, ISBN 0-415-91934-7
- "Jewish women and the feminist revolution", Jewish Women's Archive
- Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA)
- Plaskow, Judith. "Jewish Feminist Thought" in Frank, Daniel H. & Leaman, Oliver. History of Jewish Philosophy, Routledge, first published 1997; this edition 2003.
[edit] Further reading
- Feldman, Emanual. "Orthodox Feminism and Feminist Orthodoxy". Jewish Action Winter 1999 (pdf)
- Adler, Rachel. "The Jew Who Wasn't There: Halakha and the Jewish Woman," in Heschel, S. (ed). On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader, Schocken, 1983.
- Adler, Rachel. Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics. Beacon Press, 1998.
- Adler, Rachel. "Feminist Judaism: Past and Future", Crosscurrents, Winter 2002, Vol. 51, No 4.
- Greenberg, Blu. "Will There Be Orthodox Women Rabbis?". Judaism 33.1 (Winter 1984): 23-33.
- ____________. "Is Now the Time for Orthodox Women Rabbis?". Moment Dec. 1992: 50-53, 74.
- Hyman, Paula. "The Other Half: Women in the Jewish Tradition" in E. Koltun. The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives, Shocken 1976.
- Ner-David, Haviva. Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination. Needham, MA: JFL Books, 2000.
- Nussbaum Cohen, Debra. "The women’s movement, Jewish identity and the story of a religion transformed," TheJewishWeek.com, June 17, 2004
- Ozick, Cynthia. "Notes toward finding the right question" in Heschel, S. On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader. Schocken, 1983.
- Plaskow, Judith. "The right question is theological" in Heschel, S. On being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader, Shocken, 1983(a).
- _____________. "Language, God and Liturgy: A Feminist Perspective," Response 44:3-14, 1983(b).
- _____________. Standing again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective, Harper and Row, 1990(a)
- _____________. "Beyond Egalitarianism," Tikkun 5.6:79-81, 1990(b).
- _____________. "Facing the Ambiguity of God," Tikkun. 6.5:70-1, 1991.
- Ruttenberg, Danya, ed. "Yentl's Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism." Seal Press, 2001.
- Umansky, E. & Ashton, D. (eds) Four Centuries of Jewish Women's Spirituality: A Sourcebook, Beacon, 1992.
- Wolowelsky, Joel B. "Feminism and Orthodox Judaism", Judaism, 188, 47:4, 1998, 499-507.
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