Idoloclasm: The First Task of Second Wave Liberal Jewish Feminism (original) (raw)
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Unhyphenated Jewish religious feminism
After 9/11 and with the reawakening of a feminist criticism of religion, particularly of Muslim women who insist on wearing the veil as an act of piety, Mahmood (2005) offered a new way to conceive the pious female subject " in a context where submission to certain forms of (external) authority is a condition for achieving the subject's potentiality. " Following her, but in contrast to her Focaultian analysis of subjectivization, we use Deleuze and Guattari's work in A Thousand Plateaus to propose a reading which views thoughts and actions as events of double articulation; neither unidirectional nor bidirectional but a product of lines of flight and a rupture of the hegemonic power through movement toward the margins. In order to do so, this case study discusses how Orthodox Jewish women are creating unhyphenated religious feminism without falling into the binaries of religion and feminism that assume conflicting rationalities. We interviewed 44 women who openly declared themselves feminists and religiously orthodox, all of them members of the feminist religious organization Kolech (" your voice " in English). Feminist scholars who previously engaged with Deleuze and Guattari's theory wrestled with concepts of identity and difference. By contrast, we attempt to show how the concept of flights to the margins in daily decisions and actions articulates a religious feminist female subjectivity as multiplicity in spaces where the authority of both is redefined. The women we interviewed positioned themselves on the seams of religion and feminism by experimenting with temporary actions that changed according to the conditions and possibilities of their lives. The women of Kolech teach us that a feminist critique of religion, and more generally of liberal democracy, is possible from the margins where subjects can exercise their desires and ideas more freely.
Modern Jewish Thought and Jewish Feminist Thought: An Uncommon Conversation
2012
Modern Jewish thought is that area of Jewish thought that emerges in response to the Jewish encounter with modernity. It spans the earliest contributions of modern Jewish philosophers and religious reformers in 19th-century Europe to contemporary thinkers from Jewish communities around the world today. Jewish feminist thought also stands out as a vital stream within modern Jewish thought. Although most histories and anthologies of modern Jewish thought do not normatively include Jewish feminist thinkers as significant contributors to this intellectual history, selected Jewish feminist thinkers like Judith Plaskow and Rachel Adler should be integrated into modern Jewish thought's disciplinary narrative. The following discussion of current scholarship in modern Jewish thought, modern Jewish philosophy and Jewish feminism places Jewish feminist thought firmly within the history, methods and subject of modern Jewish thought. Taking seriously the inherent inclusiveness of the term modern Jewish thought and redrawing its boundaries to explicitly include Jewish feminist thinkers exposes the shared concern of each discipline. Doing so foregrounds common themes and questions occasioned by modern Jewish life such as Israel, Jewish identity, tradition and halakha, the status and authority of sacred texts and revelation and the constitution and diversity of Jewish communities. Such a comparative approach also draws attention to dissonance-particularly around questions of gender and sexuality in Judaism that are raised around transgender, gay and lesbian Jewish life and gender and halakah. Modern Jewish thought is that area of Jewish thought that emerges in response to the Jewish encounter with modernity. It spans the earliest contributions of modern Jewish philosophers and religious reformers in 19th-century Europe to contemporary thinkers from Jewish communities around the world. 1 Its methods and questions are scholarly, discursive and primarily (but not exclusively) philosophical and theological. It is similar to other forms of modern religious thought in critically responding to modern critiques of traditional understandings of truth, knowledge and authority that have such serious implications for religion and religious thought. It is a conversation distinguished by its critical relationship to Judaism, modern thought and modern scholarship. Similarly, Jewish feminist thought is the scholarly, discursive and often philosophical and theological, expression of Jewish feminism and its disciplinary conversation is distinguished by its critical relationship to Judaism, feminist thought and modern scholarship. Jewish feminism's earliest iterations are still not well understood but are linked to first wave feminism, 18th-to 20th-century Jewish women's social activism and philanthropy and salon culture. 2 Although the Jewish feminists of the 1970s who were associated with second wave feminism, the civil rights movement and gay liberation have historically overshadowed these Jewish feminist and proto-Jewish feminists, Jewish feminist thought's most basic foundations are bound up in many of the same forces that shaped Jewish experiences of modernity and modern Jewish thought-including liberalism, rationalism, secularism and humanism. While Jewish feminism began with questions about gender
The Impact of Gender on Jewish Religious Thought. Exemplar: Jewish Feminist Theology
Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies (1759-1953)
Jewish feminists have been criticizing and reformulating their tradition's theological language, concepts and ethics since the 1970s. With principal reference to the work of Judith Plaskow, Rachel Adler, Tamar Ross, and Melissa Raphael, this article outlines some key aspects of the Jewish feminist theological project. The article goes on to suggest that while Orthodox Jewish feminism might attend more closely to a revision of the gendered theology that informs its halakhic observance, the prophetic momentum of liberal Jewish feminist theology might be greater were it to profess a more personalist, realist account of the exercise of the divine redemptive will in history.
2018
I GREW UP IN THE SYNAGOGUE of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Vatican of the Conservative movement-then the largest denomination of American Judaism, and, like American Judaism as a whole, a de nomination in conflict with itself. Wanting to accommodate modernity without relinquishing the authority of Jewish law, many of the movement's practices seemed to be h yp ocritical compromises with mod ern exigencies-like ruling that it is legally permissible to drive a car on Shabbat-while many others seemed intransigent and guided by sheer prejudice. The seminary trains rabbis to serve congregations with mixed gender seating, yet the seminary's own synagogue followed Orthodox Jewish practice in keeping men and women separated. I started protesting as soon as I could talk, but I was born into a medieval world. Some of Judaism's most prominent leaders at the time told me, "Sure, study chemistry. It'll help you be a good cook." The vice chancellor of the seminary explained that women could not possibly be called up to the Torah for the honor of making a blessing because he and his male colleagues would admire their legs, not their· piety. The bottom line was women' s submission to male authority. Even when changes were made by the Conservative movement in which women xv were slowly permitted to take a more active role in Jewish rimal and prayer, the decisions were made by men, on the basis of texts authored by men. How was it possible not to be indoctrinated, co-opted, sucked into the mentality that men, as authors of texts and interpreters oflaw, have exclu sive authority? After all, the wives of the seminary's faculty and students never" expressed discontent. What gene did I have that made me rebel? Once, while in college, I took a friend who hac\ ';' ever heard of the joyous, raucous holiday of Simchat Torah to services at the seminary. AB soon as we arrived, he was handed a Torah scroll and welcomed enthusias tically into a crowd of euphoric, dancing, singing men. AB usual, I had to stand in the back, watching with the women. After an hour, I could no longer control my rage and I simply threw myself into the crowd of men and started dancing, too. A rabbinical student angrily grabbed me and demanded, "Who gave you permission to dance?" Calmly, I replied, "God." He threw me out. Jewish feminism is not about equality with men. Why should we women want to define ourselves by imitating male Jewishness? Nor is it about degrees of oppression, whereby the more traditional realms ofJudaism are the "worst" and the less traditional are the "best." AB Lilith magazine founder Susan Weidman Schneider pointed out years ago, even liberal congregations that have women rabbis ofren still have an invisi . ble curtain separating women from men. That is, instimtional sexism-a 1950s sub urban bourgeois mentali ty that expects women to be stay-at-home moms, available to chauffeur their kids to Hebrew school and volunteer in the community-still prevails in many politically liberal Jewish communities. How many congregations provide da ycar e? How many have overcome the "Noah S yn drome," which expects all congregants to be members of hetero sexual couples? Feminism is about women's refusal to submit to male authority. The real issue is not equality, but power. Who's in charge? Who defines Judaism, and who d�termines whether or not we get to dance with the Torah? The XVI SUSANNAH HESCHEL \ point of feminism is to create institutional strucmres and mental frame works in which women act as their own authority, determining for them selves the namre of the Jewishness that best expresses their identity. What makes the wonderful essays that Danya Ruttenber ,:; lps � collected in this volume so original and inspiring is their tone: Third wave Jewish feminists have a choice. Thanks to the hard work of earlier generations of feminists, the spirit of fighting-and the anger-has given way to free choice among Judaism' s many different traditions, with the joy that such freedom engenders. Third-wave Jewish feminists are their own authorities. They choose whether to study Talmud in an Orthodox yeshiva or create new feminist rituals; whether to marry a man or a woman; whether to bear children or not; whether to volunteer on a kibbutz or work for Habirat for Human ity. The Jewish alternatives have existed since these women were born, and the decision is theirs how to shape the Judaism th ey wish to express.
God of our fathers: Feminism and Judaism—A contradiction in terms?
Women's Studies International Forum, 1997
Synopsis-There are two strands in my life that have assumed an ever-growing importance to me-feminism and Judaism. They both run through my day to day lived experiences, weave in and out through their numerous layers of meaning, entwining me in their threads. As I have grown more deeply into one, so I have grown more deeply into the other. This paper is a search to discover why. What possible connection can my feminism have to this ancient religion embedded in patriarchal rule, steeped in a tradition that denies me? How can I find a way for my two selves? My search will take me through many fields-through history, the law and biblical texts, through myths, fiction and poetry-each one adding another strand, another piece to the puzzle, as I work my way towards finding my final answer.
Feminist Jewish Thought as Postliberal Theology
This essay considers feminist Jewish thought as a contribution to postliberal theology, insofar as it shares postliberal theology’s emphasis on the sociality of reason and of revelation. In particular, the essay focuses on the authority of halakhah, or Jewish law, in the work of Judith Plaskow, Rachel Adler, and Tamar Ross, and it highlights the way that each “goes social” in her account of that authority. Like other forms of postliberal theology, feminist Jewish thought tends to emphasize the relationships and social practices that constitute a form of life and which make norms and laws authoritative for the people who participate in that form of life. Then, the essay turns to the ethical implications of those relationships and social practices, through an analysis of Plaskow and Adler’s accounts of authority in human and human-divine relations. For each of these figures, given the sociality of reason and revelation, relationships among knowers ought to be characterized by reciprocal recognition and accountability.
Die Religionen der Menschheit Begrtindet von Judaism lll Culture and Modernity Cover: The Duke of Sussex' Italian Pentateuch (British Library MS15423 flsv) ttaly, ca. L441-7467. 1. Auflage Alle Rechte vorbehalten, 2020
This chapter provides an interpretive literary history of feminist engagements with Judaism in the U.S. in the last fifty years.
The connection of women with heresy and deviance has a long history within religious traditions throughout the world. The following discussion uncovers a new chapter in this convention, by highlighting the efforts of a prominent rabbinical authority to reject attempts at upgrading the public religious roles available to women. The legal or "halakhic" position that he expounds is not unto itself exceptional. What is sui generis, rather, is his construction for polemical purposes of a "metanarrative of Jewish heresy" in which a historical chain that begins with the Sadducees in ancient times and extends to contemporary Orthodox Jewish feminism is linked through the common complaint of rabbinic discrimination against women. By describing the context from which this teleological understanding emerged and analyzing its characteristics, this study offers a new perspective on the role that feminism is playing in the development of American Orthodox Judaism. More broadly, it serves as a case study for how the rise of feminism within contemporary religious life has engendered original theological responses and strategies not only among its supporters and ideologues, but among the "guardians" of the various religious traditions as well.
Reflections on Feminist Jewish Approaches to the Bible and the Making of a Feminist Jew in Israel
Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies (1759-1953)
This article incorporates personal insights into the development of feminist Jewish approaches to the Bible. I discuss what it means to be a feminist Jew in Israel and make a clear distinction between feminist Jews and Jewish feminists, by using my personal history as a feminist Jew and how my upbringing in an intense American Jewish environment influenced me. I explain how I became a feminist Jew and reflect on the Jewish feminism that emerged between the 70s and the 90s. My reflections are part of the process through which I became a midrash writer and an independent Bible scholar and in doing so I situate myself within various feminist/Jewish approaches to the Bible. In the third section of this article I describe how I and other feminist Jews have dealt with the problematics of being both Jewishly engaged as well as being ardent feminists. I conclude the article by citing a poem by a well-known Bible scholar who represents to me what it means to be female and Jewish at the same time.