New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future [Hardcover]

Elyse Goldstein (Editor), Anita Diamant (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2008

Jewish Feminism:
What Have We Accomplished? What Is Still to Be Done?

"When you are in the middle of the revolution you can't really plan the next steps ahead. But now we can. The book is intended to open up a dialogue between the early Jewish feminist pioneers and the young women shaping Judaism today.... Read it, use it, debate it, ponder it."
--from the Introduction

This empowering anthology looks at the growth and accomplishments of Jewish feminism and what that means for Jewish women today and tomorrow. It features the voices of women from every area of Jewish life--the Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, Orthodox and Jewish Renewal movements; rabbis, congregational leaders, artists, writers, community service professionals, academics, and chaplains, from the United States, Canada, and Israel--addressing the important issues that concern Jewish women:

* Women and Theology
* Women, Ritual and Torah
* Women and the Synagogue
* Women in Israel
* Gender, Sexuality and Age
* Women and the Denominations
* Leadership and Social Justice

Contributors:
Beth Cooper Benjamin, EdD
Rabbi Donna Berman, PhD
Ellen Bernstein
Marla Brettschneider, PhD
Shifra Bronznick
Anita Diamant
Rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson
Ruth Andrew Ellenson
Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, PhD
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone
Idana Goldberg, PhD
Rabbi Elyse Goldstein
Jodie Gordon
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD
Sara Hurwitz,
Madricha Ruchanit(Religious Mentor)
Rabbi Jill Jacobs
Rabbi Valerie Joseph
Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar
Rabbi Naamah Kelman
Rabbi Gail Labovitz, PhD
Lori Hope Lefkovitz, PhD
Anne Lapidus Lerner, PhD
Rahel Lerner
Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman
Rabbi Dalia Marx, PhD
Rabbi Joseph B. Meszler
Rabbi Haviva Ner-David, PhD
Cantor Barbara Ostfeld
Rabbi Barbara Penzner
Judith Plaskow, PhD
Rabbi Irit Printz
Rabbi Einat Ramon, PhD
Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael
Rosie Rosenzweig
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi
Rabbi Rona Shapiro
Margalit Shilo, PhD
Rabbi Alana Suskin
Wendy Zierler, PhD

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

If You Think Jewish Feminism
Is Your Mother's Issue, Think Again Growing up in the 1960s, the notion of a woman rabbi, a woman Israeli Supreme Court judge, an Orthodox female Talmud scholar, or an Orthodox synagogue where women read the Torah from their side of the mechitzah were impossible, even ridiculous scenarios. Yet in the modern day, all of this is reaching the stage of "normative." What's left for Jewish feminism to accomplish?

Join Jewish women from all areas of Jewish life as they examine what makes a "Jewish woman" today, how feminism has affected her identity and whether the next generation of Jewish women is braced to tackle the challenging work still ahead.

About the Author

Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, one of the leading rabbis of a new generation, is director of Kolel: The Adult Center for Liberal Jewish Learning, a full-time progressive adult Jewish learning center. Goldstein lectures frequently throughout North America. She is also editor of The Women's Torah Commentary: New Insights from Women Rabbis on the 54 Weekly Torah Portions; and The Women's Haftarah Commentary: New Insights from Women Rabbis on the 54 Weekly Haftarah Portions, the 5 Megillot and Special Shabbatot; and author of the award-winning ReVisions: Seeing Torah through a Feminist Lens (all Jewish Lights).

Anita Diamant is author of The Red Tent, The New Jewish Wedding, and The New Jewish Baby Book (Jewish Lights), among other books. She is a founder of Mayyim Hayyim, Living Waters Community Mikveh and the Paula J. Brody Family Education Center in Newton, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 439 pages
• Publisher: Jewish Lights Publishing (October 31, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580233597
• ISBN-13: 978-1580233590
• Product Dimensions: 1.4 x 6.2 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,208,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #52 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism > Women and Judaism

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This book contains challenges that should not be ignored March 22, 2011

By Israel Drazin TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

It is outrageous to think that God relegated women to second class citizenship and outlawed them from a real relationship with the divine. It is beyond belief that there are still people who echo the view of the biblical commentator and philosopher Levi ben Gershon, called Gersonides (1288-1344), that women are subhuman creatures between animals and men.

This volume contains thirty-seven essays by thirty six Jewish women, including twenty-two rabbis and a half dozen PhD's, and one man, who writes about men, from all the Jewish denominations. Rabbi Goldstein, the editor, comments in her introduction that radical changes occurred for Jewish women since 1968 when she stood up at her Bat Mitzvah ceremony at age 13 at her Reform Temple and told the congregation that she would be a rabbi. The surprised rabbi rushed to the podium to explain that she certainly meant a rebbetzin (the wife of the rabbi). Undaunted, she replied: Let my husband be the rebbetzin. I'll be the rabbi.

The book discloses some of the still existing problems, and raises serious questions. Wouldn't the concept of Torah, Israel, and God change for the better if women are accepted as full participants in Judaism? Doesn't it help if we consider revelation as not being restricted in time and place, to Moses at Sinai, but as ongoing, through rabbinic interpretations derived from ongoing history, as the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, taught? Shouldn't women be encouraged to write more new interpretations of Torah from a feminine perspective to correct the erroneous one-sided views of the past?

One of the contributors to this volume stresses that "Jewish women have the power - and the challenge - to bridge the seemingly intractable denominational gaps," and help unite and empower Jews.

One of the Orthodox contributors points out that while "it is unthinkable today for Orthodox Jewish families to educate their sons Jewishly but not their daughters," they still fail to give sufficient thought to the content of these educations, and she explains why. She mentions the rather curious practice of many Orthodox families where the wife is required to cover her head and body in long sleeves and over-long dresses, while her husband strolls the public grounds in shorts. The justification for the female restriction is tzniut, "modesty," which seems to be restricted to women. She highlights the terribly devastating practice the total inequality between men and women in marriage and divorce: only males are allowed to effectuate them. A male "acquires" a woman as a wife by saying a certain formula, while the woman who is acquired must stand by silent. In divorces, the situation is far worse. Only a husband can grant a Jewish divorce, called a get. When a husband refuses to hand his wife a get, she is left "chained" to him, the word "chained" is agunah in Hebrew, unable to marry again. There have been many instances where spiteful husbands never releases their "chained" wives from their chains and many husbands who agreed to give the get only if she or her blackmailed family pays him hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is an unconscionable situation, and rabbis should take steps to change this travesty.

A Reform contributor emphasizes that the problem of "women's quest for equality" is also unresolved among more liberal Jews. For example, why retain the traditional marriage contract called the ketubah, which focuses on the husband? The ketubah is a rabbinical invention, is not biblical, and there is no reason why it cannot be updated. Why not develop a brit ahuvim, "a lovers' covenant." A Conservative writer, the movement that is not as traditional as the Orthodox or as liberal as the Reform, outlines the problems facing her movement, including their disallowance of women to serve as witnesses or judges at divorce proceedings because if they did so, the divorce would be rejected by Orthodox Jews who disallow women to serve as witnesses and judges.

In summary, the writers demonstrate with many examples that the feminist battle for equality in Judaism, while having made advances, is far from over. They make it clear that beside the pain inflicted upon half of the Jewish people, the world won't achieve what it can achieve until both sexes are treated equally and their skills and energies used in unison.