Women, Jewish Law and Modernity

Women, Jewish Law and Modernity
Author: Joel B. Wolowelsky
Publisher: KTAV Publishing House, Inc.
Total Pages: 172
Release: 1997
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780881255744

For the past few decades, manu Orthodox leaders have reacted to the overall friction between some aspects of feminist ideology and halakhah (Jewish las and ethics) by treating suggestions for increased women's participation in religious activities with suspicion. They feared that these proposals, while benign in appearance, could legitimize feminism in the eyes of the halakhic community. It is now time, argues the author, to move past this fear of feminism. We are fast approaching a "post-feminist" era in which accepting certain initiatives originally promoted by feminists no longer carries with it the implications that we accept feminist ideology as a whole. We should not continue to fight yesterday's battles, confusing a genuine desire to grow in Torah with an attack on Torah values. It is obvious to people who have firsthand contact with women engaged in advanced Torah education in Israeli schools like Michlelet Lindenbaum, Matan, or Nishmat or in American schools like Drisha and Stern College that it is the unparalleled high levels of education attained by these women that now drives this concern, not by any particular feminist agenda. This book explores how this drive for increased women's expression in our homes, at life-cycle events, in our synagogues and in our schools can be realized with complete fidelity to halakhah.

Jewish Woman in Jewish Law

Jewish Woman in Jewish Law
Author: Moshe Meiselman
Publisher: KTAV Publishing House, Inc.
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1978
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780870683299

Rabbi Moshe Meiselman addresses the attitude of Jewish law to women and how the Jewish tradition views the contemporary challenge of feminism. He discusses in detail such current issues as creative ritual, women in a minyan, aliyot for women, talit and tefillin. The question of agunah is also given lengthy consideration. The author mixes current issues with scholarly ones and gives full treatment to other issues such as learning Torah by women, women position in court both as witnesses and as litigants, the marriage ceremony & marital life. — Amazon.com.

Jewish Women's Torah Study

Jewish Women's Torah Study
Author: Ilan Fuchs
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2013-11-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1134642970

One of the cornerstones of the religious Jewish experience in all its variations is Torah study, and this learning is considered a central criterion for leadership. Jewish Women’s Torah Study addresses the question of women's integration in the halachic-religious system at this pivotal intersection. The contemporary debate regarding women’s Torah study first emerged in the second half of the 19th century. As women’s status in general society changed, offering increased legal rights and opportunities for education, a debate on the need to change women’s participation in Torah study emerged. Orthodoxy was faced with the question: which parts, if any, of modernity should be integrated into Halacha? Exemplifying the entire array of Orthodox responses to modernity, this book is a valuable addition to the scholarship of Judaism in the modern era and will be of interest to students and scholars of Religion, Gender Studies and Jewish Studies.

Women and Jewish Law

Women and Jewish Law
Author: Rachel Biale
Publisher: Schocken
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2011-04-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0307762017

How has a legal tradition determined by men affected the lives of women? What are the traditional Jewish views of marriage, divorce, sexuality, contraception, abortion? Women and Jewish Law gives contemporary readers access to the central texts of the Jewish religious tradition on issues of special concern to women. Combining a historical overview with a thoughtful feminist critique, this pathbreaking study points the way for “informed change” in the status of women in Jewish life.

Judaism and the Challenges of Modern Life

Judaism and the Challenges of Modern Life
Author: Moshe Halbertal
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2007-12-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0826496679

This collection of essays, authored by scholars of the Shalom Hartman Institute, addresses three critical challenges posed to Judaism by modernity: the challenge of ideas, the challenge of diversity, and the challenge of statehood, and provides insights and ideas for the future direction of Judaism.

The Status of Women in Jewish Law

The Status of Women in Jewish Law
Author: David Golinkin
Publisher: Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9789657105696

This book is dedicated to the study of the halakhic status of women in the synagogue and in public life. Rabbi Golinkin deals with the tension which exists between Jewish Law and modernity, striving to bridge the gap between tradition and change.

Voices of the Matriarchs

Voices of the Matriarchs
Author: Chava Weissler
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 1999-11-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 080703617X

Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for 1998 With Voices of the Matriarchs, Chava Weissler restores balance to our knowledge of Judaism by providing the first look at the Yiddish prayers women created during centuries of exclusion from men's observance. In Weissler's hands, these prayers (called thkines) open a new window into early modern European Jewish women's lives, beliefs, devotion, and relationships with God.

The Modern Jewish Woman

The Modern Jewish Woman
Author: Lubavitch Educational Foundation for Jewish Marriage Enrichment
Publisher:
Total Pages: 214
Release: 1981
Genre: Habad
ISBN:

Jewish Legal Theories

Jewish Legal Theories
Author: Leora Batnitzky
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2017-12-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1512601357

Contemporary arguments about Jewish law uniquely reflect both the story of Jewish modernity and a crucial premise of modern conceptions of law generally: the claim of autonomy for the intellectual subject and practical sphere of the law. Jewish Legal Theories collects representative modern Jewish writings on law and provides short commentaries and annotations on these writings that situate them within Jewish thought and history, as well as within modern legal theory. The topics addressed by these documents include Jewish legal theory from the modern nation-state to its adumbration in the forms of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism in the German-Jewish context; the development of Jewish legal philosophy in Eastern Europe beginning in the eighteenth century; Ultra-Orthodox views of Jewish law premised on the rejection of the modern nation-state; the role of Jewish law in Israel; and contemporary feminist legal theory.

Women and Jewish Marriage Negotiations in Early Modern Italy

Women and Jewish Marriage Negotiations in Early Modern Italy
Author: Howard Tzvi Adelman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2017-12-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351168061

This book examines the role of women in Jewish family negotiations, using the setting of Italy from the end of the Renaissance to the Baroque. In ghettos at night and under the scrutiny of inquisitions, Jews flourished. Life and learning were enriched by Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, the Ottoman Empire, transalpine Europe, west and east, and Catholic neighbors. Rabbinic discourse represented conflicting customs in family formation and dissolution, especially at moments of crisis for women: forced betrothal; physical, mental and financial abuse; polygamy, and abandonment. In this book, case studies illustrate the ambiguity, drama, and danger to which women were exposed, as well as opportunities to make their voices heard and to extricate themselves from situations by forcing a divorce, collecting or seizing assets, and going to Catholic notaries to bequeath their assets outside traditional inheritance, often to other women. Despite intrusion by rabbis, their ability for coercion was limited, and their threats of punishments reflected the rhetoric of weakness rather than realistic options for implementation. The focus of this text is not what the law says, but rather how it enabled individual Jews, especially women, to speak and to act.