coffee & ink

Frustrating, although I'm not sure how much is the book's flaws and how much is that it's simply not what I'm looking for. First, this is more a document of a particular historical moment (1983) than an overview of Jewish feminism, although it's a historical moment of great import, given the changes feminism and other political movements were bringing to American Judaism. Second, although the subtitle doesn't mention it, the Judaism in it is limited: exclusively Ashkenazi, mainly American (there is one essay by an Englishwoman and one by an Israeli woman). (I am very glad to have found [book:The Flying Camel] while in the midst of this.) Third, It doesn't address what I consider two of the major concerns for Jews and Jewish feminists: Palestine and anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism appears as a historical force, shaping attitudes among the Jewish (Ashkenazi) community, but the writers are generally silent on the impact of anti-Semitism in their lives.

The focus is predominantly religious (what is the place of women in the Jewish religion and Jewish communities?) and on sexism within Judaism and among Jews. As an atheist, a lot of it left me cold. Bits that struck me (expand for LJ):

- LJ writeup is going to need an explanation of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstruction/Renewal Judaism, as well as Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi (and Coptic, and ...) Jews.

- I had no idea Orthodox Judaism prohibited (or at least disinvited) women from the Kaddish. It's obscene. Two women write about their defiance of this stricture and the welcome and opposition they received.

- The effects of learning to chant the Torah, of making up the minyan

- Some of the pieces on rewriting religious imagery to draw on feminine imagery, particularly drawing from the Kabbalah, though some of them were problematic.

- There's a piece on women in the Federation of Jewish charitable organizations (male-dominated, both genders), but nothing on women-created and run organizations like Hadassah or ORT.

- I wanted less on Jewish religion and more on Jewish ethics, like the piece from the woman who said of course her Judaism led her to feminism and civil rights activism and working for social justice. I get the "of course" but I was looking for a book that would spell it out anyway.