Women and Judaism

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Women and Judaism

• By Jenna Mancuso
• Kate Ratinsky

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Biblical Origin of Women

• Male and female created He them. Genesis I
• Man is the image of God and the mirror of his
  glory, whereas women reflect but the glory of
  man. For man did not originally spring from
  woman, but woman was made out of man and man was
  not created for womans sake but woman for the
  sake of man. Apostle Paul to the Corinthians.
• why should I lie beneath you when god created us
  out of the same clay.

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Gender Issues In Jewish Law

• The Jewish community readily admits that the
  shameful situation of the agunah, a woman chained
  to an unwanted or non-existent marriage who
  cannot be released without her husband's consent,
  is unjust.
• Man Can divorce his wife by uttering a
  declaration that severs their relationship.
• During the middle ages this law changed. Mutual
  Consent came into place.

The Jewish Bride - Rembrandt
Book written on the injustices in the Agunan
written by Michael J. Breyda
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The Human Rights Of Jewish Women

• In the last decade there has been an increased
  awareness on Womens Rights.
• The denial of womens rights is largely due to
  their religion.
• The declaration that womens rights are human
  rights was made at the World Conference on Human
  rights in Vienna in 1993 and has been reconfirmed
  at the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995
  should now include the recognition that Jewish
  womens rights are human rights.
• International Jewish Womens Rights Project.
• Justice, Justice you shall pursue

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Orthodox Judaism and Women

• The differences Judaism regarding gender stem
  from man's belief that men and women are
  different in nature, therefore having different
  strengths and weaknesses in certain aspects of
  life.
• Chief Rabbi of Israel Mordechai Eliyahu stated
  that "a woman's place is not in politics."
• Avraham Grossman writes that "Throughout the
  Middle Ages, which continued for about a thousand
  years, we do not find so much as a single women
  of importance among the sages of
  Israel....Moreover, over a period of a thousand
  years, not a single Jewish woman wrote a
  halakhic, literary, theoretical, mystical, or
  poetic work, with the exception of a handful of
  poems written by Jewish women in Spain"

Mordechai Eliyahu
Book written on Jewish women in Europe during the
middle ages written by Avraham Grossman
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Continuation Orthodox Jewish Women

• The role of women in Orthodox Jewish life, like
  the role of men, is a complex and dynamic product
  of the myriad components of life. In Orthodox
  Jewish thought, religious observance encompasses
  a broad spectrum of areas including but not
  limited to observance of the Sabbath and dietary
  laws, contemplation, social interaction, personal
  development, business practice and charity. The
  role of the Jewish woman involves all of these
  areas as well as many others.
• These general components of the role of the
  Jewish woman are constant throughout history.
• Jewish law does not regulate every detail of
  life, but provides a basic structure within which
  each person may express their own personality

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Torah Philosophy on Women

• Torah law does not micro-manage people's lives.
  Torah philosophy does emphasize that occupations
  for material acquisition be secondary to higher
  religious activities such as family-life, prayer,
  and charity, but this principle applies to men as
  well as to women.
• According to many classical Torah authorities,
  women are not required to get married. A woman
  could find a place in Orthodox Judaism without
  involvement in the roles of wife and mother.
• Thus, the role of the Jewish woman is not easily
  defined, as it will assume different forms as
  each woman develops herself in accordance with
  the general parameters of Jewish law and
  philosophy.

The Torah
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The fundamentalist perspective on women in
Judaism.

• In the Biblical Times before the Enlightenment
  period, men had greater dominance over women, and
  they were always seen as mens property.
• The womens main function in the fundamentalists
  perspective is procreation, and they are not to
  have sexual pleasures.
• Womens main functions are marriage, motherhood,
  and householders.
• Women must learn the necessary aspects of running
  a Jewish home, this is an obligation for them to
  learn.
• Women are generally discouraged from studying or
  studying beyond the aspects of the torah
• For the reasons of modesty, in the present day as
  well as in the past women in Judaism are not to
  touch, socialize, or even sit next to another man
  who is not their husband or relative.

• women within the Jewish religion will usually not
  touch, socialize, or even sit next to another man
  who is not their husband or relative. This is due
  to reasons of modesty.
• Rules of family purity
• Women will not have contact with their husband
  while they are menstruating and even up to 7 days
  after.
• After having given birth women will  refrain from
  any sexual acts. This can also include indirect
  contact.

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Enlightenment Reform Judaism

• Over the past couple of centuries, both religious
  and communal functions of Jewish women in the
  Western world have went through important
  developments and changes due to social,
  educational, economic, political and
  technological factors linked to modernity.
• In the period of Enlightenment, Jewish women of
  the Western culture, were able to gain more power
  over their lives and become more independent.
• There has been greater equality for women within
  the Jewish communities though secular forms of
  Judaism.
• This movement is called Haskalah and it initially
  began in the 18th century in Germany. This
  movement brought major changes to Jewish
  religious, political, and social life in both
  Central and Western Europe.
• The founder of Haskalah was Moses Mendelssohn who
  along with others supported evolutionary changes
  with regards to gender relations in Judaism, and
  that included an end to arranged marriages.
• In Reform Judaism in the 19th century it was
  declared that women were suitable to the same
  religious rights and subject to the same
  religious tasks and responsibilities as men.
• Some of the new emphasizes were on equal
  religious education for both girls and boys,
  confirmation ceremonies for young people and
  worship services that included prayers and sermon
  in the dialect.
• One of the innovations was the adaptation of the
  double-ring wedding ceremonies in which women
  also made a statement of marital commitment.

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Enlightenment Reform Judaism continues

• Despite the religious reforms that lasted for
  over two centuries, the American Reform Judaism
  did not ordain its first female rabbi until 1972.
• But to further elaborate on this subject, the
  first woman who actually did receive rabbinic
  ordination was Regina Jonas in 1935 in Germany.
  To avoid conflicts within the Orthodox community,
  she was ordained privately by a liberal rabbi Max
  Dienemann.
• While rabbinic ordination is still not as
  accepted in the Orthodox communities, the
  religious educational opportunities for women
  have grown quite significantly.

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Enlightenment Reform Judaism New Traditions

• Introduction of Bat-Mitzvah in 1922 in North
  America by Mordecai Kaplan, who was the founder
  of Reconstructionist Judaism, to celebrate his
  daughters religious coming of age.
• This process and celebration involves the
  training and the studying of Hebrew and Torah and
  Talmud available now for both boys at the age of
  and girls at the age of 12.
• Ceremonies welcoming baby-girls into the covenant
  of Israel are known as simhat bat, shalom bat,
  brit banot, or britah.
• This ceremony is an equivalent to the welcoming
  of a baby-boy through the ritual of circumcision
  on the eight day of his life God and Israel brit
  milah.
• Rosh hodesh, the New Moon, is a tradition female
  holiday from all of their domestic chores, when
  women gather together to study, pray and enjoy
  their day off.
• Women became more equal with respect to being
  able to have a say with regards to marriage
  ceremonies emphasizing mutuality and divorce
  rituals that enabled women to acknowledge the
  final dissolution of their marriages.

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Enlightenment Reform Judaism continues

• Additional secular movements Jewish socialism,
  Zionism, Reformism, Conservative view and
  post-Zionism.
• Those are all political claims that opened up a
  public space for various critical voices,
  including those of women.
• An establishment of a law in 1951 (The Equal
  Rights for Women law)
• This law provides a guarantee for women to have
  the same rights as men for ownership of property
  and decision making within the family realm.
• Male actions had always been highlighted in the
  nation-building, but from the end of the 1980s,
  there is a movement that attempts to establish
  women as participants of the process.

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Prayer Groups

• It is only in the 1970's that the Orthodox women
  began to hold their own "tefila" which means
  prayer groups.
• Women began to practice and participate in the
  religious rituals such as the readings of prayers
  and the study of the Torah.
• This issue evolved into two debates
• The first debate is completely against women's
  prayer groups, and that is forbidden by the
  Jewish Law (halakha).
• The second debate argues that women should be
  allowed to have the prayer groups as long as they
  are performed with the right and honest
  intentions and that the prayer service would not
  be carried out completely.

Clandestine prayer group
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• Jewish women carry the double fear of
  anti-Jewish as well as anti-female reactions.
  Like Jews, women have always been the other. Like
  Jews, women have always been the targets of
  societal blame. Like Jews, women have been
  silenced by the fear of loosing privilege, or of
  provoking ridicule, harassment, and violence
  (Rachel Josefowitz Siegel)

Rachel Josefowitz Siegel (left)
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Discussion Questions

• Are you aware of any other traditions with
  respect to Gender in Judaism that were not
  covered today?
• Do you believe that Reform Judaism had positive
  or negative contributions and influences on
  Gender in Judaism?
• Do you have any other questions that we can
  answer?