Feminism, jewish history, and the holocaust in rebecca goldstein’s

Abstract

Like much Jewish feminist fiction, Rebecca Goldstein’sMind-Body Problem dramatizes the female protagonist’s liberation from patriarchy as, initially at least, a release from Judaism as well. However, the heroine, Renee Feuer, very quickly discovers the sexism of the secular world. She also finds that the Holocaust imposes a certain reproductive responsibility on the Jewish women that is not purely a biological function, but has to do with the essence of what it means to carry on a tradition.