Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Jewish Modern Orthodox Women, Active Resistance and Synagogue Ritual

  • Published:
Contemporary Jewry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the passive resistance paradigm which has dominated the literature on women in conservative religion is limited and that traces of more active resistance can be found. Based on interviews with Israeli modern Orthodox women who are challenging their exclusion from synagogue ritual, I draw attention to the harsh criticism that they raise and their mobilization to change the status-quo, despite the disapproval of communal rabbis. Reflecting such activism on a wider scale, I also consider the case of Shira Hadasha, an Orthodox feminist congregation in Jerusalem known for its radical departure from mainstream modern Orthodoxy regarding its approach to women’s participation in Torah services. Through this study, I seek to contribute both to a better understanding of some of the feminist changes taking hold within modern Orthodoxy in Israel and to a wider perspective of the web of resistance among women in conservative religious traditions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Very broadly speaking, there are two camps within Orthodoxy which are led by very different ideological lines over how to live a life guided by Jewish law within modern society. One camp, the ultra-Orthodox, has for the most part sought isolation and a distancing from modern-liberal values. The other camp has developed various ways and degrees of integration into modern society. In the worldview of the latter camp, secular institutions of higher learning are valued and Orthodox Jews can work in all sectors of society. The sub-stream of Orthodoxy that has sought the most integration of modern values into its worldview is often referred to as modern Orthodoxy.

  2. This point of increasing religious knowledge possibly opening the door to wider interpretations of religious texts and a feminist perspective has also been raised regarding Islamic-feminists (see Mir-Hosseini 1999; Doorn-Harder 2006).

  3. Shira Hadasha’s official webpage: http://www.shirahadasha.org.il/english/.

References

  • Adler, Rachel. 1973. The Jew who wasn’t there: Halacha and the Jewish woman. Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review Summer: 77–82.

  • Avishai, Orit. 2008a. Halakhic niddah consultants and the orthodox women’s movement in Israel. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 7: 195–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Avishai, Orit. 2008b. ‘Doing religion’ in a secular world. Gender & Society 22: 409–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Badran, Margot. 2007. Feminism beyond east and west: New gender talk and practice in global Islam. New Delhi: Global Media Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartkowski, John. 1997. Debating patriarchy: Discursive disputes over spousal authority among evangelical family commentators. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36: 393–410.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartkowski, John. 1999. One step forward, one step back: Progressive traditionalism and the negotiating of domestic labor within evangelical families. Gender Issues 17: 37–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartkowski, John. 2001. Remaking the godly marriage: Gender negotiation in evangelical families. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bendroth, Margaret. 1993. Fundamentalism and gender: 1879 to the present. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brasher, Brenda. 1998. Godly women: Fundamentalism and female power. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaves, Mark. 1997. Ordaining women: Culture and conflict in religious organizations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cochran, Pamela. 2005. Evangelical feminism. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidman, Lynn. 1991. Tradition in a rootless world: Women turn to Orthodox Judaism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doorn-Harder, Pieternella van. 2006. Women shaping Islam: Reading the Qu’ran in Indonesia. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

  • El Or, Tamar. 2002. Next year I will know more: Literacy and identity among young orthodox women in Israel. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farrell, Susan. 1991. ‘It’s our church, too!’ Women’s position in the Catholic Church today. In The social construction of gender, ed. J. Lorber, and S. Farrell, 338–353. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fishman, Sylvia B. 1993. A breath of life: Feminism in the American Jewish community. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, Sally. 2003. Evangelical identity and gendered family life. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, Sally, and Christian Smith. 1999. Symbolic traditionalism and pragmatic egalitarianism: Contemporary evangelicals, families, and gender. Gender & Society 13: 211–233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gordin, Rachel. 2005. The entrance of women as partners into the field of halachic discourse: Sociological and cultural aspects. Doctoral Dissertation, Inter-Disciplinary Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel (Hebrew).

  • Greenberg, Blu. 1981. On women and Judaism: A view from tradition. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffith, Marie. 1997. God’s daughters: Evangelical women and the power of submission. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartman, Tova. 2002. Appropriately subversive: Modern mothers in traditional religions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartman, Tova. 2007. Feminism encounters traditional Judaism: Resistance and accommodation. Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haut, Rivka. 1992. Women’s prayer groups and the orthodox synagogue. In Daughters of the king: Women and the synagogue, ed. S. Grossman, and R. Haut, 135–158. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawley, John S. (ed.). 1994. Fundamentalism and gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heilman, Samuel. 2006. Sliding to the right: The contest for the future of American Jewish orthodoxy. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henold, Mary. 2008. Catholic and feminist: The surprising history of the American catholic feminist movement. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heschel, Susannah. (ed.). 1995. On being a Jewish feminist. New York: Schocken.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingersoll, Julie. 2003. Evangelical Christian women: War stories in the gendered battles. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kandiyoti, Deniz. 1988. Bargaining with patriarchy. Gender & Society 2: 274–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, Debra. 1993. Rachel’s daughters: Newly orthodox Jewish women. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koren, Irit. 2006. The bride’s voice: Religious women challenge the wedding ritual. Nashim 10: 29–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liebman, Charles S. 1998. Modern orthodoxy in Israel. Judaism Fall.

  • Macleod, Arlena. 1991. Accommodating protest: Working women, the new veiling, and change in Cairo. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manning, Christel J. 1999. God gave us the right: Conservative Catholic, evangelical protestant, and orthodox Jewish women grapple with feminism. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marty, Martin E., and R. Scott Appleby (eds.). 1991. Accounting for fundamentalism: The dynamic character of movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mernissi, Fatima. 1987. Beyond the veil: Male–female dynamics in modern Muslim society. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. 1999. Gender and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moghadam, Valentine. (ed.). 1994. Identity politics and women. Oxford: Westview.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nusbacher, Ailene. 1999. Efforts at change in a traditional denomination: The case of orthodox women’s prayer groups. Nashim 2: 95–113.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riesebrodt, Martin. 1990. Pious passion: The emergence of modern fundamentalism in the United States and Iran. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rinaldo, Rachel. 2008. Envisioning the nation: Women activists, religion and the public sphere in Indonesia. Social Forces 86(4): 1781–1804.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rose, Susan. 1987. Women warriors: The negotiation of gender in a charismatic community. Sociological Analysis 48: 245–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, Tamar. 2004. Expanding the palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and feminism. Waltham: Brandeis University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Safrai, Chana. 2007. Traditional Judaism and the feminist challenge. In Judaism and the challenges of modern life, ed. M. Halbertal, and D. Hartman, 59–73. Jerusalem: Hartman Institute Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sela, Neta. 2006. Battle over women’s right to pray. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3262945,00.html. Retrieved June 14 2006 from Ynet news.

  • Sered, Susan. 1997. Women and religious change in Israel: Rebellion or revolution. Sociology of Religion 58: 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shamir, Ronen, Michal Shitrai, and Nelly Elias. 1996. Religion, feminism, and professionalism: The case of rabbinical advocates. The Jewish Journal of Sociology 38(2): 73–88.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soper, Christopher J. 1994. Evangelical Christianity in the United States and Great Britain: Religious beliefs, political choices. New York: New York University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stocks, Janet. 1997. To stay or to leave? Organizational legitimacy in the struggle for change among evangelical feminists. In Contemporary American religion: An ethnographic reader, ed. P. Becker, and N. Eiesland, 99–105. London: Altamira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swidler, Ann. 1986. Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review 51: 273–286.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zeidan, David. 2003. The resurgence of religion: A comparative study of selected themes in Christian and Islamic fundamentalist discourses. Boston: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

Thank you to Orit Avishai for her very insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Yael Israel-Cohen

  2. Yisachar 28, Modiin, Israel

    Yael Israel-Cohen

Authors
  1. Yael Israel-Cohen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yael Israel-Cohen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Israel-Cohen, Y. Jewish Modern Orthodox Women, Active Resistance and Synagogue Ritual. Cont Jewry 32, 3–25 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-011-9072-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-011-9072-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation