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Women in Judaism:
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| Winter 1999 | Volume 2, Number 1 |
"In the month of Nissan, 5479 [1719], a woman was kneeling by the bank of the Moselle, washing her dishes. It was about ten o'clock at night, and of a sudden it became as light as day, and the woman looked in the Heavens, and the Heavens were opened, like unto a ...[word illegible]... and sparks flew therefrom; and then the Heavens closed, as one closes a curtain, and all was dark again. God grant that it be for our good!" (The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln, Translated by Marvin Lowenthal, p. 277)
Getting Away with Murder:
The Application of Marriage Laws in Jewish Yemen
Dina Dahbany-Miraglia [ HTML ]
Rabbinic designations of females as a kind of movable property under the management of fathers and husbands has mostly benefited males at the expense of females. But in spite of excessive care in covering as many circumstances as possible direct violations of rabbinic mandates have been fairly common in Yemen. Using a selection of narratives, this paper identifies specific halakhic mandates that have been disobeyed, ignored, circumvented or just defied by some of Yemen's Jews from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century.
Women's Voices, Men's Laws:
The Halakhic Process and Three Women's Accounts of Rape
Justin Jaron Lewis [ HTML]
In cases of rape, one might expect the rabbis to punish the transgressors, even if they could not be convicted under the stringent Talmudic rules of evidence. However, in the responsa on three late 18th century women the issue of punishment does not arise. Moreover, the halakhic process, in these cases, has proven capable only of solving problems of its own creation and incapable of listening to women or answering their calls for help/
An Unexpected Heir: A Jewish Feminist Response to Letters from Pre-state Israel
Daphne Desser [ HTML ]
Mordechai (Rabinowicz) Ben-Ami was a Russian journalist, writer and devoted Zionist. Letters he had written from 1924 to 1927 to his son are analyzed by his great-granddaughter from a variety of theoretical perspectives: their historical situadedness, the cultural politics involved in translating Russian Zionist letters from a postcultural American point-of-view, the gender aspects of reading and writing processes of the author and translator and the representation of the "other" in the letters.
Narrative vs Historical Truth:
Insights from Field Work in Right-Wing Popular Consciousness in Israel
Batya Weinbaum [ HTML]
The case of "Dorit", a right-wing recent convert to Judaism and immigrant to Israel from the United States, is examined in an attempt to show how the need of one woman to dramatize in the performance of life history might forge a truth that is better held together by the force of narrative rhetoric and metaphor than by fact.
Bibliography of Sources on Sexual and Domestic Violence in the Jewish Community
Compiled by Marcia Cohn Spiegel <http://www.mincava.umn.edu/bibs/Jewish.htm>
Egalitarian History in Jewish Divorce - Judaism's Egalitarian Traditions Provide Solutions to Divorce Woes
Dorothy Werner [ HTML ]
All material in the journal is subject to copyright; copyright is held by the journal except where otherwise indicated. There is to be no reproduction or distribution of contents by any means without prior permission. Contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors. The editors extend special thanks and blessings to Mike Sosteric, Director of the International Consortium for Alternative Academic Publication who made this issue possible.
© 1999 Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal