Woman's Cause: The Jewish Woman's Movement in England and the United States, 1881-1933 (review)

136 SHOFAR Ann White, in "Esther: A Feminine Model for Jewish Diaspora," argues that the plight of Esther is symbolic of the Jew in the Diaspora community; just as Esther succeeds despite being thought subordinate to men, Israel can succeed while living in the midst of a Gentile world. Finally, Eileen Schuller studies "Women of the Exodus in Biblical Retellings of the Second Temple Period." She examines how the stories of women were reshaped, and the importance ofwomen characters diminished, in the Second Temple period. Freed from contemporary theological categories that have been informed by ideological and psychological issues, but ever mindful of the social location of gender analysis, these essays provide fresh and exciting looks at otherwise familiar texts. They jar our minds and our biases. Furthermore, for those new to thinking about biblical texts in a non-theological framework, the volume concludes with a lengthy, though selected, bibliography (compiled by Debra A. Chase) of works both from various disciplines which inform study of women, and with research specifically focused on women in the Hebrew Bible. This book is a valuable contribution to gender-oriented biblical scholarship . Its content is accessible to both the scholarly and the less technically trained reader. All will be well served by this important collection of essays. Naomi Steinberg Department of Religious Studies DePaul University Woman's Cause: The Jewish Woman's Movement in England and the United States, 1881-1933, by Linda Gordon Kuzmack. Cplumbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990. 271 pp. $16.95. Woman's Cause, by Linda Gordon Kuzmack, is a timely history which traces the activities of Jewish women who worked both'within and beside the "mainstream" woman's movements in England and in the United States. It parallels the book published in 1979 by Marion Kaplan entitled The Jewish Feminist Movement in Gennany: The Campaigns of the Judischer Frauenbund, 1904-1938. Kuzmack's work is multilayered, and, unlike many comparative studies, the subject matter is appropriate to the approach. Rooting the study in a historiography that maintains the presence of both moderate and radical feminists, the author finds Jewish embodiments of each in the two countries. Having limited her study to those who related to Jewish life, she argues that these feminists identified as Jews primarily (just as black women identified with black issues over gender issues) and, not surprisingly , that Jewish consciousness shaped their activities. Always cognizant Volume 10, No.1 Fall1991 J37 of the need to avoid inviting antisemitism, their actions were at times cautious , especially so in England with its class structure and with the AngloJewish community viewing itself as a "dissenting church." On both sides of the water, they hoped to win acceptance through their contributions to society . These women experienced tensions on several levels. The well-known division between the established German-Jews and those flooding in from Eastern Europe was pronounced as German-Jewish feminists sought to aid in acculturation of the newcomers. Secondly, tension sprang from non-traditional activities by women which were viewed as threatening to the male hierarchy of Jewish institutions and which symbolized the conflict between Judaism and feminism. (Both issues and tactics raised by Jewish feminists were at times opposed by the organized Jewish community; as examples, the highlighting of Jewish involvement in prostitution rings or the activism of Jewish militant suffragists.) Thirdly, the fear of antisemi~icrejection by non-Jewish feminists was always present. A fourth struggle was embodied in the rivalry between volunteers in various social service areas and an emerging professional class which sought to supplant them. In both countries the Jewish woman's movement was involved in every aspect of women's public activities between the 1880s and 1930s. In the early period, individual women of wealthy families were innovators who founded organizations for the needy. In England, Louise Lady Rothschild and Lily Montague became role models for their own female kin and others as benevolent women serving the unfortunate; they recruited the famous "cousinhood " of the ruling elite of Anglo-Jewish society. In the United States, Hannah Greenbaum Solomon and Sadie American, among others, were comparable figures. The National Council of Jewish Women was founded by Solomon in 1893 (giving Jewish women their...