Silence is Deadly: Judaism Confronts Wifebeating (review)

144 SHOFAR Winter 2001 Vol. 19, No.2 Silence is Deadly: Judaism Confronts Wifebeating, byNaomi Graetz. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1998. 244 pp. $35.00. Naomi Graetz has written a fascinating, instructive, and importantbook which provides an exciting example ofthe application ofrabbinic scholarship and offeminist analysis to the study ofa contemporary social problem in the Jewish community. In the process, she has developed a methodology for approaching the multiplicity of voices found in rabbinic literature. Jews have wanted to believe that they constitute a kinder and gentler people, often, as Nietzsche pointed out, confusing degraded circumstances for superiority while denying their own abusive and dysfunctional behavior. The fact remains that beyond the myths, Jewish leaders, especially rabbis, have continually concerned themselves with questions of their own authority and expressed a willingness to enforce it with physical coercion, and have allowed members ofthe Jewish community to use similar means to impose their will upon others. Accordingly, Graetz locates violence at the core ofJewish values, starting with the Bible itself. Although there are no specific cases of wifebeating in the Bible, Graetz amply supports her assertion that the biblical family was "a very tough neighborhood to grow up in," providing a particularly compelling study of the violent metaphor against women found in the prophecy ofHosea. More than the writings of most professional halakhic scholars and other feminist writers, Graetz's book will serve to put many ofthe long-neglected classics ofrabbinic scholarship on the agenda for popular discussion. It will also enrich feminist discourse by bridging the gap in discussions which often leap from the Bible to generalizations about the Talmud to modem women writers and activists. Graetz cites not only the major texts of rabbinic literature, such as Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmud, Geonim, Maimonides, and Shulhan Arukh, but also figures such as Meir of Rothenburg, Simhah of Speyer, Jonah of Gerona, Solomon Adret, David ibn Avi Zirnra, Solomon Hakohen, Hayim Palaggi, Abraham Paperna, Eliezer Papu, David Pipano, Eliezer Waldenberg, Moses Feinstein, and Ovadia Joseph, now daily proofthat the realm of distinguished rabbinic scholarship is not cut off from partisan politics in the Jewish community. Experts, particularly those intent on maintaining the inaccessibility ofthe field of rabbinic studies and especially those who reject Graetz's conclusions concerning the potential for violence within the Jewish tradition, will direct themselves exclusively to slips in citation, translation, and interpretation. However, having examined every text that she mentioned, I fmd that when she errs, her reading usually minimizes the potential for violence against women. For example, an even strongercase for the impact ofbiblical metaphorical violence against women can be made by invoking Ezekiel 16, where God's behavior is described as ajealous, violent, bloody rage against his metaphoric adulterous bride" the people of Book Reviews 145 Israel. Also the image ofthe adulterous wife's nose being cut offin Ezekiel 23 remained a feature of rabbinic halakhic discourse throughout the generations. Graetz brings abundant evidence to prove her point that rabbinic texts offered formative laws and principles in support of wife-beating, but there is much more available. For example, to strengthen the conclusions she reached concerning the citation from the Tosefta Baba Kama 9 could also be added Niddah 1:6. Here a husband's beating his wife is casually mentioned as one of the reasons that a woman could experience vaginal bleeding prior to onset of her menstrual period, along with being sick, jumping, or carrying a heavy load, a non-judgmental rabbinic recognition of the fact that wife-beating could be a regular aspect oflife for a Jewish woman. In fact, in the chapter in which she offers the rabbinic materials opposed to wifebeating , on several occasions she reads materials against wife-beating which actually approve of it. For example, she offers a text from Menahem ben Solomon Meiri as opposing wife-beating, althoughthe text allows wife-beating on principle. Meiri quoted an otherwise unknown passage in the Tosefta that the ban against subduing one's wife with a stick during her menstrual period was not an essential component ofJewish law, but that it was worthy nevertheless to forbid it. The issue in Meiri's discussion involved supererogatory acts ofpiety, deeds not normally forbidden by...