Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, Set

JEWISH LAW AND GENDER

576 l JUDAISM and Reconstructionist movements, a friendlier environment in which to function. This in turn provided a venue for Jewish women influenced by feminism to experience the mikvah and the public rituals of niddah. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Jewish women in America have more ritual roles than they ever had before, although, for most, they do not involve the practice of rituals that had for centuries been synonymous with Judaism and women’s roles within it. Yet the newly created ritual life of Jewish women appears to be one of the areas of greatest growth, creativity, and vibrance on the American Jewish ritual scene. SOURCES: Karla Goldman, Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism (2000). Paula Hyman, Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History: The Roles and Representations of Women (1995). Pamela S. Nadell, Women Who Would Be Rabbi: A History of Women’s Ordination, 1889–1985 (1998). Riv Ellen Prell, Prayer and Community: The Havurah in American Judaism (1989). Ellen Umansky and Diane Ashton, eds., Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality : A Sourcebook (1992). JEWISH LAW AND GENDER Norma Baumel Joseph THE CENTRALITY OF Jewish law (halakah) in traditional Jewish life raises many questions for contemporary Jewish communities. In America, the divergent denominations have responded with a variety of distinct positions and interpretations of that law and of its place in determining Jewish practice and identity. One of the most serious and contentious issues is the place of women within that halakic system and its influential determination of gender roles. The practice, study, and promulgation of Jewish law traditionally have been a male occupation. Although women were always obligated to observe the legal rules, many women, especially in the modern period, felt excluded or invisible. In the early 1970s many feminists wrote of their disenchantment with androcentric interpretations of legal premises and processes. Rachel Adler’s 1971 essay “The Jew Who Wasn’t There” complained that “[women] are viewed in Jewish law and practice as peripheral Jews” (Heschel, 13–14). Since traditionally women were legally exempt from many ritual acts, she argued that Jewish women were denied positive religious associations, and all that was left to them were the negative commandments . Although factually inaccurate, she expressed the perception and sentiment of many Jewish women. Some, like Paula Hyman, argued that the problem was not halakah per se. In calling for the full participation of women in religious observance, Hyman noted, “The most formidable barrier to change and to the acceptance of women as authority figures and as the equals of men lies in the psychological rather than halachic realm” (Koltun, Response 7.2 [Summer 1973]: 72). Jews in general were not ready for the full inclusion of women in communal enterprises. On the other hand, Cynthia Ozick , commenting on these laws of ritual exemptions, framed the issue poignantly and precisely: “To exempt is to exclude, to exclude is to debar, to debar is to demote , to demote is to demean” (Heschel, 126). Rachel Biale, in her classic Women and Jewish Law, aptly compared the process of legal development in Judaism to a birth. “Women have participated in the evolution of the Halakhah only in the ‘prenatal’ and ‘postpartum’ stages of the process” (3). They may ask some of the questions and are bound by the decisions, but they do not have any active role in the decision-making process: They are not the birthing agents of the law. To a certain degree, by not creating the texts themselves their voices are halakically —and in some communities literally—silent. Inasmuch as women do not produce the texts, Jewish law would appear to be a poor source for information and research on women. Their silence and invisibility in itself sustains a critique of Judaism. As Judith Hauptman noted: “Jewish law is and was sexist: it does not extend to women the same opportunities for spiritual expression and public leadership as it does to men” (396). Yet these legal documents and codes describe the issues that affected women’s experience and expose the assumptions, explicit and implicit, that governed their lives. The terms of discourse used reveal gender codes that reflect cultural patterns and structure legal perceptions . Moreover, the link between women and modernity in a traditional context is of particular significance in the study of religion, and it is exposed in the legal systems explored. Irrevocably, women’s increasing critique of and active role in the...