Power/Knowledge/Gender: The Oranges and Grapefruit Debate

The Oranges and Grapefruit Debate POWER/KNOWLEDGE/GENDER: THE ORANGES AND GRAPEFRUIT DEBATE by Tamar El-Or Tamar El-Or is Lecturer of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Her book Educated and Ignorant: UltraorthodoxJewish Women and Their World (1994) focuses on a matrix ofliteracy, gender, and religion. She currently studies the constitution of gender, nation, and Jewish identity among religious Zionist young women. 53 It was a large basement of an apartment house in north Tel Aviv, which was used as a meeting place for Emuna-the Zionist orthodox women's organization. When I entered the room, leaving outside a sunny February morning, it was already crowded with some 60 women who had come for their weekly lesson. Most of them were elderly. A few were wearing wigs, some had kerchiefs, but the majority did not cover their heads. We were about to discuss my book, Educated and Ignorant: UltraorthodoxJewish Women and Their World, and I was nervous. It was easier to present the book to a nonorthodox audience-people eager to hear the stories behind the long sleeves and under the wigs of ultraorthodox women. Some were disappointed when I related my refusal to look into very private, intimate matters, but they found comfort in other aspects sufficiently "exotic" to the unfamiliar ears of non-orthodox Jewish Israelis. During the discussions that followed these presentations, I usually found that their ears and hearts were never entirely alien to the subject. Many people in the audience came from an orthodox background and were seeking to warm themselves near the rhythm and aroma of their "old world," contemplating again its relevance to their current lives. There were parents ofba'alei teshuva (nonreligiousJews who become observant) who were brought to the subject by their children's choice, bouncing between anger, sorrow and guilt, and seeking to understand. Others met ultraorthodox men and women every day as doctors, social workers, civil 54 SHOFAR Fall 1995 Vol. 14, No.1 servants or business people, and wanted to learn more about them. Most participants had good knowledge of Jewish history and Bible from their public school education. Nevertheless, talking to a non-orthodox audience meant conversing with people who conduct their lives outside the laws of halakha that govern orthodox life. That morning in the dim basement I was to present my work to orthodox women whose subject pOSition was quite different, and I was curious to hear their reactions, especially to the "oranges and grapefruit debate." This debate arose during a session on Laws of the Sabbath at a women's study group in the Gur Hasidic community I studied. At this meeting, Tsipi, a 21-year-old teacher at Beit Yaakov (a school for Orthodox girls), and the woman in charge of the study group, spoke about tasks forbidden on the Sabbath. She decided to focus on "sorting," explaining the prohibition and offering some solutions to potential problems, as her teacher, a Rabbi, had taught her at the seminary for teachers she had attended.l Tsipi said: "The act of sorting is to separate food from refuse. IfI want to take oranges out of a bowl and there are grapefruits there too, the oranges are the food and the grapefruit are the refuse. You are permitted to take the oranges out of the bowl if you meet three conditions: the object is food, the task is done by hand, and the task is performed immediately . That means you take out what you want to eat with your hand and not with an implement, and you eat it now and not later" (p. 123). Tsipi's short presentation of both the problem and its solution raised an outcry in the room. The women were very upset by the use of the word "refuse." It sounded like waste, like garbage, and they were curious to know what happens if later one wants to eat the grapefruit which previously had been declared refuse. Tsipi replied: "Ifyou want the grapefruit, then it's food and whatever is left in the bowl is the refuse" (p. 124). This operational definition calmed the room, but Rachel said: "I don't understand, how can it be food...