In Search of Identity and Spirituality in the Fiction of American Jewish Female Authors at the Turn of the 21st Century. Dorota Mihulka
lives of Orthodox Jewish women. On the contrary, as Alexandra Martin observes, “Hirsch’s theoretical framework in particular, and the Jewish enlightenment in general, left traditional female roles untouched” (2004: 238).
It is worth emphasizing, however, that there have been attempts made within Modern Orthodoxy recently, which might have initiated important changes for Orthodox Jewish women. Firstly, Modern Orthodoxy, unlike Haredi Orthodoxy, has begun experimenting with new possibilities within the bounds of Jewish law for enhancing women’s religious expression. As Lawrence Grossman explains, “these have taken the form of women’s prayer groups, women reading the Scroll ←50 | 51→of Esther for the congregation on Purim, women as presidents of synagogues, and even calling women up to the Torah for aliyot” (2005: 97). Although such practices are not universally accepted in Modern Orthodoxy, they still indicate a willingness on the part of some sections within Modern Orthodox leadership to consider and introduce certain changes affecting and improving the position of Orthodox women. Secondly, in 1997 a modernist national organization called Edah with the motto ‘The Courage to Be Modern and Orthodox’ (“EDAH: Mission Statement”) articulated its definite stance on the position of women, among other things, affirming the equality of women in Judaism while preserving the Halakhic process. However, the demise of Edah in 2006 hindered those momentous changes for Orthodox Jewish women and demonstrated the organizational weakness of ideological Modern Orthodoxy which had been led by Rabbi Berman, a strong supporter of feminist Orthodoxy and fuller women’s rights within Orthodox Judaism (Robinson, 2011: 344).
Nevertheless, what has succeeded in influencing certain sectors of the entire American Orthodox community in recent decades is Jewish feminism, which has left its visible, creative, and permanent mark on it (see also Section 1.3.3 in this chapter). One area which has seen an unprecedented expansion is the area of female education in Orthodox Judaism. Even the most traditional of Orthodox Jews have realized that the new circumstances of life in secularized America necessitated that girls and young women should receive a more extensive education in comparison with their mothers’ and grandmothers’. This understanding has inspired the creation of comprehensive Orthodox school systems for girls, which have produced some outstanding Orthodox female educators and scholars. The first religiously oriented schools for Jewish girls from Orthodox families were established in 1918 in Eastern Europe under the leadership of Sarah Schenirer. Although the Yaakov school network that Schenirer founded placed an emphasis on modesty and humility more than rigorous study, it set a precedent for female education in Orthodox Judaism and was transplanted to America in 1937, where it encountered favorable circumstances for its full development in Brooklyn’s hospitable Orthodox sections.
The Bais Yaakov schools offered Orthodox Jewish girls in the United States an education both on elementary and secondary levels as well as in the seminary, having a curriculum that adhered rigorously to the Old-World ways, and underestimated consciously the importance of general secular studies. Moreover, another goal of the Bais Yaakov schools, comparable to the one of yeshivot for boys and men, was to socialize their female students against the perceived evils of general society. To achieve that goal, Bais Yaakov women, similarly to their male counterparts, were actively dissuaded from entering higher education in the secular world after achieving their teacher certification in the girls’ yeshivah. In fact, many Orthodox day schools continue to eliminate the 12th grade to make sure its graduates cannot attend college (cf. Baskin, 2011: 657; Gurock, 1998: 1011–1013). Apart from the Bais Yaakov system which attracted religious girls from the whole Orthodox community, smaller Hasidic girls’ yeshivot – such as the Lubavitcher’s ←51 | 52→Bais Rivkah schools, Satmar’s Bais Rochel schools or the Bobover girls’ schools, renowned for their high educational standards – were founded and controlled by the specific Hasidic sects that established themselves in post-war America.
The secular opportunities that have transformed women’s educational and vocational expectations in the wider American society have had an unquestionable impact on the traditional Orthodox community as well. Seeing increasing female interest and engagement in serious Jewish study, the Orthodox community in the United States agreed to provide Orthodox Jewish women with advanced educational opportunities comparable to those previously granted to Jewish men, which was symbolized by the inauguration of Stern College as a women’s college within Orthodoxy’s Yeshiva University in 1954. The opening of this women’s college not only indicated a meaningful commitment on the part of Orthodox leaders to give Jewish women access to serious Jewish study, but it also provided its female students with abundant opportunities for social engagements with potential marriage mates (Gurock, 1998: 1014). In the early twenty-first century, as Judith R. Baskin notices, “halakhically knowledgeable women [graduates of Stern College and other Orthodox yeshivot] serve as rabbinic assistants in a number of Modern Orthodox synagogues in North America and are trained to act as expert advocates on legal issues connected with women’s status in Israel” (2011: 657).
At the same time Jewish feminists, also graduates of Orthodox schools, Stern College or secular universities, have started challenging the Orthodox community by demanding that they be given a greater role in synagogue life and public ritual within the bounds of Halakhah. One of the most successful efforts of Jewish feminists was to organize Orthodox women’s tefillah (prayer) groups consisting of women who wanted to remain within the Halakhic parameters of the Orthodox community meeting regularly to conduct prayer services for women only, read Torah, and study together. Since their inception in the late 1960s, women’s tefillahs have proliferated and spread throughout North America and nowadays, as Rivka Haut notices, “tefillah groups have become a standard feature of modern Orthodoxy. From Australia to Sweden to Israel, there is hardly a sizable Jewish community that does not have a women’s tefillah group” (2003: 272).
Women’s tefillah groups have been criticized by both mainstream Orthodox rabbis and community leaders in the United States since the 1980s who prohibited integrating all organized women’s prayer groups or any other feminist activities into their synagogues’ life on the grounds that they stemmed from and imitated the secular feminist movement in America which had no serious spiritual or religious foundation. Moreover, in 1985, Orthodox feminists and their supporters, among them Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Avraham Weiss and Rabbi Saul J. Berman, were further pilloried by a group of professors of Talmud at Orthodoxy’s Yeshiva University, who stated categorically that tefillah prayer groups were “a total and complete deviation from tradition” (Wertheimer, 1993: 133). According to Rabbi Weiss, allowing women’s tefillah groups into the synagogue by the Orthodox rabbinate would be equivalent to acknowledging them as a realistic Halakhic alternative. He maintains that as long as these groups are kept outside the synagogue, ←52 | 53→they can be viewed as a “passing fad, a kind of religious experience that is tolerated more than permitted, satisfying the whims of those attending, but lacking real legitimacy” (qtd. in Lipstadt, 2001: 299–300).
Despite this strong opposition within Orthodoxy, women’s tefillah groups have had a profound impact on American Orthodox women in a number of ways. They have given the Orthodox women an opportunity to learn and practice new synagogue skills as well as to serve as role models for their children. Additionally, some women have taken an advantage of the tefillah prayer groups as a doorway back to the Orthodox community. Women who participate in these prayer groups have spoken of “the stirring spirituality and beauty of the [women’s] prayer services” and the emotional satisfaction and inspiration they find in reading from the Torah and leading the congregation (Aranoff, 1993: 261–265). Members of these davening groups admit that they feel spiritually empowered and engaged in a prayer in a way they have not previously experienced, since ordinarily they are “sitting on the sidelines, unneeded and perhaps unwanted” (Doron, 1993: 258–261). Summing up, according to Ronnie Becher and Bat Sheva Marcus, women’s tefillah groups will continue to remain in the future “a viable alternative for Orthodox women who desire a fuller worship experience without leaving Orthodoxy” (1998: 1505).
The culmination of Jewish Orthodox feminists’ efforts was the foundation of Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) in April 1997, the latest of Orthodox women’s organizations of national status in the United States, whose mission is to “expand the spiritual, ritual, intellectual and political opportunities for women within the framework of halakhah […]