In Search of Identity and Spirituality in the Fiction of American Jewish Female Authors at the Turn of the 21st Century. Dorota Mihulka
in her attitude towards Halakhah, and for showing “an insufficient appreciation for the finer points of halakhic deliberation” as an insider (Ross, 2004: xi).
In Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism (2004), Orthodox feminist Tamar Ross, a representative of mainstream Orthodoxy, argues that feminism forces the Jewish community to re-examine the relationship between divine revelation and human interpretation in order to determine whether a tradition grounded in the notion of a unique revelation at Sinai can accommodate the changing moral sensibilities of its adherents (2004: xv–xvi). Although Ross contends that feminism indeed constitutes a genuine challenge to traditional Judaism, it does not mean that traditional Orthodox Jews are obliged to accept its perceptions even to a minimal extent. However, she believes that the familiarity with the feminist critique will enable Jewish traditionalists to assess the challenge that Orthodoxy is confronting and to develop an adequate response. She also seems to be fully convinced that feminism need not be perceived as a threat to traditional Judaism, and that Jewish tradition itself provides ways and means of dealing with such challenges. Ross concludes that the challenges that feminism presents have “the potential to enhance Judaism and make it more meaningful for all its believers, male and female alike [as well as] to enhance rather than destroy the foundations of Torah, while deepening its relevancy for our time” (2004: xvi–xvii). In contrast to Blu Greenberg, however, Tamar Ross, who identifies with the more traditionalist religious environment, seems to be far from providing ultimate answers to women’s issues in Orthodox Judaism. Neither does she advocate the changes in the fundamental halakhic status of women as this might lead to profound implications upon or even an upheaval in the entire system that has served the Jewish people for two thousand years (2004: xv). She acknowledges that she is fully committed to the tradition in which “the Torah has both described and prescribed a patriarchal society. Disturbing as this may be, [she believes] that it need not be the end of the story and that Jewish tradition itself provides hope that an authentic understanding of Torah can accommodate what is, to all intents and purposes, an egalitarian ethos” (2004: xxi).
The other group of feminist scholars is comprised of those who believe that it is the external circumstances that are responsible for perpetuating the inferior position of Jewish women in Jewish community, and/or that Halakhah may be actually used to remedy gender injustice in Judaism. For example, according to Rachel Biale, the Halakhah has not excluded Jewish women nearly as much as the folk cultures that have surrounded it. She argues that it was folk culture, not post-biblical Jewish law, for example, that perpetuated the notion of menstrual contamination and made menstruating women feel unwelcome in synagogues in ←82 | 83→certain European Jewish communities. Contrary to popular opinion, Biale suggests that, “the law [Halakhah] may have preceded common practice in what to the contemporary eye are liberal, compassionate attitudes toward women” (1995: 7). In a similar vein, Cynthia Ozick in an article entitled “Notes toward Finding the Right Question,” analyzing the sociological status of women in Judaism, argues that their subordination is not rooted deeply in Torah but is the result of its misinterpretation by rabbis throughout the centuries. Thus, “for Judaism, the status of women is a social, not a sacred, question” (1995: 126). Ozick also points out that the subordinate treatment of women within Judaism can be halakhically repaired, declaring that Torah itself provides its own basis for radical change of many aspects of Jewish life (1995: 123–124, 142). She has been taken to task by Judith Plaskow for not understanding the implications of the theological categories she has used in her article as well as assuming that the ‘otherness’ of women will disappear if only the community is flexible enough to rectify halakhic injustices. According to Plaskow, the problems extend far beyond Halakhah: the ‘otherness’ of women is directly linked to theological conceptions of God as male and to the male authorship of Jewish tradition (Plaskow, 1995: 226–227). However, in the last section of her article, Ozick raises a disturbing question what if:
[…] I have taken the position that the issue of the status of Jewish women flows from societal, not sacral, sources. But suppose this position is dead wrong? And suppose the opponents of this position, who believe that the status of women is in fact a sacral question, are right? (1995: 143)
In other words, Ozick is wondering whether it is possible that the lesser status and ‘otherness’ of Jewish women are created and sustained, albeit partially, by Torah itself, and do not derive only from the surrounding social attitudes. On the one hand, this might indicate Ozick’s ambivalence about her stance towards the source of the subordination of women in Judaism, on the other hand, her attempt to explore, or at least consider, the theological underpinnings, the very foundations of the Jewish tradition, as a potential source regarding women’s inferior status in Judaism.
Aviva Cantor provides yet another explanation for Jewish women’s oppression under Jewish patriarchy in her 1995 book Jewish Women/Jewish Men: The Legacy of Patriarchy in Jewish Life. She theorizes that one of the reasons why Jewish patriarchy oppressed Jewish women with such vigor was the emasculation of the Jewish male. As members of a cultural/religious minority residing within the host countries that often displayed hostile behavior towards them, Jewish men frequently lacked the ability to defend their communities and families, and were coerced into adopting positions of inferiority and subservience. Aviva Cantor explains:
The Jews’ condition in Exile is analogous in many ways to the oppression of women, who are also powerless under patriarchy and are affected by power struggles they are not part of and by their outcome. Lacking self-determination over their own destinies, ←83 | 84→Jews were, as are women, object rather than subject, forced to be reactive rather than active and to respond to others’ demands. (1995: 14)
Having felt powerless, Jewish men imposed the same kinds of conditions that they attempted to avoid, upon Jewish women, rendering them ‘object’ in the American Jewish community. However, the Jewish women had to grapple with something much more painful and hopeless than what Jewish men were experiencing, namely the realization that what was imposed upon Jewish men came from the external hostile host society, whereas what was imposed upon women came from within, from their own Jewish community. Thus, Jewish women felt doubly marginalized, as Jews by the host society in which they lived, and as women within their own American Jewish community.
The double marginalization of Jewish women both in the American and American Jewish communities has also contributed, as some scholars maintain, to the fact that Jewish women began to be seen as the archetypical victims of ‘Jewish feminine mystique’ which kept them within the confines of their private suburban homes and nuclear families, isolated from the world of work and wages, feeling ‘satisfied’ and protected, but at the same time totally powerless (cf. Shapiro, 1995: 247; Diner, Kohn, and Kranson, 2010: 2–3). According to these scholars, the subservient position of women lies not as much in the Halakhah as in “[…] male fear and rage at the idea of autonomous women defining their own relationship to the Jewish tradition. The issue is power: Who will have power over Jewish women’s lives?” (Plaskow, 1990: 26).
Irrespective of the source of Jewish women’s oppression, whether it is rooted in the Halakhah (Judith Plaskow, Rachel Adler, Blu Greenberg), historical custom and practice (Cynthia Ozick), the folk culture (Rachel Biale) or resulting from the power struggles in an exilic patriarchal society (Aviva Cantor), Jewish feminists adamantly opposed women’s subordination within the American Jewish community and called for radical changes in law as well as in ‘attitude’ to achieve equality of women. They demanded not only halakhic and institutional change, but also the radical transformation of “[their] religious language in the form of recognition of the feminine aspects of God” (Plaskow, 1995: 229), which they hoped might bring about changes in underlying Jewish attitudes of the whole Jewish community. Moreover, they objected to the dominant model of the middle-class femininity39 that threatened to circumscribe Jewish women’s lives and their autonomy. Looking for opportunities to transcend the boundaries of domesticity, Jewish feminists promoted full participation of Jewish women in every sector of Jewish life, from religious to public ones – as religious leaders, educators, scholars, board members and ←84 | 85→professional executives in communal organizations, social justice activists, artists and businesswomen. Of course, receptivity to these demands varied depending on the Jewish denomination, with the Reform Movement more open to equal access, the Conservative Movement more restrictive, whereas