““The Participation of Jewish Women in Public Rituals and Torah Study 1845––2010”” (Nashim 21)

2011 ◽  
pp. 190
Author(s):  
(Dr.) Debbie Weissman
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Women ◽  
Torah Study

Studying Jewish Women

2021 ◽  
pp. 10-36
Author(s):  
Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Orthodox Jews ◽  
Orthodox Judaism ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Torah Study ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Religious Lives ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the problems of studying Orthodox Jewish women, in particular the 'double invisibility' they experience, first from the perspective of male Orthodox Jews, and, second, in the lack of knowledge about them in the non-Jewish world. Orthodox women engage in a wide range of communal and domestic religious activities, in spite of their exclusion from an active role in worship in synagogue and from some areas of Torah study. Activities defined by Orthodoxy as the supreme religious privileges of women, such as keeping a kosher kitchen, preparing food for sabbath and festivals, and nurturing and educating children, remain largely invisible to Orthodox men. Standard descriptions of women's practices in the domestic and individual spheres omit many widespread customs and practices, often characterized as 'superstitions' although they form an integral and meaningful part of many women's religious lives. A major problem in studying women's religious lives and the ways in which they differ from and intersect with those of men is imagining how women fit into one's overall picture of Jewish religious activity. Neither the 'separate but equal' apologetic nor the simplistic identification of 'oppressed and oppressors' made by some feminists provides an adequate way of thinking about the relationship between male and female lived experience of Judaism. Given that Orthodox Judaism is undeniably patriarchal, it may reasonably be asked whether women have any access to power or agency within the religious life of the community, particularly in matters of ritual and correct practice.

The Lamp, Qasim Amin, Jewish Women and Baghdadi Men: A Reading in the Jewish Iraqi Journal al-Misbah

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orit Bashkin
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Apparent Contradiction ◽  
British Mandate ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
State Institutions

This chapter provides a detailed reading of al-Misbah, a Jewish Iraqi publication which appeared in Baghdad between the years 1924 and 1929 and has been characterised both as a Zionist mouthpiece and a testimony to the success of Arab nationalism. In addressing this apparent contradiction, the chapter examines the issues which dominated its pages in order to highlight the identity of the paper and to enrich our understanding of the Iraqi press under the British Mandate. The chapter addresses two discursive circles – the Iraqi and the Jewish – and proposes that al-Misbah conveyed an unmistakable Iraqi and Arab identity. Despite the editor’s Zionist inclinations, the conversations between readers and writers acquired a life of their own and the paper, in fact, promoted a new Arab Jewish identity and illustrated how Jews sought to use state institutions as venues for the cultivation of non-sectarian and democratic citizenship.

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