Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues articles from March 2009

Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues archives from March 2009

From Bourgeois Germany to Palestine: memoirs of German Jewish women in Israel.(Essay)
March 22, 2009... Introduction My first journey to Haifa caused me a light shock. All the trees and the bushes were dry, covered with a thick gray layer of dust. The old city streets looked neglected, rumbling with a weird mixture of nations. My...

"She's got a man's head on her shoulders": Ada Fishman (Maimon) as a test case for private, public and gendered aspects of women's political activity.
March 22, 2009... This article sets to examine the relationship between gender and politics in the process of nation-building, focusing on two prominent women leaders: Ada Fishman (Maimon) and Golda Myerson (Meir). Both were active in the period in which the...

Reader response: the five books of Miriam.(Critical essay)
March 22, 2009... The rich last issue of Nashim, no. 16, included Aaron Singer's interesting review of The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman's Commentary on the Torah (HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), by Ellen Frankel, occasioned by the book's recent publication in Hebrew...

Resident artist (guest): a Jewish grandmother looks at creation.(Essay)
March 22, 2009... I do not think about being Jewish. It is simply something I am. It is my core. When I was little, my family was Orthodox. On Saturday, my grandfather and I walked to Temple. The women sat upstairs. I thought it was special and wonderful to be...

Tova Hartman: Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism: Resistance and Accommodation.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Tova Hartman Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism: Resistance and Accommodation Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 2007 Feminism Encounter Traditional Judaism is a collection of essays that were no doubt originally...

Chana Safrai and Avital Campbell Hochstein: Women Out--Women In: The Place of Women in Midrash.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Chana Safrai and Avital Campbell Hochstein Women Out--Women In: The Place of Women in Midrash Hebrew; Tel Aviv: Miskal-Yedioth Ahronoth and Chemed Books, 2008. 188 pp. NIS 88 i Several years ago, I participated in a seminar at the...

Alexandra Cuffel: Gendering Disgust in Medieval Religious Polemic.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Alexandra Cuffel Gendering Disgust in Medieval Religious Polemic Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2007. 430 pp. Alexandra Cuffel's Gendering Disgust in Medieval Religious Polemic reexamines a well known and much-written-about...

Riv-Ellen Prell (ed.): Women Remaking American Judaism.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Riv-Ellen Prell (ed.) Women Remaking American Judaism Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2007. 331 pp. Few chapters in contemporary Jewish life are as overwhelmingly positive as the flowering of Jewish women's accomplishments in...

The menstruant as "other" in medieval Judaism and Christianity.(Report)
March 22, 2009... The Christian as Niddah The fear of menstruants and menstrual blood is common to many cultures. (1) In ancient Near-Eastern religions, impurities were often considered odious to benevolent deities, and "impure" persons, including menstruants,...

Introduction.(feminism and religion)(Essay)
March 22, 2009... Perhaps the most surprising current development in the feminist engagement with religious tradition, with its correlate sub-group of religious people engaging in different ways with feminism, is that it is a field that continues to exist at all....

Channels of information about menstruation and sexuality among hasidic adolescent girls.(Report)
March 22, 2009... Introduction The meanings assigned to women's "natural" features, such as menstruation, sexuality and childbirth, are among the foci of anthropological gender research. (1) Individuals become preoccupied with sexuality during adolescence,...

Under cover: demystification of women's head covering in Jewish law.
March 22, 2009... You get a chatan [a bride groom], you get a ring, and you get a sheitel [a wig]. (Fagie Rosen, wig retailer and stylist) (1) 1. Introduction It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the working...

Foucault and Jewish feminism: the mehitzah as dividing practice.(Critical essay)
March 22, 2009... For Jewish feminists, reading Foucault is an uncanny experience. Foucault himself was occupied neither with feminism nor with Judaism. However, although his viewpoint is resolutely male, the terms of his investigations have proved extremely...