Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues articles from September 2005

Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues archives from September 2005

Introduction.
September 22, 2005... In the Passover Hagaddah, we read each year that even Torah scholars, ostensibly familiar with the story of the Exodus from Egypt, are still responsible for retelling it around the table. Those who go further in their liturgical retellings,...

"My aim is to get higher and higher": worship onstage.
September 22, 2005... Orthodox Women's Theater in Israel: "A Theater of Our Own" (1) This article will focus on two theatrical scenes dealing with Orthodox Jewish women's worship. Both were performed by Rachel Keshet in the years 2001 and 2002 within the...

The bride's voice: religious women challenge the wedding ritual (1).
September 22, 2005... Halakhic marriage fixes the status of a woman as property. This status is, of course, not mutual and certainly not acceptable to me.... In general, I don't think it is healthy for a couple to live in consciousness of such power relations.... So...

Meanings of Shekhinah in the "Jewish Renewal" movement (1).
September 22, 2005... "Jewish Renewal is Hasidism meets feminism." Rabbi David Wolfe-Blank "Renewal is a well-spring of women's energy." Nan Fink Geffen "God is coming through the women this time." Barbara Breitman Encountering a feminist conception...

Measuring Jewishness in America: some feminist concerns.
September 22, 2005... As for inner reality, Jewish religiosity is a memory, perhaps also a hope, but it is not a presence. Martin Buber, On Judaism (1) Worry about a loss of Jewish identity has a long history among communal and rabbinic leaders and...

He said she said: hearing the voices of pneumatic early modern Jewish women (1).
September 22, 2005... Spirit possession--the state of being influenced or controlled by a spirit--has been interpreted by a generation of anthropologists and historians as a mode of women's religiosity. (2) Taking their cue from cutting-edge scholarship emerging...

In the name of the mother: women's discourse--women's prayer in Michal Govrin's The Name.
September 22, 2005... After all, the name was tattooed on her flesh. Michal Govrin, The Name (1) This essay examines the articulation of a spiritually and religiously framed discourse expressive of a culture unique to women, closely allied with the myth of the...

The matriarchs and the Torah of hesed (loving-kindness).
September 22, 2005... Dedicated to the memory of my grandmothers Rivkah Kahanov-Alpern and Ada Neubauer-Ramon, of blessed memory Introduction Like most of the ideological movements that have left their mark on Judaism over recent centuries, the feminist...

Legends of Rebecca: Ivanhoe, dynamic identification, and the portraits of Rebecca Gratz.
September 22, 2005... Of Walter Scott's characters, one of the most enigmatic and the one that most threatens the ideological edifice upon which historical fiction is built is the figure of the Jewess, Rebecca of York, from the novel Ivanhoe. In the novel, Rebecca...

Lithomancy.(Poem)
September 22, 2005... LITHOMANCY You shall not practice divination or soothsaying. Leviticus 19:26 The story is this: Actuated by an unaccountable impulse, one night I wandered out from the city (to seek the one I loved?) to...

In My Oma's Hand.(FOUR POEMS)(Poem)
September 22, 2005... IN MY OMA'S HAND In Gothic script on paper now so brittle, almost sixty years old, it falls apart at the touch. Meine lieben kinder, my beloved children, she writes to the ones who made it to America,...

American Family.(FOUR POEMS)(Poem)
September 22, 2005... AMERICAN FAMILY On my mother's dresser is a passport photograph of her cousin, Bertl Katz, at 13 years old. My mother's family tried to get her out of Germany, filled out affidavits, tried to sponsor her, but they didn't...

Sweet Dreams.(FOUR POEMS)(Poem)
September 22, 2005... SWEET DREAMS Sometimes I dream I'm the one who kills Hitler. It's simple. I walk up to him, shoot him in the face, and watch his head explode into a million glass pieces that clink on the floor like a Saturday...

Oma.(FOUR POEMS)(Poem)
September 22, 2005... OMA On Jaffa Street in Jerusalem, people pack into buses, and I watch mothers try to quiet their babies, tell their older children to behave. At Yad Vashem, I see pictures of people packed into cattle cars and the...

Reflections on the future of Jewish feminism and Jewish feminist scholarship. (1).(The View from Here)
September 22, 2005... Something in the announced topic of the roundtable at the AJS where these remarks were delivered made me a little anxious: "The Future of Jewish Feminism and Jewish Feminist Scholarship." Not only is the future an uncertain place, but to...

Spiritual androgyny in the art of Michael Sgan-Cohen and Carole Berman.(Resident Artist)
September 22, 2005... "Art has no master and follows its own truth." (1) When a time for some idea is ripe, it seems as though that idea is dispersed like spores on a breeze. Michael Sgan-Cohen and Carole Berman, artists in different places and from different...

Tamar Ross: Expanding the Palace of Torah: Feminism and Orthodoxy.(Book Review)
September 22, 2005... Tamar Ross Expanding the Palace of Torah: Feminism and Orthodoxy Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2004. 324 pp. Tamar Ross's book Expanding the Palace of Torah: Feminism and Orthodoxy attempts to address what Ross sees as the key...

Shulamit Reinharz and Mark A. Raider (eds.): American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise.(Book Review)
September 22, 2005... Shulamit Reinharz and Mark A. Raider (eds.) American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2005 On November 29, 1948, Hebrew University student Zipporah Porath wrote home to New York: ...

Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors Michael Fishbane, Consulting Editor: The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation.(Book Review)
September 22, 2005... Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors Michael Fishbane, Consulting Editor The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 2181 pages. This admirable...