Listen to Her Voice: Women of the Hebrew Bible. Eve, Sarah, Rachel, Delilah, Ruth-their names live on, but their ancient stories have long been obscured. In this sumptuously illustrated retelling of the lives of 18 women in the Hebrew Bible, we are reunited with Deborah, the warrior prophetess, Tamar, the sacred prostitute, Esther, the harem girl turned savior queen, and many other remarkable female figures. Author Miki Raver pairs each of these vibrant and daring tales with an eloquent meditation on their meaning for modern women. Beautiful reproductions of classic biblical art from such masters as Rubens, Blake, Brueghel, Raphael, Rembrandt, and Chagall illustrate these powerful women’s dramatic stories. Including a foreword by Lynn Gottlieb, this rich marriage of art, literature, and spirituality offers substantive and entertaining reading, as well as a fresh entry into traditional faith. The perfect Chanukah or Bat Mitzvah present, Listen to Her Voice is a provocative book to treasure and share. See details
Archive for the 'Women and Judaism' Category
Women and Jewish Law: The Essential Texts, Their History, and Their Relevance for Today. Ms. Biale’s book, not only explains relevent laws and how they effect Jewish women (marriage, divorce, abortion, niddah)… she also takes the time to cite the teachings of the great Rabbis, allowing all sides- from right to middle to left- to be heard. This presentation is a fascinating read and allows you to consider all of the evidence and create your own, informed opinions. The author points out how so many of the halakhic decisions were originally made to protect women from aggressive males within the patriarchal system of those times. It ends, however, with the cry for those rulings to be reconsidered in light of the “fact” that women no longer need or want to be protected. See details
Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey among Hasidic Girls. This absorbing ethnography acts as one subculture’s corrective to Reviving Ophelia, in that it offers a refreshing portrait of adolescent girls who are far from insecure. In this refreshing portrayal of girls who are far from insecure, Levine presents a contrasting path to that of mainstream adolescent girls. While a graduate student in American studies at Harvard, Levine spent a year living as a “participant observer” in the Lubavitcher community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, entering with the following assumption: “The possibility that these girls’ lives could be anything other than the Platonic essence of feminine subjugation seemed as unlikely as a suckling pig on a Shabbos table.” What she found instead is that Lubavitch culture nurtures most girls’ inner and outer voices. Though they are not immune from adolescent concerns about fashion, weight, looks and cliques, the Lubavitch emphasis on each person’s godly mission to bring the Messiah deepens their spiritual outlook; the single-sex environment in which they mature helps develop vibrant, expressive personalities. Those who clash with Orthodox strictures, however, experience intense and painful struggles. From interviews with 32 girls ages 13 to 23, Levine found “downright juicy” material and culled seven portraits of girls (disguised in name and background) in their “idiosyncratic splendor.” The essays are sometimes repetitive within the context of the entire book, as if Levine wrote each to stand on its own, but her bright, lively narrative compensates. Levine invites readers to share the “pure delight” of knowing these girls, and challenges us to draw on Hasidism as an unexpected source in helping our own girls develop into secure, confident adults. See details
Bringing Home the Light: A Jewish Woman’s Handbook of Rituals. Ceremonial words and scenarios based in the stories and traditions of sacred Jewish rituals, for women seeking to celebrate their lives and religious heritage. Many women have in recent years reclaimed the beloved seder ceremony of their childhoods, inspired by the groundbreaking Women’s Haggadah originally pubished in Ms. Magazine. Now E.M. Broner, co-author of that Haggadah and an eloquent authority on the meaning and necessity of ritual in our lives, summons her vast experience in creating and adapting traditional Jewish ritual and ceremonial texts to create this unique spiritual sourcebook. Elegantly weaving personal memoir and community experience, poetic recitation, and practical suggestions, Bringing Home the Light offers thinking, seeking Jewish women an accessible handbook for bringing ritual and ceremony back into their lives, whether celebrating the traditional Jewish holy days or creating a sacred, empowering ritual around an important passage in their lives as women.
Anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff said that in ritual, “one takes the chaos of the world … and pours it into a vessel that gives it shape, order and form.” In Bringing Home the Light, Esther Broner describes many such “vessels,” by which she and other women have crafted and adapted rituals for honoring and celebrating wisdom and triumph, change and loss, and the giving and receiving of blessings the year round. See details
She Who Dwells Within. A high-spirited woman rabbi assesses contemporary Judaism and breathes new life into classic tradition by drawing on Jewish, feminist, ecological and Native American sources.
Editorial Reviews
Chapter OneThe Forbidden Fruits of Winter 1975
I remember the first time She called me. I was hunched over the Talmudic tractate called Ketubot (Marriage Contracts) in the Jewish Theological Seminary library, trying to decipher rabbinic conversations about girls not yet menstruating who must engage in sexual intercourse to consummate a marriage. How soon after the first time may intercourse be repeated? After four days, says one. Till the wound heals, says another. Not until the following Shabbat, counters yet another rabbinic sage. I once asked Dr. Francus, who graciously let me attend his class in Talmud when no women were as yet admitted to JTS’s rabbinic program, whether he thought the sages consulted women on this subject. He stared at me blankly.
I glanced hopefully out the window. Twilight tinged the horizons, heralding the hour of my release. I swept up the heavy volumes of rabbinic commentary and sailed down the stairs out into the city. A modern sculpture of the burning bush suspended over the entrance to the seminary declared words of revelation: “And the bush was not consumed.’ Yellow and red city lights cloaked the iron leaves in a thick urban haze. I swung around, inhaled deeply, and set out toward Union Theological Seminary, where the New York Feminist Scholars in Religion were meeting to discuss their personal relationship with the Goddess. My anxiety level soared. A battery of biblical taboos pounded in my head. “You shall have no other gods before Me! Don’t even try to find out about other gods. The practices of other nations are perversions.’ See details
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