Gender, Equality and Jewish Feminism

Overview

Recall questions on same-sex relationships and sexual norms, men's and women's religious duties, women in the home and in education, Kaplan and D D Moore, women's leadership, Regina Jonas and Julia Neuberger, Koltun, Jewish feminism and the agunah problem.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   How do Jewish movements differ on same-sex relationships?

   Model answer

   Mainstream Orthodoxy maintains the traditional prohibition drawn from Leviticus on male same-sex acts, while many Orthodox rabbis now insist that gay and lesbian Jews must be welcomed in the community and not shamed, and a 2010 statement of principles signed by Orthodox rabbis set that out. The Conservative movement's law committee in 2006 permitted the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis and same-sex commitment ceremonies while leaving individual communities to decide. Reform and Liberal Judaism ordain LGBT rabbis and celebrate same-sex marriage.

2. 2

   Where does the argument over same-sex relationships turn for Jews who want change?

   Model answer

   On how far a prohibition addressed to a particular act in an ancient setting governs a committed relationship between two people today, on the weight of human dignity as a principle in Jewish law, and on evidence that sexual orientation is not chosen. Those resisting change reply that the prohibition is explicit in the Torah rather than rabbinic, that halakhah cannot be overturned by shifting social attitudes, and that permitting it would break with the whole tradition.

3. 3

   What norms of sexual behaviour does traditional Judaism set?

   Model answer

   Sexual relations belong within marriage, and marriage and children are treated as a positive obligation rather than a concession. Sexuality itself is regarded as good, and a husband owes his wife sexual satisfaction as a matter of law. Traditional couples observe the laws of separation during and after menstruation, followed by immersion in a ritual bath, and modesty in dress and conduct is expected of both sexes, though in practice it has usually been policed more closely on women.

4. 4

   How does traditional Jewish law distribute religious duties between men and women?

   Model answer

   Women are exempt from most positive commandments tied to a set time, so they are not obliged in the same way to daily prayer at fixed hours, tefillin or the fringed garment, and are not counted in the prayer quorum. Three commandments are traditionally associated with women: separating a portion of dough, the laws of family purity, and kindling the Shabbat lights. Exemption is not prohibition, and there has always been debate about whether women may take on what they are not obliged to do.

5. 5

   How is women's exemption from time-bound positive commandments interpreted, and how is it challenged?

   Model answer

   The traditional defence is that men and women have different but equally valuable roles, that women are exempt because of responsibilities in the home, and that women are said to need the discipline of ritual less. Critics answer that the outcome is that men hold every public religious role, that exemption in practice became exclusion, and that a difference which always assigns authority to one sex is not a difference of role but an inequality. Reform and Liberal Judaism removed the distinction; Modern Orthodox women have increasingly taken on the practices voluntarily.

6. 6

   What has women's role been in Jewish family life and the home?

   Model answer

   Traditionally the home was the woman's domain, and a great deal of Jewish practice happens there: keeping the kitchen kosher, preparing for Shabbat and the festivals, lighting the Shabbat candles, running the Passover household, and above all forming the children's Jewish habits. The tradition treats the home as a small sanctuary, so this was religiously weighty work, although it was unpaid, invisible in the public liturgy and carried no communal authority.

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