Judaism Since Gender offers a radically new concept of Jewish Studies, staking out new intellectual terrain and redefining the discipline as an intrinsically feminist practice. The question of how knowledge is gendered has been discussed by philosophers and feminists for years, yet is still new to many scholars of Judaism. Judaism Since Gender illuminates a crucial debate among intellectuals both within and outside the academy, and ultimately overturns the belief that scholars of Judaism are still largely oblivious of recent developments in the study of gender. Offering a range of provocations--Jewish men as sissies, Jesus as transvestite, the problem of eroticizing Holocaust narratives--this timely collection pits the joys of transgression against desires for cultural wholeness.

Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy is the first systematic attempt to interpret the Jewish philosophical tradition in light of feminist philosophy and to engage feminist philosophy from the perspective of Jewish philosophy. Written by Jewish women who are trained in philosophy, the 13 original essays presented here demonstrate that no analysis of Jewish philosophy (historical or constructive) can be adequate without attention to gender categories. The essays cover the entire Jewish philosophic tradition from Philo, through Maimonides, to Levinas, and they rethink the subdisciplines of Jewish philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political theory, and theology. This volume offers an invitation for a new conversation between feminist philosophy and Jewish philosophy as well as a novel contribution to contemporary Jewish philosophy. Contributors are Leora Batnitzky, Jean Axelrad Cahan, Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, Claire Elise Katz, Nancy Levene, Sandra B. Lubarsky, Sarah Pessin, Randi Rashkover, Heidi Miriam Ravven, T. M. Rudavsky, Suzanne Last Stone, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, and Laurie Zoloth.

Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925) was one of the most important Jewish artists of modern times. As a successful illustrator, photographer, painter and printer, he became the first major Zionist artist. Surprisingly there has been little in-depth scholarly research and analysis of Lilien's work available in English, making this book an important contribution to historical and art-historical scholarship. Concentrating mainly on his illustrations for journals and books, Lynne Swarts acknowledges the importance of Lilien's groundbreaking male iconography in Zionist art, but is the first to examine Lilien's complex and nuanced depiction of women, which comprised a major dimension of his work. Lilien's female images offer a compelling glimpse of an alternate, independent and often sexually liberated modern Jewish woman, a portrayal that often eluded the Zionist imagination. Using an interdisciplinary approach to integrate intellectual and cultural history with issues of gender, Jewish history and visual culture, Swarts also explores the important fin de siècle tensions between European and Oriental expressions of Jewish femininity. The work demonstrates that Lilien was not a minor figure in the European art scene, but a major figure whose work needs re-reading in light of his cosmopolitan and national artistic genius.

Judaism Since Gender offers a radically new concept of Jewish Studies, staking out new intellectual terrain and redefining the discipline as an intrinsically feminist practice. The question of how knowledge is gendered has been discussed by philosophers and feminists for years, yet is still new to many scholars of Judaism. Judaism Since Gender illuminates a crucial debate among intellectuals both within and outside the academy, and ultimately overturns the belief that scholars of Judaism are still largely oblivious of recent developments in the study of gender. Offering a range of provocations--Jewish men as sissies, Jesus as transvestite, the problem of eroticizing Holocaust narratives--this timely collection pits the joys of transgression against desires for cultural wholeness.

The lives of Jewish women throughout the ages are illuminated and celebrated in this dynamic anthology, which features the insights and research of historians, sociologists, artists, theologians, and philosophers. Jewish women in antiquity are examined from several perspectives: D. W. Griffith’s often-overlooked film masterpiece Judith of Bethulia; the “domestication” of Sarah from Hebrew scriptures to Hellenistic Jewish renderings; “nice Jewish girls” like Ruth and Esther who used wine to achieve power; the portrayal of Miriam in the Dead Sea Scrolls; and the impact of rabbinical decisions to exempt women from festive rituals. Later medieval and early modern Jewish women are the subjects of chapters that examine women as prophets and visionaries in Judaism, the depiction of Jewish women in anti-Semitic art caricature, and the history of intermarriage in the early twentieth century. A discussion of the stories of Martin Buber, S. Y. Agnon, and I. L. Peretz highlights the experiences of modern Jewish women, while a wide-ranging examination of current Jewish feminist scholarship finds the discipline “between a rock and a hard place.” Also of note are an investigation into the activity of traditional women’s theatrical groups in Israel, the living memories of American Jewish women via oral narratives, the contributions of women to American Reform Judaism, and two series of posters from the Jewish Women’s Archive of Boston, which provide insight into the lives of extraordinary Jewish women.

Demonstates through different essays Jewish Womens movement rides the fine line between tradition and transformation.

An author and subject index to selected and American Anglo-Jewish journals of general and scholarly interests.

For the first time, women rabbis provide a commentary to the entire Hebrew Bible, not just those parts that relate to women and women's issues.