By Rachel Kohl Finegold “But where will you sit?” That was the very first question I was asked by the very first reporter to interview me after I was hired to serve as a member of the clergy at Shaar Hashomayim, my Montreal synagogue. This first question was not about my job function, nor about […]
The Maharat Behind the Mehitzah Read More »
Brandeis University Press/HBI Series on Jewish Women, 2015, $40 (paperback), $34.99 (ebook) By Roberta Rosenberg Farber The family is an institution most of us take for granted. We grow up in families and hope to create our own. So why has the family become such an important topic in the Jewish community today?According to the
Illuminations and Commentary by Debra BandHoneybee in the Garden, 2016, $49.95By Roselyn Bell Debra Band’s new volume of illuminated texts for Kabbalat Shabbat and Friday night home rituals is both visually breathtaking and conceptually very ambitious. She has provided multiple commentaries, artistic and literary, for the texts, as well as conceptual approaches to them from
Kabbalat Shabbat: The Grand Unification Read More »
By Michael J. HarrisVallentine Mitchell, 2016, $36.94By Roselyn Bell What is Modern Orthodoxy? Michael J. Harris, a rabbi serving the Hampstead Synagogue in London as well as an academic with a Ph.D. in philosophy, teaching in the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge, applies the skill sets of both his disciplines to answering this question. He
Faith Without Fear: Unresolved Issues in Modern Orthodoxy Read More »
By Yehudit Robinson I didn’t expect to say Kaddish with any regularity. When my father, Morris Robinson, died in late January 2020, I intended to recite only the three Kaddishes at the end of the Shabbat davening each week and, instead, focus on helping raise my three young children. At the shivah minyanim at my
Kaddish, in Retrospect Read More »
By Michal S. RaucherIndiana University Press, 2020, $24.Reviewed by Roselyn Bell If you are tired of Ḥaredi women being portrayed as oppressed, uneducated, and subservient to their husbands, Michal Raucher’s Conceiving Agency provides a much-needed corrective, reframing our notions of reproductive agency and religious meaning in the ultra-Orthodox community. Using the tools of ethnography and
Conceiving Agency: Reproductive Authority among Haredi Women Read More »
By Rabbi Daniel Sperber, Afterword by Rabbanit Dr. Michal TikochinskyMaharat/Urim Publishers, 2020, $27.95Review by Debbie WeissmanIn the Bible, there are many important female figures—although many fewer than the male figures—occupying a variety of roles far beyond the traditional domestic ones, including judge, queen, warrior, and “wise woman.” If Proverbs 31:10–31—the Eishet Ḥayil–can be taken as
By Noam StadlanThe discussion of abortion in halakhah begins with the life of the mother. Pikuaḥ nefesh, the obligation to preserve life—in this case, the life of the mother—trumps every other obligation except for three: murder, sexual immorality, and idol worship. Until the head of the fetus or the majority of its body has exited
What Does Halakhah Say about Abortion? Read More »
By Nancy SinkoffWayne State University Press, 2020, $34.99Review by Roselyn BellLucy Dawidowicz was not a feminist, nor was she Orthodox, yet much in her life experience and in her intellectual contributions will resonate with JOFA readers. She was often the only woman in a room filled with opinion-shaping men. She was sometimes given lesser recognition
It’s Both Public and Private By Pam Scheininger The Call for Articles for this edition of the JOFA Journal began with this hook: “Our awareness of our human capacity for reproduction is a vital aspect of our view of our bodies and ourselves stretching from menarche to menopause.” As women, we are acutely aware of this
From Our President Read More »
