Book Reviews

A recent ruling of the Israeli Supreme Court found that the Women of the Wall could not pray collectively at the Kotel (Western Wall). A panel of the Court had ruled in 2000 that they could pray together and read from the Torah at this historic site but the permission was reversed when the full

This collection of essays about Jewish women and head-covering ranges from Halakhic essays to personal reflections from women who find genuine spiritual and emotional rewards in covering their hair and from those who explain their difficulties in doing so. There is discussion of the different ways of covering hair, and contributions by women who are

Orthodox Jewish feminists of today are enriched by knowledge of our foremothers. There is much new research that is a window into the lives of women of the past. This volume is a wonderful introduction and source book covering many historical periods from the Ancient Near East until 1900. It both gives biographic entries of

This book is a rich resource on Jewish prayer using traditional and contemporary perspectives. It contains insightful analyses of the meaning of prayer services with fascinating commentaries on individual prayers. Particularly relevant are a wideranging chapter on Women’s Spiritual Alternatives and another on Orthodox Women’s Private Prayers that covers traditional tehines, contemporary prayers of Orthodox

While the origin of the institution of haftarah reading is somewhat obscure, the texts themselves are a window into the world of “The Prophets” —the second section of the Tanakh, which is their source. They are replete with prophecy and poetry, historical narratives and tales of relationships, both between individuals and between the Jewish people

Law Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, who spoke at the recent International JOFA Conference, heads the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University. She authored Israel’s official report to CEDAW (the United Nations Convention on the Elimination Of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) and this book is a revised and

Stephanie Wellen Levine spent a year in Crown Heights as a Harvard PhD candidate in American studies, examining the world and experiences of Lubavitch girls. She was surprised to find the girls were far more secure, lively and full of self-esteem than many of their peers in general society. While Levine considers the single-sex nature

Nechama Leibowitz zt”l requested to be identified on her metzevah (tombstone) only as “morah” — teacher. As one of the great contemporary teachers of Tanach, she was a role model to the many who attended her classes, studied her weekly gilyonot (study-sheets) and read her books. While she never identified as a “feminist,” her influence

In this book, Rochelle Millen, Professor of Religion at Wittenberg University, explores Jewish birth and death rituals in a comprehensive fashion. She examines how these rituals are treated in halakhic literature, and considers the written views of Conservative and Reform Judaism as well as Orthodox. She includes details of her own personal experiences as she

This book is an extraordinarily rich and unusual window into the society of Jewish women in the nineteenth-century. Iris Parush, who teaches Hebrew Literature at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, offers a historical analysis of reading patterns of Eastern European women. According to Parush, the women enjoyed the “benefit of marginality” precisely because they