Book Reviews

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

This book explores the experiences of Jewish women from North African and Middle Eastern backgrounds. The variety of well-written essays introduces readers to the worlds of a range of women, mainly non-Orthodox, who grapple with issues of multiple identities as well as of survival. One woman writes of her flight from persecution in Libya in

Sylvia Barack Fishman, an active JOFA Board member, heads the program in Contemporary Jewish Life in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department at Brandeis University and is co-director of the Hadassah–Brandeis Institute. Her book, “A Breath of Life: Feminism in the American Jewish Community,” is an invaluable guide to American Jewish feminism. Her most

JOFA members need no introduction to Tamar Ross, who has graced our conferences as a spellbinding presenter for many years, beginning with the first conference in 1997. Associate Professor of Jewish Thought in the Department of Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University and teacher of Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum, Ross can justly be called one of