Some time ago, as I meandered through the streets of Paris and the historic Jewish district of Le Marais, I chanced upon the splendid synagogue on Rue Pavée (see photo). The verse “How goodly are thy dwellings, O Israel” (Numbers 24:5) naturally came to mind. It was interesting, I then reflected, that I had used […]
The Road Not (Yet) Taken: Creating a Coeducational Beit Midrash in France Read More »
I’m so excited about the editorial board’s choice to focus on women’s learning in this issue of the JOFA Journal. The timing is hardly coincidental. As we near the end of the seven-year daf yomi cycle, JOFA wanted to honor and to call attention to the proliferation of women’s scholarship in Talmud studies and beyond.
In Celebration of Women’s Learning Read More »
Women’s Torah learning, teaching, and leadership are booming in Israel today. The number of beit midrash programs that exist and the number of women studying in them have increased significantly over the past few years. The most significant stride has occurred in the study of halakhah. Training in hilkhot niddah (family purity law) may have
Strength in Numbers: What’s New in Women’s Torah Leadership in Israel Read More »
As international women’s Jewish learning and scholarship have evolved in previously unimaginable ways, so has my own relationship with Jewish text. When I think of myself as a learner, I remember that during high school, I routinely lost my Humash and Navi books during the first week of school, never to find them again. I
The Evolution of Women’s Learning—and My Own Read More »
The Women’s Tefillah Group of Raritan Valley, based in Highland Park and Edison, New Jersey, has been meeting regularly for more than thirty years. Most of our current membership has been a part of the group for at least a decade, and we are a close-knit and supportive bunch. We love to celebrate together, and
A Women’s Tefillah Group Faces the COVID Year Read More »
As the product of a certain time when all feminists were branded as bra burners or worse, I have often felt discomfort with the term “feminist.” Whenever I have spoken about Jofa—and I have, frequently and approvingly, over the years—I have qualified my remarks by saying that I think the word “feminist” in the organization’s
My Feelings Have Evolved Read More »
A core task of scholarship is to rescue from obscurity works of merit that have been overlooked. It is to just such a task that Dr. Julia Schwartzmann turns in publishing The Path of Moses, an essay dealing with the position of women in Jewish religious life. She makes the case admirably on behalf of
The Path of Moses: A Scholarly Essay on the Case of Women in Religious Faith Read More »
At the “To Be a Jewish Woman” religious feminist conference, sponsored by Kolech in Jerusalem in 1999, I interviewed Blu Greenberg, the founder of Jofa, about her vision for the “bloodless revolution” she had described at the conference. She asked for my thoughts about the conference and the issues raised, and I shared my concerns
Gender Awareness and Jewish Education Read More »
My mother, z”l, died almost forty years ago; my father, z”l, four years ago. Although, figuratively, there has been a tenfold improvement between then and now in the status of women saying Kaddish, we still have a long way to go Forty years ago, even in the Modern Orthodox community in which I lived at
Women Saying Kaddish: Are We There Yet? Read More »
The founding generation of Orthodox feminists believed they would not see Orthodox women rabbis in their lifetimes. They sowed the seeds and dreamed dreams for their great-granddaughters. Amazingly, in 2009, all that changed due to the courage of Rabba Sara Hurwitz, Rabbi Avi Weiss, and their team of supporters. Since the founding of Yeshivat Maharat,
The Next Frontier in the Orthodox Female Rabbinate Read More »
