Women, Birth, and Death in Jewish Law and Practice

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 explores issues of contraception and birth control, fertility and birth rituals, and then of kaddish and mourning rites. She usefully includes complete texts of four simhat bat ceremonies. Aware of the importance of determining the place of custom and its authority in determining religious practice, she focuses on the broader issues of women’s roles in Judaism and the expansion of halakhic boundaries. In addition, she explores the extent to which modern day Orthodoxy recognizes the need for women to act publicly as autonomous individuals within the community structure. The communal celebrations of a simhat bat for a female child and the welcome extended by many congregations to a woman who comes to say kaddish are indications of that recognition. Millen concludes that, “The public autonomous woman must not only be tolerated, but also respected, accepted and integrated within the tradition’s view that recognizes, values and welcomes her full humanity.”