Israeli Feminist Scholarship

Israeli Feminist Scholarship PDF Author: Esther Fuchs
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
The last two decades have given rise to a proliferation of scholarship by Israeli feminists working in diverse fields, ranging from sociology to literature, anthropology, and history. As the Israeli feminist movement continually decentralizes and diversifies, it has become less Eurocentric and heterocentric, making way for pluralistic concerns. Collecting fifteen previously published essays that give voice to this diversity, Israeli Feminist Scholarship showcases articles on Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Palestinian, and lesbian identities as well as on Israeli women's roles as mothers, citizens and activists, and soldiers. Citing evidence that these scholars have redefined their object of inquiry as an open site of contested and constructed identity, luminary Esther Fuchs traces the history of Israeli feminism. Among the essays are Jewish historian Margalit Shilo's study of the New Hebrew Woman, sociologist Ronit Lentin's analysis of gendered representations of the Holocaust in Israeli culture, peace activist Erella Shadmi on lesbianism as a nonissue in Israel, and cultural critic Nitza Berkovitch's examination of womanhood as constructed in Israeli legal discourse. Creating a space for a critical examination of the relationship between disparate yet analogous discourses within feminism and Zionism, this anthology reclaims the mobilizing, inclusive role of these multifaceted discourses beyond the postmodern paradigm.

Israeli Feminist Scholarship

Israeli Feminist Scholarship PDF Author: Esther Fuchs
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book

Book Description
The last two decades have given rise to a proliferation of scholarship by Israeli feminists working in diverse fields, ranging from sociology to literature, anthropology, and history. As the Israeli feminist movement continually decentralizes and diversifies, it has become less Eurocentric and heterocentric, making way for pluralistic concerns. Collecting fifteen previously published essays that give voice to this diversity, Israeli Feminist Scholarship showcases articles on Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Palestinian, and lesbian identities as well as on Israeli women's roles as mothers, citizens and activists, and soldiers. Citing evidence that these scholars have redefined their object of inquiry as an open site of contested and constructed identity, luminary Esther Fuchs traces the history of Israeli feminism. Among the essays are Jewish historian Margalit Shilo's study of the New Hebrew Woman, sociologist Ronit Lentin's analysis of gendered representations of the Holocaust in Israeli culture, peace activist Erella Shadmi on lesbianism as a nonissue in Israel, and cultural critic Nitza Berkovitch's examination of womanhood as constructed in Israeli legal discourse. Creating a space for a critical examination of the relationship between disparate yet analogous discourses within feminism and Zionism, this anthology reclaims the mobilizing, inclusive role of these multifaceted discourses beyond the postmodern paradigm.

Feminist Perspectives on Jewish Studies

Feminist Perspectives on Jewish Studies PDF Author: Shelly Tenenbaum
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300068672
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This work evaluates the development of feminist scholarship within Jewish studies. Scholars in biblical studies, rabbinics, theology, history, anthropology, philosophy and film studies assess the state of knowledge about women in these fields and how they have affected the mainstream.

Women and Judaism

Women and Judaism PDF Author: Frederick E. Greenspahn
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814732291
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Although women constitute half of the Jewish population and have always played essential roles in ensuring Jewish continuity and the preservation of Jewish beliefs and values, only recently have their contributions and achievements received sustained scholarly attention. Scholars have begun to investigate Jewish women’s domestic, economic, intellectual, spiritual, and creative roles in Jewish life from biblical times to the present. Yet little of this important work has filtered down beyond specialists in their respective academic fields. Women and Judaism brings the broad new insights they have uncovered to the world. Women and Judaism communicates this research to a wider public of students and educated readers outside of the academy by presenting accessible and engaging chapters written by key senior scholars that introduce the reader to different aspects of women and Judaism. The contributors discuss feminist approaches to Jewish law and Torah study, the spirituality of Eastern European Jewish women, Jewish women in American literature, and many other issues. Contributors: Nehama Aschkenasy, Judith R. Baskin, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Harriet Pass Freidenreich, Esther Fuchs, Judith Hauptman, Sara R. Horowitz, Renée Levine, Pamela S. Nadell, and Dvora Weisberg.

Jewish Feminism

Jewish Feminism PDF Author: Esther Fuchs
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498566502
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This book argues that Jewish feminist theory is currently limited by several frames of reference that are usually taken for granted. The critical analysis is intended to release the grip of these limiting frames on Jewish feminism so as to let it evolve, grow, and live up to its fullest potential.

Gendering Politics

Gendering Politics PDF Author: Hanna Herzog
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047202339X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
What are the cultural and structural mechanisms that exclude women from politics in general and from local politics in particular? What meaning is ascribed to women's political activity? Gendering Politics explores the place of women in democratic politics by means of a detailed study of women in Israeli politics who were elected to municipal councils from 1950 to 1989. Drawing from a variety of sources, including questionnaires, interviews, newspaper coverage, and existing statistical data, as well as examinations of studies of the role of women in politics in other democracies, Herzog analyzes the extent of success and failure of women in Israeli elections. She then explores reasons why female participation in Israeli politics has been relatively slight, despite historical precedents and social circumstances that would indicate otherwise. The author examines the gendered bias of the power structure as it is shaped by basic cultural organizing principles. She exposes hidden assumptions--and notes the overt assumptions--which by definition exclude women from politics. The author also looks at the structure of opportunities within the prevailing political system, uncovering the relevant blocking and facilitating elements. Gendering Politics will be of interest to students and scholars of women's studies, Israeli studies, political sociology, and political science. Hanna Herzog is Associate Professor of Sociology, Tel Aviv University.

Israeli Feminism Liberating Judaism

Israeli Feminism Liberating Judaism PDF Author: Bonna Devora Haberman
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739167863
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
This engaging feminist approach to Judaism blends the interpretation of primary Jewish sources with contemporary social change. Bonna Devora Haberman shares her first-hand account of the “Women of the Wall” and a feminist approach to traditional Judaism, while interacting with ancient Jewish texts. In a rich network of sources, seaming together scholarship with activism, Haberman analyzes the sacred, with attention to power and gender. While much religious and national culture focuses on death and sacrifice, Haberman proposes an alternative model for a Jewish theology of liberation: birth—no less universal than death. Life-giving rather than life-taking is the nucleus of this work, reformulating performances of gender in a realm of exaggerated sexual difference. Using her experiences with the “Women of the Wall” movement interwoven in scripture, Haberman contributes toward liberating religious culture from its gender oppressions, and rendering religion a liberating force in society.

Judaism Since Gender

Judaism Since Gender PDF Author: Miriam Peskowitz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136667156
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Judaism Since Gender offers a radically new concept of Jewish Studies, staking out new intellectual terrain and redefining the discipline as an intrinsically feminist practice. The question of how knowledge is gendered has been discussed by philosophers and feminists for years, yet is still new to many scholars of Judaism. Judaism Since Gender illuminates a crucial debate among intellectuals both within and outside the academy, and ultimately overturns the belief that scholars of Judaism are still largely oblivious of recent developments in the study of gender. Offering a range of provocations--Jewish men as sissies, Jesus as transvestite, the problem of eroticizing Holocaust narratives--this timely collection pits the joys of transgression against desires for cultural wholeness.

Girls of Liberty

Girls of Liberty PDF Author: Margalit Shilo
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 1611689252
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Following the Balfour Declaration and the British conquest of Palestine (1917-1918), the small Jewish community that lived there wanted to establish an elected assembly as its representative body. The issue that hindered this aim was whether women would be part of it. A group of feminist Zionist women from all over the country created a political party that participated in the elections, even before women's suffrage was enacted. This unique phenomenon in Mandatory Palestine resulted in the declaration of women's equal rights in all aspects of life by the newly founded Assembly of Representatives. Margalit Shilo examines the story of these activists to elaborate on a wide range of issues, including the Zionist roots of feminism and nationalism; the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sector's negation of women's equality; how traditional Jewish concepts of women fashioned rabbinical attitudes on the question of women's suffrage; and how the fight for women's suffrage spread throughout the country. Using current gender theories, Shilo compares the Zionist suffrage struggle to contemporaneous struggles across the globe, and connects this nearly forgotten episode, absent from Israeli historiography, with the present situation of Israeli women. This rich analysis of women's right to vote within this specific setting will appeal to scholars and students of Israel studies, and to feminist and social historians interested in how contexts change the ways in which activism is perceived and occurs.

American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise

American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise PDF Author: Shulamit Reinharz
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 9781584654391
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
The first and only complete exploration of the role of American women in the creation and support of the State of Israel from pre-State years through the struggles of Israel's first decades.

Warriors, Witches, Whores

Warriors, Witches, Whores PDF Author: Rachel S. Harris
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814339689
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema is a feminist study of Israel’s film industry and the changes that have occurred since the 1990s. Working in feminist film theory, the book adopts a cultural studies approach, considering the creation of a female-centered and thematically feminist film culture in light of structural and ideological shifts in Israeli society. Author Rachel S. Harris situates these changes in dialogue with the cinematic history that preceded them and the ongoing social inequalities that perpetuate women’s marginalization within Israeli society. While no one can deny Israel’s Western women’s advancements, feminist filmmakers frequently turn to Israel’s less impressive underbelly as sources for their inspiration. Their films have focused on sexism, the negative impact of militarism on women’s experience, rape culture, prostitution, and sexual abuse. These films also tend to include subjects from society’s geographical periphery and social margins, such as female foreign workers, women, and refugees. Warriors, Witches, Whoresis divided into three major sections and each considers a different form of feminist engagement. The first part explores films that situate women in traditionally male spheres of militarism, considering the impact of interjecting women within hegemonic spaces or reconceptualizing them in feminist ways. The second part recovers the narratives of women’s experience that were previously marginalized or silenced, thereby creating a distinct female space that offers new kinds of storytelling and cinematic aesthetics that reflect feminist expressions of identity. The third part offers examples of feminist activism that reach beyond the boundaries of the film to comment on social issues, particularly those which affect women. This section demonstrates how feminists use film (and work within the film industry) in order to women’s position in society. While there are thematic overlaps between the chapters, each section marks structural differences in the modes of feminist response. Warriors, Witches, Whores considers the ways social and political power have impacted the representation of women and looks to how feminist filmmakers have fought against these inequities behind the camera, in the stories they tell, and in the ways women are depicted on screen. Students and scholars of film, gender, or cultural studies will appreciate this approachable monograph.