Linked Data Explorer
"Blessed is he who says and does" gender, law, and Jewish communal identity
- "This dissertation explores the ways in which contemporary Jewish law defines women's place in the Jewish community. I carry out a close reading of recent responsa on women and public prayer, women and ritual objects, and women in the rabbinate that utilizes Ronald Dworkin's theory of law as integrity, Catherine Bell's understanding of ritual, and Pierre Bourdieu's conception of the habitus. I identify several main themes in the current halakhic attitude toward women. Women occupy an ambiguous space in this rhetoric: they are Jews, but if Jews are also defined as those obligated in all the commandments, then women are in some important sense outsiders to the 'real' Jewish community. The decisors struggle with this issue, and with the legitimacy of women's requests for greater Jewish participation. Some seek to maintain the status quo in the name of fidelity to tradition, while others ultimately grant women a limited set of new rights as exceptional individuals rather than as a group."
- ""Blessed is he who says and does" gender, law, and Jewish communal identity"