In Memoriam: Chana Safrai (1946–2008), Friend and Colleague

Abstract

Chana Safrai (1946–2008) was a friend, a colleague and a kindred soul. At a time when it was a matter of consensus that feminism, by any name, was politically incorrect in the Orthodox world, we stood together. Though our stance on several important issues differed, what made us kindred souls was our firm conviction that the realm of serious Torah scholarship is sine qua non—the foundation upon which our world, feminist and otherwise, would stand. Chana had a rich life, and she made significant contributions to society in many spheres. She was an educator, an academician, an interfaith activist, a family person and a good friend to many people—but, first and foremost, she was a feminist. Chana once said, “Behind every feminist of my generation is a feminist father.” It was her father, Shmuel Safrai, Professor of Talmud and Second Temple Judaism at the Hebrew University, who taught Chana to swim in the “Sea of the Talmud.” He encouraged her in her intellectual endeavors, particularly in the traditional Jewish curricula normally reserved for boys: Talmud and Midrash. She and her brother, Prof. Ze’ev Safrai of Bar-Ilan University and Kevutzat Yavne, were both imbued with an unquenchable thirst for the study of rabbinic literature, in which father, son and daughter all were/have been immersed for a significant part of their professional lives. Chana was born and raised in the Haredi neighborhood of Etz–Hayyim, in a Jerusalem that no longer exists, though its flavor lingers in my recollection. Her family had its roots, on her father’s side, in the rich Jewish soil of Eastern Europe, and on her mother’s in German Jewry. Hence, her parents took the natural step of sending her to the Horeb School, whose founders were suffused with the values of “Torah with derekh Eretz,” the humanistic religious