Power/Knowledge/Gender: The Oranges and Grapefruit Debate

Abstract

It was a large basement of an apartment house in north Tel Aviv, which was used as a meeting place for Emunathe Zionist orthodox women's organization. When I entered the room, leaving outside a sunny February morning, it was already crowded with some 60 women who had come for their weekly lesson. Most of them were elderly. A few were wearing wigs, some had kerchiefs, but the majority did not cover their heads. We were about to discuss my book, Educated and Ignorant: Ultraorthodox Jewish Women and Their World , and I was nervous. It was easier to present the book to a nonorthodox audience people eager to hear the stories behind the long sleeves and under the wigs of ultraorthodox women. Some were disappointed when I related my refusal to look into very private, intimate matters, but they found comfort in other aspects sufficiently exotic to the unfamiliar ears of non-orthodox Jewish Israelis. During the discussions that followed these presentations, I usually found that their ears and hearts were never entirely alien to the subject. Many people in the audience came from an orthodox background and were seeking to warm themselves near the rhythm and aroma of their old world, contemplating again its relevance to their current lives. There were parents of ba' alei teshuva (nonreligious Jews who become observant) who were brought to the subject by their children's choice, bouncing between anger, sorrow and guilt, and seeking to understand. Others met ultraorthodox men and women every day as doctors, social workers, civil