Women and the Transformation of Jewish Studies: An Oral History of the Association of Jewish Studies Women's Caucus: The Paula Hyman Oral History Project

Abstract

The Association of Jewish Studies Women’s Caucus, founded in 1986, has had a transformative impact on the AJS and on Jewish studies more generally, increasing the presence of women in leadership roles within the organization and advocating for the inclusion of a gender perspective in the field, both methodologically and theoretically. The caucus’s most immediate impetus was the emergence and growth of women’s studies in the U.S. university curriculum, followed by the many challenges accompanying efforts to support both equity and recognition for women in Jewish studies. This oral history project, developed in cooperation with the Women’s Caucus of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS), was conceived in the wake of the untimely death in 2011 of Paula Hyman, a caucus member and a leading voice in both Jewish studies and Jewish feminist scholarship. Published to coincide with the third anniversary of her passing, it is based on interviews conducted in 2012 and 2013 with some twenty of the group’s leaders, including as many of its founders as possible, complemented by archival materials.