Women in Modern Judaism

Abstract

AbstractThis article attempts a brief sketch of the modern Jewish views of women. To explain modernity, however, it must first survey the major biblical and talmudic themes. Although both the Bible and talmudic materials are densely layered, one quickly sees that the dominant, official texts gave modern Jewish women an ambitious heritage. Only with the Breslav Conference of Reform Judaism in 1846 did a clear call for Jewish women's equality with men in institutional religion sound forth. Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati became an American rallying point among the Reformed, but the Conservative and Orthodox hung back. In recent times sympathetic religious lawyers have attempted halakahic reforms, but Jewish feminists feel that much remains to be done in such realms as divorce, religious ritual, and Israeli civil law.