A Feminist Perspective on Jewish Fundamentalism

Abstract

This chapter provides an example of feminist strategies in response to patriarchy in general and fundamentalism in particular in one religious tradition—-Judaism. It demonstrates how feminism can provide an alternative understanding of the past and an alternative vision of the future, as it creates an alternative social and cultural reality. For al- most 30 years Jewish feminists have worked in the Jewish community, par- ticularly in the United States but also in Israel and elsewhere, to assert the equality of women and to introduce egalitarianism as a fundamental com- munal value. Comprising a loosely structured movement with many dif- ferent branches, Jewish feminists recognize the patriarchal nature of traditional Judaism but, with the exception of a small group of Orthodox feminists, also accept the legitimacy and authenticity of non-Orthodox forms of modern Judaism.¹ They do not presume that patriarchy and the consequent subordination of women are essential features of Judaism, as the feminist theologian Mary Daly has asserted vis-à-vis Catholicism.² In- stead, they have taken on the task of creating a feminist Judaism because, in the words of the Jewish feminist theologian Judith Plaskow, they “refus [e] the split between a Jewish and a feminist self” and “find value and meaning in Judaism and in [their] own Jewish identity… .”³They are un- willing to leave the définition of Judaism to either traditionalists or funda- mentalists.