Abstract
Looking through the feminist lens at a new combination of disciplines – gender and Judaism, and gender and Jewish education – we see that we have made great strides in equality. Yet, challenges linger. Feminist studies underscore that women’s restricted access to secrets of patriarchal cultures was widespread, if not universal. Our chapter focuses on five narratives concerning Miriam, Rabbi Akiva and Bruria, Hannah, Esther, and Vashti. We ask what does it mean for girls, boys, and teachers – prime agents of socialization – to study texts that offend modern sensibilities? What is our relationship to ancient texts? Do we read them to see their evolution? Do we neutralize them? Shall we teach them as descriptive of the past or as live prescriptions? Should we delete these texts from curricula altogether? These questions go beyond equal access, as we take a look at equal access to what, and find out why, “this still doesn’t feel so good.”
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Notes
- 1.
This is typically understood to mean “frivolousness” or “licentiousness.”
- 2.
This movement continued after WWII. Elementary, high schools, and 1–3-year seminaries were established in the United States and Israel. The schools’ primary purpose was, and to a large extent still is, to prepare students to be good Jews, mothers, and wives. Secular studies are secondary, though still important, particularly in cities where Jewish girls are expected to work outside the home as the primary bread-winners while their husbands learn Torah, especially Talmud, full time.
- 3.
Although passages of Talmud were taught earlier to girls at the Maimonides School in Boston, which R. Solovetchik headed, this shift at Stern and the beginning of the women’s Beit Midrash offered full access to Talmudic learning.
- 4.
Trible comments poetically on Miriam’s leprosy: “a searing emotion gets a scarred body,” punished by God: “Red hot anger becomes a cold white disease.”
- 5.
Likewise, Freud says women overvalue love, but as feminist scholar Karen Horney answers that it is not love they overvalue; it is the prizes from love they need. If women were not able to work, have access to sexual satisfaction or protection except in the framework of marriage, then they would put a lot of emphasis on marriage.
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Hartman, T., Miller, T. (2011). Gender and Jewish Education: “Why Doesn’t This Feel So Good?”. In: Miller, H., Grant, L., Pomson, A. (eds) International Handbook of Jewish Education. International Handbooks of Religion and Education, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0354-4_7
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