Orthodox feminist movements in Israel and the United States: Community struggle versus state struggle

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1 The Argov Center for the Study of Israel and the Jewish People Orthodox feminist movements in Israel and the United States: Community struggle versus state struggle Dr. Elana Maryles Sztokman

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3 Orthodox feminist movements in Israel and the United States: Community struggle versus state struggle Dr. ElanaMarylesSztokman January 2014 Contents Brief history of American Orthodox feminism... 3 Brief history of Israeli religious feminism Comparing Israel and America: Learning, praying, and fighting for justice Timelines and origins Synagogues versus scholarship The F word (feminism) Rabba and Maharat Center for resources versus aktualia The agunah problem Gender segregation in Israel Relationships with rabbis Cultural differences Discussion and conclusions P age

4 Biography DrElana Maryles Sztokman is the former Executive Director of JOFA, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, and author of "The Men's Section: Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World", (HBI 2011) winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for Women's Studies, and (with Dr Chaya Gorsetman), "Educating in the Divine Image: Gender Issues in Orthodox Jewish Day Schools" (HBI 2013) winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award in education and identity. Her next book, "The War on Women in Israel: How religious radicalism is stifling the voice of a nation" will be published in 2014 by Sourcebooks. 2 P age

5 The women s movement arrived at the American Orthodox community long before it arrived among religious women in Israel. Already in the 1970s, American women were gathering for all female prayer groups and holding protests outside the homes of agunot ( chained women women denied divorce by their recalcitrant husbands), while these issues did not reach Israel until the 1990s. Yet, when feminist consciousness finally reached religious Israeli women, the issues were no less burning, although often in a different order of priorities or different altogether than those in the Diaspora. Issues of women s study and scholarship were more central in Israel than women s prayer groups, which never fully took off in Israel. Women in Israel also contended with new issues, such as whether religious girls should aspire go to the army or national service, or whether the school system should teach girls gemara or the more watered down toshba ( oral law ). Even issues of clear overlap between American and Israeli activists, such as the agunah issue, have found expression in different ways, highlighting the fascinating differences between struggle against Jewish communal authority in the Diaspora versus the struggle against Jewish state authority in Israel. Meanwhile, although agunot in Israel are trapped in some frightening ways due to the state rabbinic monopoly on personal status issues in Israel, they also have more tools in their arsenal, such as lobbying, legislation, and the prison system. Today, there is more overlap between the two groups than ever before, with very similar overall agendas. There are also some indications that Israeli religious feminists are headed towards more radical positions on some issues than their American counterparts. The issue of women and the rabbinate actually started in Israel, and developed without much incident, as opposed to the rabba drama that ensued later in New York. Also interesting are the recent calls for civil marriage in Israel coming from agunah activists, in alliance with non Orthodox groups, which have set the groundwork for a struggle that has broad impact on all of Israel. Similarly, the recent struggle against the exclusion of women in public spaces in Israel has drawn many Orthodox women into a fight that (perhaps unbeknownst to some of them) is headed towards calling for separation of religion and state, a struggle that can have far reaching consequences for Israeli society and the Jewish people at large. An examination of these two movements provides a fascinating glimpse into the dynamics of change within a traditional society, and the struggles faced by women raising feminist consciousness in a patriarchal culture that they call their own. It is also an important story about the Israeli Diaspora relationship, about the synergy, overlap and tensions between two vital centers of the Jewish people, in which the issues are similar and in dialogue with one another, but challenges and solutions sometimes find expressions in distinct ways. Brief history of American Orthodox feminism The Orthodox feminist movement in America has its origins in the American feminist movement from the 1960s and 1970s. Blu Greenberg, the matriarch of Orthodox feminism, described her introduction into feminism as the moment in 1962 when her husband Rabbi Yitz Greenberg bought her a copy of Betty Friedan s seminal book, The Feminine Mystique, an event that she calls her introduction to women s lib, as we called it then. The formative moment in her development came in 1973, when she was invited to the First National Jewish Women s Conference. The preparation, the conference sessions, the cohorts, the teachers, the ritual the total experience charted me on a new path and 3 P age

6 changed the course of my life. Bringing gender equality to Orthodoxy became my work and my passion, second only to raising a Jewish family with covenantal responsibilities. 1 In her 1981 book On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition, the first treatise to outline a comprehensive ideology of feminism and Orthodoxy, Blu Greenberg lays out four statements of theology that guide the philosophy : (1) A woman of faith has the same innate vision and existential longing for a redemptive covenantal reality as a man of faith. She has the same ability and need to be in the presence of God alone and within the context of the community. She can be educated and uplifted in much the same fashion that Jewish men are (2) Jewish women, as much as men, have the mental and emotional capacities to deal directly with the most sacred Jewish texts and primary sources. Jewish women are capable of interpreting tradition based on the sources. They can be involved in the decision making process that grows out of the blending of inherited tradition with contemporary needs. (3) Some women, as some men, are capable of functioning in the positions of authority related to the religious and physical survival of the Jewish people (4) Women as a class should not find themselves in discriminatory positions in personal situations. In such matters as marriage and divorce a woman should have no less control or personal freedom than a man, nor should she be the subject to abuse resulting from the constriction of freedom. 2 The four main areas of concern here are, in this order: women s personal status, women s scholarship, women s leadership, and the agunah issue. Later in the book, Greenberg also addresses other issues, such as coming of age rituals, liturgy, mikveh, and abortion, among others. Her overall approach was, and remains, comprehensive. Her famous dictum Where there is a rabbinic will there is a halakhic way, reflects the idea that there is broad room for maneuvering on all issues related to women s status in Judaism without going outside of halakha. The impact of feminism cuts across all lines, she concludes. Feminism transmits the message that there is now an enormous range of options open to women, that motherhood is not the only role or even the preferred one. Feminism tells us more: that we can live for ourselves and be fulfilled without meeting the acid test of self sacrifice For Jews, the message is revolutionary. 3 The its first stages, the Orthodox feminist movement focused primarily on the women s tefillah groups, starting with the first women s tefillah group at Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan. According to 1 Blu Greenberg, Staying the (Jewish Feminist) Course, The Forward, March 23, 2012 Read more: blog/153438/staying the jewish feminist course/#ixzz1qjjjwlhj 2 Blu Greenberg, On Women and Judaism: A view from tradition. Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society, 1981/ Greenberg, pp P age

7 Batsheva Marcus, who is the chair of the International Women s Tefillah Network, it all started because of prohibitions against women dancing with the Torah on the holiday of Simhat Torah: Simhat Torah had proved to be a particularly frustrating experience for Orthodox women as all of its customs and celebrations are tied to the synagogue and formal prayer. Perhaps even more critical was the fact that celebration focused on carrying, dancing, and rejoicing with the Torah scrolls, a practice from which women were excluded. With the support of its rabbi, ShlomoRiskin, the women of Lincoln Square Synagogue were given Torah scrolls for the celebration and permitted to convene a separate Torah reading. Subsequently, it was seen as a major step forward when women in other Orthodox synagogues were also granted the privilege of holding the Torah and taking it to the women s section. Many groups progressed to conducting full fledged Simhat Torah services for women only services in which women read the Torah portion aloud and gave aliyyot to every woman present. 4 The movement of monthly women s prayer groups spread during the 1970s, especially around the New York area, but also in several cities in the Midwest, and became the backbone of the Orthodox feminist movement. Interestingly, the women s tefillah movement received one of its greatest boosts from strong rabbinical opposition. Although Rabbi Riskin, Rabbi Avi Weiss of Riverdale, and Rabbi HaskelLookstein of the Upper East Side were in favor of these groups, most Orthodox rabbis were silent on the issue until , when a group of Yeshiva University published a responsum officially prohibiting women s prayer groups. The ban actually provided the women s groups with considerable public attention, and as a result the leaders decided to consolidate and form the Women s Tefillah Network (WTN), which is still active today. 6 Interestingly, when another large group of rabbis came out with a similar ban in 1997, many women in the Women s Tefillah Network similarly reported a swelling interest in their activities. I hope I ll have enough chairs, one woman told the press about the prayer group scheduled to take place in her house. 7 According to the WTN, as of 2000 there were thirty three women s tefillah groups in the United States (twenty two of which were in New York), as well as fifty 4 Bat Sheva Marcus and Ronnie Becher, Women's Tefillah Movement, Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, tefillah movement 5 The responsum, written by Rabbis Nissan Alpert, Aba Bronspiegel, Mordechai Willig, Yehuda Parnes and Herschel Schachter, was published in Hadarom, vol. 54 (1985) Various rabbinic articles that year in Hebrew and in English similarly ruled against women s prayer groups. See, for example, Rabbi Kenneth Auman, Orthodoxy requires sage discussion, Sh ma, (18 October 1985), , in which the author famously reversed his previous position in which he was in favor of women s prayer groups, and refused to allow the Flatbush women s group to meet in his synagogue, The Young Israel of Flatbush. For a comprehensive discussion, see Rivka Haut, Women s prayer groups and the Orthodox synagogue, in Susan Grossman and Rivka Haut, eds, Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, pp See also, Larry Kohler, Orthodox rabbis responsa condemns women s prayer groups, 14:37 Long Island Jewish World, 15 21, Feb Rela Geffen Monson, The impact of the Jewish women s movement on the American synagogue: , in Susan Grossman and Rivka Haut, eds, Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, Saundra Mandel, Ban on women s prayer groups sparks outcry and new interest, JTA June 5, See also, Frank, Laura Shaw, "Women's Tefillah Groups Grow and Face New Challenges". JOFA Journal, P age

8 seven other groups worldwide, including three in Canada, seven in Israel, two in England, and one in Sydney, Australia. 8 Many women, some of whom evolved into leaders of the movement, describe their formative experiences in women s prayer groups. Susan Aranoff, for example, who has been one of the most vocal advocates on behalf of agunot, wrote a 1992 essay entitled, On being a hazzanit : Awe mixed with pleasure, a high voltage current passing through me, binding my hands with magnetic force to the etzeihayyim of the Torah, my heart pounding with the thrill and apprehension of holding the Torah securely; these were the feelings that flowed through me as I lifted the Torah to the sound of the familiar melody.. Lifting the Torah is the most vivid, but not the only, memory I have of my first Shabbat davening with a women s group. Experiencing the stirring spirituality and beauty of the prayer services has been my principal reason for belonging to the women s davening group; however there are other reasons Synagogues are centers for many activities other than prayer: information is shared, funds are raised, classes are held, and political action is planned. In many Orthodox synagogues, however, there are barriers preventing able women from actively participating even in those non ritualistic areas of synagogue activity. Women who have talent and ideas to contribute in these areas but who live in neighborhood whose synagogues proscribe women s participation, can participate more fully in Jewish communal life through women s davening groups. 9 Aranoff expresses a quintessentially American approach to Orthodox feminism: a desire to be part of Jewish communal life. It s an attitude rooted in liberal American thinking, a basic quest for equality. The synagogue, as she describes it, is not only a place for the central Jewish communal rituals, but also for all kinds of political, educational and communal activities. A woman who wants to feel like an equal member of the community seeks out access to synagogue and for a long time, the closest thing to a woman feeling like she had access to the main sanctuary was the women s prayer groups. Similarly, Rivka Haut, longtime Orthodox feminist activist and one of the leaders of the Women s tefillah group in Flatbush, writes about the significance of these groups in transforming Jewish women s roles from the private to the public: Women in Orthodox synagogues cannot be heard, either as individuals, or as a group. They cannot perform any ritual act in that setting they do not even open the ark, an act that requires neither speaking nor being called by name. They are able to pray along with the congregation and to hear the Torah reading, but they remain private participants, like playgoers who, although absorbed in the action and perhaps even singing along with the music, allow the actors to direct the activity..this situation is 8 Bat Sheva Marcus and Ronnie Becher, Women's Tefillah Movement, Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, tefillah movement 9 Susan B. Aranoff, On being a hazzanit, in Susan Grossman and Rivka Haut, eds, Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, pp P age

9 especially dire because of the achievements and equality women have attained in most other areas of life. Women can be lawyers, doctors, teachers, soldiers, firefighters or politicians.it is only in synagogue that she is forced to take a passive role. Only in the synagogue has she made so little progress. While many, perhaps even most, religious women are satisfied with the private role assigned to them in the traditional synagogue, an increasing number are finding this situation intolerable. 10 In other words, Haut argues that the women s tefillah groups are part of a larger process of transforming women s roles in Jewish life in general, creating opportunities for women to have public religious identity and not just a private one. Although Aranoffand Haut anticipated that participation in women s tefillah groups would spur on greater political activism among women, it s not clear whether the participants themselves adopt this kind of broader political consciousness. Sociologist Ailene Cohen Nusbacher, who conducted qualitative research among participants in women s tefillah groups to find out about motivations and impact of their participation, found that many women shy away from larger political objectives, shudder at the word feminism, and insist on motivations around private religious experience. According to Nusbacher, the reasons why women were active in these groups were, a spiritual search for meaningful, quiet and serious prayer; a feeling of community, a connection to God, and a desire to celebrate rites of passage. In a way, the women participating in these groups are expressing a desire to be more religious, to be, as Nusbacher describes, closer to G d. 11 That is, while these groups represent a new form of activism among Orthodox women, they also represent the uniquely Orthodox approach to social change, which is about promoting change from within. As Rela Geffen Monson writes, From the sociological point of view, these groups are a functional alternative, serving as a safety valve, holding back a demand for greater equality within the context of the Orthodox minyan, while allowing the participants to expand their religious experience within a halakhic framework. 12 Ailene Cohen Nusbacher concurs: Women who attend prayer groups do so out of a sincere desire for meaningful prayer and active participation in tefillah activities. Their sincerity is irrefutable and, by their own words, their commitment to Orthodoxy and the halakhic process immutable. 13 Orthodox feminists are in a perpetual dilemma vis a vis change. The constant negotiation vis a vis the word feminism is a reflection of this delicate stance, of movement towards change amid a desire to remain within, of women trying to make change with a constant awareness that as women, the real power of decision making is elsewhere. Moreover, there has been a constant resistance to feminist 10 Rivka Haut, Women s prayer groups and the Orthodox synagogue, in Susan Grossman and Rivka Haut, eds, Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, pp Cohen Nusbacher, Ailene, "Orthodox Jewish Women's Prayer Groups: Seeking a More Meaningful Religious Experience," Le'ela, 49, 2000, See also Nusbacher, Ailene Cohen, "Efforts at Change in a Traditional Denomination: The Case of Orthodox Women's Prayer Groups". Nashim, Spring 1999(2) , 2, 1999, Monson, The Impact, p Cohen Nusbacher, Ailene, "Orthodox Jewish Women's Prayer Groups: Seeking a More Meaningful Religious Experience," Le'ela, 49, 2000, P age

10 change from within the Orthodox male establishment. Feminists are often accused of preferring values outside legitimate values of Torah, an argument that works towards dismissing all of feminists work. 14 The discomfort of Orthodoxy with anything outside is arguably about more than feminism it is perhaps an attitude towards liberalism in general. But it creates a particular tension among Orthodox feminists, as they struggle to maintain their positions as insiders despite efforts at change. The women of the Orthodox feminist movement respond to this tension by dancing the fine dance, by working towards change quietly, sometimes avoiding the feminist label as in AileneNusbacher s sample, or alternatively by speaking out freely and courageously and risking being labeled as outsiders. Meanwhile, within this tension between fighting for change and seeking rabbinic approval, Orthodox women in America have made some impressive advances. For one thing, women s tefillah groups became a springboard for much of what was yet to come in the American Orthodox feminist movement especially bat mitzvah celebrations and women s rituals and prayers, as well as the advent of partnership minyanim. Indeed, the most significant outgrowth of the women s tefillah groups was arguably the bat mitzvah ceremony. These groups created the possibility for young Orthodox women to enter Jewish life in a way that was completely new in this society: Girls could read from the Torah, just like boys to for their bar mitzvahs. Dr. Sharon Penkower Kaplan, for example, described the bat mitzvah of her daughter, Raquel, in the context of the women s tefillah service: What made the service special was the opportunity for female family and friends to be actively involved in the proceedings; two of my friends acted as Gabbaiot, Micole led shacharit; I led mussaf, and the honors of opening and closing the aron were carried out by relatives, including sisters, aunts and cousins. Raquel, after being escorted to the Torah by her two grandmothers, layned, recited the haftarah and delivered a Dvar Torah. Surrounded by loving family and friends, Raquel marked the coming of religious age with a public achievement demonstrating ritual skills and textual dexterity toward which she had worked diligently for many months. The communal nature of Women s Tefilla shaped this rite of passage as a shared religious event. We joyfully welcomed all our guests; those who embraced Women s Tefillah, some for the first time, and others who attended only to honor Raquel. 15 The bat mitzvah ceremony around the women s tefillah service created an entirely new female culture of religious expression, one reinforced by the creation of a community of women. This experience was extended to other celebratory women as well, such as brides and new mothers. As Ailene Cohen Nusbacher writers, Celebrating these life cycle events within the group heightened the feelings of belonging to the group, secured a link to the past, and reinforced the concept of community. Mothers of 14 For a classic example of the anti feminist rabbinic approach that accuses feminists of looking outside Judaism, see Rabbi Harry MarylesEmes V Emunah blog, in which he argues against women becoming rabbis not for halakhic reasons but because of women s motives. Rabba Sara Hurwitz, hurwitz.html, downloaded April 10, Penkower Kaplan, Dr. Sharon, "Bat Mitzvah and Women's Tefila," Bat Mitzvah, The Orthodox Jewish Woman and Ritual: Options and Opportunities Bat Mitzvah, JOFA, 2000, P age

11 daughters particularly felt that the enhanced religious experience in the prayer groups would help their daughters maintain a strong Orthodox connection. 16 Indeed, over the past two decades, bat mitzvah celebrations in the Orthodox community have exploded with possibilities. 17 Women s tefillahgroups became only the beginning of the conversation. Because bat mitzvah celebrations were entirely new to Orthodoxy, Orthodox women have taken the opportunity to design all kinds of creative options for celebration, options that include intense study, art, poetry, social activism, family roots projects, and more 18. In fact, even among girls who do not participate in women s tefillah services, creative options made possible by the Orthodox feminist movement for bat mitzvah celebration have become entirely mainstream in the Orthodox community. Another event of significance in the development of Orthodox feminism in the United States is the 1979 opening of the Drisha Institute, the first place where Orthodox women could study gemara full time as adults. Established by Rabbi Dovid Silber, Drisha was unheard of at the time, and in fact remains fairly unique in its intensity and outlook. Today, there are more opportunities for women s high level Jewish learning but significantly, they are overwhelmingly in Israel. Drisha was alone on the horizon for some time, and was clearly a powerful and important influence on developing Torah scholarship among Orthodox women. Yet, there have not been an overwhelming number of similar programs. The spread of women s tefillah groups, compared to the spread of high level women s learning programs, has been a much stronger trend in the development of Orthodox feminism. There is no singular event in the history of the Orthodox women s feminist movement as significant as the 1997 establishment of JOFA, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance by Blu Greenberg, following the very first conference on Orthodoxy and feminism. That first conference, which took place in New York City on February 16 17, 1997, was entitled, "Exploring the Impact of Feminist Values on Traditional Jewish Women's Lives." Over 1000 participants discussed topics such as, Women and Learning: New Visions, Halakha: Tradition and Reinterpretation, Political Power: Current Realities and Future Possibilities, and Traditional Women and Self Empowerment. Participants discussed topics ranging from rabbinic ordination for women to Jewish divorce law to synagogue seating patterns, The Jewish Women s Archives recalls, including mikveh, head covering, kolisha, domestic violence (noted for women only), women s learning, lifecycle events, girls naming ceremonies, women s recitation of kaddish, tallit and tefillin, and a whole range of women s biblical and Talmudic exegesis. Arguing that 16 Cohen Nusbacher, Ailene, "Orthodox Jewish Women's Prayer Groups: Seeking a More Meaningful Religious Experience," Le'ela, 49, 2000, p See for example, Wolfson Moche, Nancy, ed, Toward a Meaningful Bat Mitzvah. TargumShlishi, 2002; Isaacs, Ronald H. and Olitzky, KarryM.DoingMitzvot: Mitzvah Projects for Bar/Bat Mitzvah.. Ktav, 1994.; Kramer, Vivienne "Bat Mitzvah in the 90's," Kramer, Vivienne. Lilith, 19.3, Fall, 1994; Joseph, Norma Baumel, "Ritual, Law, and Praxis: An American Response/a to Bat Mitzvah Celebrations". Modern Judaism, 22,3, 2002, , among others. 18 See, for example, Jennifer Breger and Lisa Schlaff, eds, The Orthodox Jewish Woman and Ritual: Options and Opportunities Bat Mitzvah, JOFA, 2000, 3 4, a booklet that explores many different options. 9 P age

12 increasing women's participation in Orthodox Judaism would benefit men as well as women, conference organizers gave prominent roles to rabbis and male scholars as well as to women. 19 Over the past 15 years, JOFA has raised even more issues, at times more radically, although most of the topics from that first conference have continued to be on the program ever since. Certainly issues of women s ritual, prayer, and learning as well as the agunahissue, have continued to hold center stage at JOFA conferences, as well as on the JOFA website and on the organization s overall agenda. In 2011, JOFA published a book entitled, A Daughter s Recitation of Kaddish 20, reflecting an issue that has been on the agenda for 15 years. That said, many new issues have become part of the discourse in the American Jewish community in part through JOFA conferences over the past decade or so: women s sexuality, homosexuality, women s ordination, partnership synagogues, educating feminist boys, among others. Women s biblical interpretations continue to be a highlight, as does the agunah issue, women s rituals, and overall discussions about the past, present and future of women in Orthodoxy from philosophical, historical, theological, educational and sociological perspectives. JOFA has also led discussions that ask deeper and more exhaustive questions, such as meta halakhic questions that ask whether Orthodoxy and feminism can fully form a permanent alliance. 21 Today, JOFA is without question the leading voice of Orthodox feminism in North America. The JOFA conferences, website and publications reflect a broad agenda of issues, including scholarship, lifecycle, education, ritual, synagogue, marriage/divorce and leadership issues. The JOFA online library reflects growing interest in these issues as well, from within the mainstream Jewish community. It also demonstrates the widening scope of issues of interest, and the fact that the Orthodox leadership and community are perhaps not as averse to feminism as they were a decade ago at least to a certain extent. One thing that I ve noticed is that although women s participation in synagogue and prayer continues to be a central theme of JOFA publications and conferences, the issue of women wearing tallit and tefillin which featured in the first conference has dropped off the radar. Topics revolving around women leading services and reading Torah, especially in partnership synagogues, seem to have become a much more widespread conversation in Orthodox feminism, perhaps even the central focus of discussion about women and prayer. Whether this is because tallit and tefillin remain such visually masculine icons, or because tefillinis a private practice rather than a communal one, or because it demands a daily commitment rather than a weekly Shabbat commitment, I cannot say for sure. Interestingly, though, the topic of women s prayer groups has also taken a back seat to the topic of partnership synagogues. 22 If 19 Jewish Women s Archives, First conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy, February 16, on feminism and orthodoxy. For original JOFA program, see downloaded March 26, RahelBerkovits, A Daughter s Recitation of Kaddish, JOFA See for example RonitIr Shai, speaking at JOFA s 2007 Tenth Anniversary conference on a topic entitled: Toward Building a Gender Critical Approach to the Philosophy of Halakha, 22 In 2010, JOFA published a book on partnership synagogues, Trachtman, Chaim ed., Women and Men in Communal Prayer: Halakhic Perspectives. Jersey City, New Jersey: Ktav Publishing House, Significantly, however, all the halakhic writers in the book are men. 10 P age

13 JOFA used to be a central address for women s tefillah groups, today the organization is a central address for partnership synagogues. This seems to signal a shift in emphasis in the American Orthodox feminist movement. Rather than the pre JOFA focus of creating rituals and ceremonies for women in which girls and women can take on any and every role short of counting as a minyan, today, the emphasis is on creating mixed (male/female) communities in which women can take on a significant if not quite equal number of public roles. Today, in addition to the conferences, JOFA is active in a range of programming, including leadership development among college students, promoting young married couple s emotional and sexual health by training teachers, advancing women s roles in synagogue through lectures, and maintaining a website that constitutes a rich collection of resources on a wide range of topics from ritual to education to sexuality to agunot. Brief history of Israeli religious feminism While the American Orthodox feminist movement was directly impacted by the larger feminist movement and liberal thought, the Israeli movement virtually ignored it. If women s tefillah groups had a central role in forming a language and practice of Orthodox feminism in North America, their role in the Israeli scene was nil. The Israeli movement started almost by accident, and much later than its American counterpart. But in the 14 years since it has been around, the Israeli Orthodox feminist movement has not only become a force to be reckoned with, it has also become an important address for non Orthodox Israelis, and has taken up fighting on a broad agenda of political and social issues, includinghuman rights and the separation of religion and state. The events that paralleled the 1997 establishment of JOFA were the 1998 establishment of Kolech by Dr. HannahKehat following the first Kolech conference on women and Judaism. Dr. Kehat described the events leading up to the establishment of Kolech. 23 I never intended to start a movement, she said. She was not a social activist but an academic. She had been working as a lecturer in an Israeli college and was feeling overwhelmed and outraged by what she calls the extreme chauvinism that she experienced. She describes how in 1996, after several years of working outside the Orthodox community, she was shocked to realize how far the religious world was behind the rest of Israeli society in its treatment of women. It was as if I was visiting some primitive community, she said in a recent interview. 24 In late 1995, she decided to host a meeting about her experiences, at the home of the mother ofmiriamshapira and Ruth Halperin Kadari, who is today a leading advocate for the legal rights of agunotin Israel and around the world. Six women came to that meeting, all religious women academics who were struggling with sexist practices in their work and lives. They were all motivated to make change, but did not have tools of strategic thinking for social activism. In 1997, Dr. Kehat met with BeldaLindenbaum, a strong supporter of American women s activism, who invited Dr. Kehat to the upcoming JOFA conference. At the JOFA conference she met some 30 Israeli women, all struggling with 23 Personal interview, April 12, Interviewed by Talia Cohen, Dec 13, P age

14 the issues of the status of women in Judaism. It s odd, she recalls, that we needed to come to New York to find out identity with each other. When they came home from that JOFA conference, they decided to begin working on the Kolech conference. In 1998, she led a group of women to establish Kolech, which calls itself The Forum for Religious Women. The American movement clearly provided a language, framework, and model of activism for the Israeli movement. Indeed, according to Professor Alice Shalvi, in Israeli society in general, there were barely glimmers of the feminist movement throughout the 1970s and 1980s 25. The JOFA women gave the Israeli women a tool for framing their experiences and their objectives. That said, although these events are undoubtedly similar in timelines and overall approach to raising consciousness, there are also some interesting differences that reflect cultural and sociological differences between American modern Orthodoxy and Israeli religious Zionism. There are some uniquely Israeli events and trends that preceded Kolech and that arguably planted seeds of feminist consciousness before Israeli women fully had the language to describe this. Two decades before HannahKehat entered the public scene and created Kolech, Professor Alice Shalvi was working to create a feminist religious consciousness in two primary areas: education and agunot. Prof. Shalvi, who established the English department of what was later to become Ben Gurion University in the Negev, and was influential in a whole area of feminist causes in Israel, was one of the founders of the International Coalition of Agunah Rights, and the headmistress of Jerusalem s Pelech School for Girls. Between 1975 and 1990 when Prof. Shalvi was headmistress at Pelech, she transformed the school from a haredi institution to a feminist institution the first and for a long time only religious feminist girls school in Israel. There are many aspects of Prof. Shalvi s educational vision that makes the school feminist. Students were deemed fully capable in every area of scholarship, work, and communal service, and as such they were given endless challenges and opportunities. 26 This included the area of Jewish studies, and in 1979, Dr. Beverly Gribetz was hired to teach Talmud, making Pelech the first state religious girls school to offer Talmud. This remains significant, because most religious girls schools in Israel continue to offer an alternative to Talmud called Toshba, or oral law, which is a watered down version of Talmud with fewer hours and more workbooks instead of primary texts. In addition, Prof. Shalvi encouraged students to serve in the IDF after graduation rather than ask for exemptions an idea deemed radical in the religious Zionist world. Both by precept and example, she succeeded in inculcating feminist ideas and ideals in her pupils, many of whom have become leaders in the modern Orthodox feminist movement of recent years, writes Charlotte Wishlah 27. For many years, the Pelech School was unlike any other in Israel or in North America. Since 2000, two other Pelech schools opened up in the past few years, one in KiryatEkron and one in Zichron Yaakov, it is 25 Personal interview, April 5, ElanaMarylesSztokman, An Interview With Alice and Moshe Shalvi, The Forward, April 25, interview with alice and moshe shalvi /#ixzz1qk9jo0ko; ElanaMarylesSztokman, Profile: Alice Shalvi, Jewish Educational Leadership, Vol 6:3, Spring 2008, pp Charlotte Wishlah, Alice Hildegard Shalvi, Jewish Women s Encyclopedia, Jewish Women s Archives. alice. Downloaded March P age

15 not clear whether the schools adopted the entire Pelech ideology or just the name. Other girls schools that have opened in the past decade have taken on aspects of Orthodox feminism, such as the Tehillaschool (now Tehilla Evelina), by the same Dr. Beverly Gribetz who was the first to teach gemara to girls at Pelech in the 1970s, and the Hartman girls school. Pelech has not created a revolution in religious girls education, but it has created a reproducible model that may be at the cusp of spreading. This is actually a potentially very important trend. Significantly, although there is quite a bit of research about the role of all female institutions in developing women and girls empowerment, 28 that is not an outlook often expressed in all girls religious schools in Israel, or in North America for that matter. A 2006 study by Indiana University s Center for Postsecondary Research found that women s colleges do a better job than coeducational institutions in supporting and empowering women in an intellectually challenging environment. Their findings, based on responses from more than 40,000 students, make the case that today s women s colleges are successfully producing top female leaders, such as Madeleine Albright and Anna Quindlen. 29 As one staunchly single sex women s college concluded from reading the study: Women s colleges encourage high aspirations and provide an optimal setting for active and collaborative learning that leads to success in subjects across the curriculum, including those traditionally dominated by men, such as science, math, and engineering. 30 The original Pelechschool is in many ways the Jewish women s version of the sisters colleges in that sense. Young women are empowered and encouraged in all areas of Jewish and secular life. Yet, the rest of the all female institutions in Israel and North America do not necessarily take advantage of the empowering potential of their environments. Jo Sanders offers a useful distinction between different kinds of single sex environments. 28 Research on the effect of single sex education versus coeducation from the 1970s and 1980s demonstrates some significant academic advantages for girls in all female environments. Elizabeth Tidball found that women s colleges are more likely to graduate women of achievement, especially in math and science, and in fact women who pursue doctorates in science are more likely to have graduated from all women s colleges. Riordan found that girls in single sex schools scored higher than girls in coeducational schools, especially in science. Trickett et al found that students in single sex schools perceived their classes as having higher student involvement, higher academic orientation, more order, more organization, and more competition than students in coed schools. (See Tidball ME, 1973, Perspectives on academic women and affirmative action, Educational Record, 54, ; Tidball ME and Kistiakowsky V, 1976 Baccalaureate origins of American scientists and scholars Science 193, , Trickett EJ, Trickett PK, Castro JJ and Schaffner P, 1982, The independent school experience: Aspects of normative environments of single sex and coed secondary schools:. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74(3) ; Cornelius Riordan, The future of single sex schools, in Separated by sex: A critical look at single sex education, AAUW 1998, pp 53 62, p 61) 29 Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research (IUCPR). "New study finds women s colleges are better equipped to help their students." 30 Lee Dancy, Anges Scott News, Reaffirming Our Commitment to Women s Education, Tuesday, September 12, 2006, nt&workflowitemid=46ad7d9b f7a ba6b 0a67bfa466b2 Downloaded July 30, P age

16 Single sex environments have been established with quite different goals in mind. Some, such as some women s clubs and societies, were established with educational, political, social, health and/or special interest (eg gardening) goals and do not deal with gender issues. Other single sex organizations such as ladies auxiliaries, have as their goal the support of their men s activities. Still other all female environments have as their goal to keep women pure and guard men from temptation by keeping women separate and secluded. Research on a program to support and fund all girls schools in California found that participation in single sex schooling was not a means to either a feminist or conservative education There was no attention to gender bias and teachers did not receive professional development on gender equitable educational practices. As a perhaps predictable result, traditional gender stereotypes were often reinforced. 31 The traditional ulpana is an all girls environment that reinforces traditional stereotypes. 32 Thus, while the overwhelming majority of Israeli educational institutions for religious girls are single sex, Pelechhas created a model of a single sex school used as a feminist tool for girls empowerment. The ramifications are enormous, and are yet to be fully felt in Orthodox girls schools in Israel or the Diaspora. Meanwhile, the impact of Pelech on the Orthodox feminist movement may not be felt via the ulpana system, but it is felt indirectly: via the graduates. As Wishlah says, Both by precept and example, [Alice Shalvi] succeeded in inculcating feminist ideas and ideals in her pupils, many of whom have become leaders in the modern Orthodox feminist movement of recent years. 33 Some examples of the influence of Pelech graduates: MalkaPetrekovsky, one of the few women to offer halakhic rulings and the former head of MidreshetLindenbaum; Michal Nagen, who established an institute called Zhahali, which is the first and thus far only pre army training program for religious girls; RutiLahavi, principal of the Keshet school in Jerusalem they are all Pelech graduates. Pelech graduates are frequently speakers, writers and activists in Kolech and in organizations working on the agunah issue. I submit that without Pelech, Kolech would not have the strong following that it has today. Pelech was the first location in Israel where religion and feminism fused and created the foundations of a movement. The centrality of women s education in the creation of a feminist consciousness can be seen in another pre Kolech trend in Israel: the burgeoning of midrashot, institutes of higher Jewish learning for young women in which girls study Talmud intensely following high school or army/national service. Today, there are at least 15 midrashot, with new ones popping up all the time. The first midrasha, Bruria (later 31 Jo Sanders See for example, Rapoport, T. ( ) Pedagogical construction of the traditional woman in the modern era: an ethnographic study of holy lessons Megamot, Vol 39; number 4, Iyar 5759 pp [Hebrew]; Rapoport, T & Garb, Y. (1998) The experience of Religious fortification: the coming of age of religious Zionist young women. Gender and EducationVol 10, No 1, pp 5 20; Rapoport, T, Y Garb IT Halbertal (1995) Religious socialization and female subjectivity: Religious Zionist adolescent girls in Israel Sociology of Education 68:48 61; Rapoport, T., Penso, A. & T. Halbertal (1996). Girls' experiences of artistic ambition: The voices of a religious Zionist and a kibbutznik, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 24(4): ; Rapoport, T., Penso, A. & Y. Garb (1994). Contribution to the collective by religious Zionist adolescent girls, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 15(3): ; Rapoport, T. & Y. Garb (1998). The experience of religious fortification: The coming of age of religious Zionist young women, Gender and Education, 10(1): Charlotte Wishlah, Alice Hildegard Shalvi, Jewish Women s Encyclopedia, Jewish Women s Archives. alice. Downloaded March P age

17 called MidreshetLindenbaum) was established in 1977 by MalkaBina and Rabbi Haim Brovender both originally Americans, actually, and attended by mostly Americans, at least at the beginning. 34 This is interesting because there were not, at the time, a huge number of institutes of higher learning for women in North America; The Drisha Institute stands out in that regard, and yet even that didn t open its doors until 1979, two years after Bruria. So while the midrasha seems to be something of an American import to Israel, it s not entirely clear where it was being imported from. Was it that in many modern Orthodox co ed day schools, girls learnedgemara, such as in the Yehivah of Flatbush, Rabbi Brovender s (and my) alma mater? Or perhaps, Americans who move to Israel bring with them a culture of activism combined with a particular interest in Jewish identity. Or, perhaps Americans interested in women s learning were building their programs in Israel rather than in America. What is clear is that even if the midrashot began as a pseudo American import, they have evolved into something completely Israeli. The midrasha, in fact, has become an almost mandatory rite of passage in many Orthodox circles. What is clear is that the midrashot have been a key factor in the development of the Orthodox feminist movement in Israel, making the movement revolve heavily around the issue of women s learning. Certainly not all the attendees would view learning as a feminist act nor would many of the midrasha founders. Yet, as Tamar El Or, who conducted extensive ethnographic research among young religious women in midrasha, points out, education is often a primary precursor to women s revolution and in this case, the midrasha is a critical if perhaps unbeknownst location of the development of a feminist consciousness among Orthodox women: Educators speak of women s need to balance their knowledge of, say, physics with theological achievements. The students themselves speak of a need, of a desire to resolve contradictions at the interface between their civil and professional lives and their religious lives. But these explanations, which partially illuminate the phenomenon of the demand for women s midrashot, are not sufficient. The activity of women s study is indeed described in the field in which it occurs as an unavoidable act of balance, but in fact its direction is revolutionary. The pursuit of Torah knowledge by religious women said to be aimed at uniting, harmonizing and balancing actually establishes a new and different social situation. The situation does not solve the problems from which it emerged instead it exacerbates them. Since the phenomenon of new education for women derives from the tension between the religious world and the modern secular world, this education will not resolve that tension but will instead organize it in a new and different way. This new situation is similar to other social situations generated by feminist revolutions. 35 In Israel, then, where midrashot have become a ubiquitous milestone in the lives of many Orthodox women, they play a key role in the growing Orthodox feminist movement. In addition, the midrashot, along with the seriousness and studiousness of many Pelech graduates, has created a feminist culture in which Jewish learning is at the center, and where the scholarship and feminist exegesis is intense. 34 For more details on the numbers, character, and growth of midrashoth, see Tamar El Or, Next time I will know more: Literacy and Identity among Youth Orthodox Women in Israel. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, Tamar El Or, p P age

18 Thus, while American Orthodox feminists were raising their feminist consciousness in the 70s, 80s and 90s primarily through women s tefillah groups, Israeli women were learning Talmud. The emergence of midrashot is also connected to a kind of proto feminist trend in Israel: the Kibbutz Hadati, the religious kibbutz. 36 For many years, the women of the Kibbutz Hadati were heralded as the most liberated, independent minded, enlightened women in the religious world. They adopted the kibbutz ideology of equality, worked in every aspect of kibbutz life, embraced their physical and mental abilities, and were not afraid to buck social trends. The symbol of the Kibbutz Hadati women was the hat and pants combination, which many women showed as a kind of proof that Kibbutz Hadati women were more liberated than Orthodox women everywhere following halakha but fearless and freethinking. The midrashot movement is connected to the Kibbutz Hadati. One of the most prominent midrashotis the Kibbutz EinHannahtzivmidrasha, which espouses the same kind of ideology of women s strength from within as espoused by women of the Kibbutz Hadati in general. EinHannahtziv, like Pelech, Brovender s (MidreshetLindenbuam), Drisha, and others, is an iconic institution that has been instrumental in training young women to think in feminist terms, even before the Orthodox feminist movement officially started. Yet the midrashot and the religious kibbutz, like many other locations of Orthodox feminism, clearly reflects the tensions between tradition and change that Ailene Cohen Nusbacher found among American Orthodox women participating in women s tefillah groups. Lilach Rosenberg Friedman, researching issues of marriage among the women of the religious kibbutz, argues that members of religious kibbutzim, who adopted many of the revolutionary values embraced by secular kibbutzim, dealt with the issue of marriage while maintaining their religious way of life. This problem serves as a case study for understanding the unique complexities that arise when revolutionary ideas are combined with traditional values. 37 In other words, what connects all the Orthodox feminist and proto feminist women is an ongoing tension between tradition and change. Dr. HannahKehat emerged on the scene in the late 1990s to establish Kolech, nearly a generation after Blu Greenberg wrote On Women and Judaism. The organization describes itself in the original Hebrew as, a covenant of women committed to halakha, Jewish tradition and gender equality. 38 In the book compilation from the first Kolech conference, Kehat writes several pages of explanation about the reasons why Kolech was established without mentioning the word feminism : 36 Lilach Rosenberg Friedman, Traditional revolution: The issue of marriage on religious kibbutzim, a comparative view, Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture. Volume 31, Issue 1, 2012, pages Rosenberg, p 109 קולך - פורום נשים דתית" הוא ברית נשים " 2012, 38 downloaded March 24, המחויבות להלכה, למסורת ישראל ולשוויון מגדרי במטרה להוביל שינוי חברתי ותודעתי בנושא שוויון מגדרי ( 1998 )קולך - פורום נשים דתיות', נוסדה בשנת תשנ"ח 'תנועת בקהילה הדתית בישראל; להפיץ את ערכי השוויון והכבוד ההדדי, לפעול לשוויון הזדמנויות לנשים בתחום הציבורי, לקדם את זכויותיהן בספירה הדתית וההלכתית, לתקן את העדר השוויון במעמדן האישי בנישואין הדתיים ולהיאבק באופן נחרץ בכל צורה של אלימות מגדרית. 16 P age