Top
In traditional Jewish societies of previous centuries, literacy education was mostly a male prerogative. Even more recently, women have not been taught the traditional male curriculum that includes the Talmud and midrashic books. But the situation is changing, partly because of the special emphasis that modern Judaism places on learning its philosophy and traditions and on broadening its circle of knowers. In Next Year I Will Know More, the distinguished Israeli anthropologist Tamar El-Or explores the spreading practice of intensive Judaic studies among women in the religious Zionist community -- a revolutionary phenomenon that will transform Orthodox Judaism over time.
Focusing on the experiences of religious women who participated in a midrasha at Bar-Ilan University, the author, a secular Jew, succeeded in gaining their confidence and penetrating their world. El-Or observed these women in a learning context where they debated Jewish orth
