Jews and Feminism: The Ambivalent Search for Home

by Levitt,Laura

• ISBN13: 9780415914444
• ISBN10: 0415914442
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-07-02
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

By interrogating America's promise of a home for Jews as citizens of the liberal state,Jews and Feminismquestions the very terms of this social "contract". Maintaining that Jews, women, and Jewish women are not necessarily secure within this construction of the state, Laura Levitt links this contractual construction of belonging and acceptance to legacies of marriage as a contractual home for Jewish women. Exploring the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe for America, as well as their desire to make this country their permanent home, Levitt raises questions about the search for stability in specific Jewish religious and cultural traditions which is linked to the liberal academy as well as feminist study, thus offering an account of an ambivalent Jewish feminist embrace of America as home.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi	(2)
preface The Journey Home	xiii
introduction Home	1	(14)
one Embraces	15	(14)
Part One Jewish Women at Home Rabbinic Judaism, Liberalism, and Liberal Jewish Theology	29	(78)
two Reading Ketubbot	29	(22)
three Becoming Liberal	51	(12)
four The Sexual Contract	63	(12)
five Covenant or Contract? Marriage as Theology	75	(16)
six Marriage as Feminist Theology?	91	(16)
Part Two Feminist Study Reconfiguring Jewish Identity	107	(28)
seven Feminist Dreams of Home	107	(14)
eight Jews in Feminist Study	121	(14)
Part Three Ambivalent Embraces	135	(28)
nine Returning to Atlanta	135	(16)
ten Claiming America	151	(8)
eleven What's in a Name?	159	(4)
conclusion Writing Home	163	(2)
Notes	165	(46)
Selected Bibliography	211	(10)
Index	221