Between Feminism and Orthodox Judaism—Resistance, Identity, and Religious Change in Israel

Yael Israel-Cohen has produced a thoughtful, well-researched, and extremely readable book on a neglected subject: women and feminism in conservative religious tradition. The author conducted interviews with forty-five women and men leading radical changes in religious norms around women's status in contemporary Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel, and the book derives from her PhD research. It is most remarkable for its accessible, engaging, first-person voice, and for its attention to the voices we usually do not hear in discussions of women in conservative religion: those of the women themselves. As a female Orthodox Jewish researcher and the daughter of a female Conservative Jewish rabbi, Israel-Cohen is uniquely situated to reach her interviewees. Part one of the book looks at sociology of religion and relationships between the changing status of women and conservative religions in general, then considers the specifics of Israeli Jewish Orthodoxy. Part two looks at how the women interviewed perceive and define their own activism on changes in ritual structure and movement toward the ordination of women rabbis. The author argues that the literature of Jewish Orthodoxy tends to define women's roles in terms of passive resistance; negotiating change by avoiding confrontation. Part three looks at how women who identify as Orthodox feminists develop and maintain an identity that most others would define as contradictory. The last part of the book looks at ramifications beyond gender dynamics; the author helpfully brings up the concept of hybridity, and locates the core tension in the question of whether the hybridity evoked by ideas of pluralism and change is a hybridity within conservative traditions, or between the tradition and foreign ideas. Jewish Orthodoxy in Israel is a powerful exemplar of this tension, since both faith and nationhood depend on great acceptance of diversity within groups combined with a core value of separation and rejection of hybridity between groups. In such situations, everything depends on the question of who and what belongs within the lines. Israel-Cohen's study resonates far beyond the subject of Orthodox feminism, to consider the question of how change can come peacefully in conservative, change-resistant settings. It will be of interest to a variety of academic and general readers. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Yael Israel-Cohen, Ph.D. (2011), Tel Aviv University, has published academic articles on the topic of women's status in Orthodoxy and is a co-author of the book Building a Diaspora, Russian Jews in Israel, Germany and the USA (Brill, 2006).