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I appreciate Plaskow’s conscious decision to reconsider her myth and her experiences from a Jewish perspective, using Judaism-based language. To have begun her journey with Protestant-themed terms like mission, conversion, and grace makes sense within an American context, where Protestantism is the most prevalent religion. I think it was important for her to deliberately reexamine her own story in order to see the aspects of Judaism reflected in it. Plaskow herself mentions the importance of community, togetherness, and sisterhood within women’s movements, and how helpful it is for women to see their own experiences reflected in others. Thus, for her to share a deliberately Jewish perspective of women’s experiences is helpful for all women, but particularly for Jewish women, looking to better understand the world that they live in and their own feelings toward it. The language of tikkun olam and midrash is familiar to many Jewish women, and Plaskow’s use of these terms helps them relate their new experiences with the women’s movement to something that they already know and understand, making them more comfortable with the feminist ideas that Plaskow and the women’s movement are presenting.

At the end of her introduction, Fuchs summarizes the definitions that she has been examining across the seven anthologies which she is reviewing: ” ‘Gender’ is understood as an inevitable dichotomy between the sexes, rather than as a historical, social, and cultural institution. ‘Jewish Women’ is understood as a coherent sameness, rather than as a reference which is contingent on historical and cultural context,” (22). The argument she is making is that past attempts at studying “women” or “gender” within the field of Jewish Studies has flattened these terms into something that conveniently fit into their worldview, rather than critically examine them. Gender is seen as the traditional binary of male and female, and Jewish women are represented by white, middle-class wives and mothers. These definitions ignore anything outside of a heteronormative binary and ignore other classes, races, cultures, and roles which Jewish women take part in. Her criticisms are not unfounded, but I don’t quite understand why Fuchs is choosing to introduce her own book by reviewing and critiquing several others. She lays out her argument that a thorough examination of gender and women in Jewish Studies has yet to be done, yet she spends much of her time repeating that fact. To point to an example, on page 13 she writes “This claim to innovation ignores previous anthologies and monographs on ‘women’ and ‘gender’ in various Jewish Studies subdisciplines. This anthology displays not only a lack of awareness of feminist theories of gender and women, but of preceding monographs and anthologies in Jewish Studies.” These sentences are a blatant rewording of one another, making it more difficult than necessary for readers to understand Fuch’s point in introducing her book.

I feel like I may have learned about it before, but I was taken aback in reading Genesis chapter 2 by the things that were re-“created”. For example, in chapter 1, verse 12, it says that “the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind.” However, in chapter 2, verse 5, it is written that “no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted.” And this was after the seventh day, on which God rested. Additionally, though both male and female were created on day six, according to verse 27 of chapter 1, chapter 2 commences with the story of Adam and Eve after the seventh day was finished. What is the explanation for the creation of both trees and man to be told as happening during the first six days, as well as afterwards? How are these two stories reconciled?

As for the segment from Proverbs, the woman described here seems to have an agency and independence not afforded to most women in the popularized stories of the Bible. She is able to conduct her own business, buying a field, selling garments, earning and spending her own resources. Is this meant to be an idealized vision of what a wife can be? Who is this description coming from, and who is it being told to? Is this image being pitched to men, as the ideal wife, or to women, as the ideal role for themselves?

Some notable quotes from a section of this introductory chapter:

“While Women’s Studies began to define itself as a critique of accepted knowledge, Jewish Women’s Studies insists that it seeks to corroborate, expand, and contribute to accepted knowledge. The anthologies I will review in this introduction, and in specific disciplines throughout this book, exemplify this tendency to reassure scholars of Jewish Studies that the new knowledge is intended to support, promote, and revalorize various subfields in Jewish Studies.” p.3

“Drawing on this approach, gender would be understood not as a property of bodies, as a preexistent condition of human beings, but the set of effects produced in bodies, behaviors, and social relations.” p.9

“Scott argues that historians must describe the deviations from the purported stable ideologies of gender, rather than reproduce examples of conformity with the reigning ideology of a particular period or context.” p.10

#3 – While of course, historians are inclined to generalize a period in order to summarize said period concisely, for to include every detail and event would result in a surplus of unnecessary and confusing information. However, it is important to draw attention to notable deviations from the norm. These deviations often shed light on aspects of the norm that might otherwise go unnoticed. Additionally, they can be looked at as inspiration and influence for future changes.

I’ve pulled a few quotes from this essay that caught my eye, and explored one a little deeper:

“I mean to call this endeavor feminist studies of religion, not feminist studies in religion, to re-emphasize feminist scholarship on non-Christian topics, to stress feminist work that is critical of religious authorities in a wide variety of ways, and in order to raise questions about the absence from this forum of feminist scholars of religions such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, as well as those feminist scholars who treat Christianity not theologically but as a historicized religion that demands critical attention.”

“What are Jewish feminists to do when many of us use the terms gender, sex, sexuality, construction, and culture in very different ways?”

“It risks adopting a metaphor without inquiring critically into the power relations in which it was produced, or to which it may contribute and without considering the complexities of masculinist gender culture.”

#2 – I don’t understand why only one paragraph in this article was devoted specifically to Jewish feminist studies. The author does not return to this topic, nor does she give the same treatment to feminist studies of another religion. It seems entirely out of place in the article. This quote particularly raises questions for me, because I want elaboration from it. What different ways are these terms used in regards to Jewish feminism? What challenges do these different definitions bring up? This quote and the paragraph as a whole require much more elaboration in general.