Category: Reading Reflections

Reading this chapter, I have come to think that this should have been one of our first readings. It uncovers gender roles in American Judaism, despite the non-Jewish origins of the women being interviewed and discussed. These women, though non-Jewish by birth, have become part of Jewish families, have become Jewish mothers, and therefore have taken on the role of the American Jewish woman. The reactions of their husbands’ families further reflect what the role of an American Jewish wife is understood to be. McGinity explores what it means to be a Jew as a husband of a convert or non-Jew, what it means to be a Jew as a woman not born Jewish, and what it means to be a Jew as a child of some form of interfaith marriage. By the title of the book this chapter comes from, Marrying Out: Jewish Men, Intermarriage, and Fatherhood, I am very curious what other topics are explored and feel like many may have been relevant to our class. I also feel like this chapter could be well put in conversation with the readings by Bear Bergman and Laurel Richardson that we read earlier in the semester but did not discuss extensively.

This reading gave a good overview of the history behind inter-religious relations, but it did leave me with some questions. First off, I find it interesting that Anderson did not devote space in her essay to the word goy and its meanings and implications, despite using it in her title. Other things she touches on briefly without elucidating include homosexual relations and how children resulting from intermarriages fit (or don’t) into Jewish communities. I am especially curious about the lives of intermarried couples before the era of national identities overtaking religious identities. If neither person converted and the two retained their religious identities, what did their lives look like?

What most grabbed my attention in this beautiful poem was the variety of pronouns used. First of all, the perspective switches between directly addressing a listener (“you”) and third-person pronouns. More interestingly, in my opinion, is the use of both feminine and masculine pronouns to describe the narrator’s lover. The poem mentions his hands, her praises, his eyes, etc. This fluidity of gender is fascinating. Some may interpret it as two lovers whose perspectives as they speak about each other are not clearly delineated, as Lieber seems to in the concluding commentary on page 209 of our secondary reading. Perhaps several people’s discussions of their lovers have been seamlessly compiled into this one book. I enjoy the idea that there is one lover, or one idea of love and beauty, whose gender is not strictly defined, but fluid and beautiful in that fluidity. This interpretation challenges the opposition of man and woman in a strict binary, allowing for the two gendered concepts to mix and merge freely within one image of the beloved whose beauty is being praised in Song of Songs.

First off, I appreciate Frymer-Kensky’s labeling of this story as “the Dinah affair”, rather than the often used “rape of Dinah”, because she had proved the likelihood of this incident not being rape based on the biblical language used. Additionally, what was interesting to me were the questions Frymer-Kensky considered at the end about small groups such as Israel attempting to survive against threats. This was interesting because none of these questions were about Dinah or the role of women in biblical or current Jewish societies. Frymer-Kensky establishes that Dinah herself is almost irrelevant to this story, a catalyst more than a character. The relation of a daughter to her family is not being called into question so much as the relationship of men in a family to outsiders.

The primary theme I noticed across these poems was pain and despair. The pain of yearning, of not being yearned for in return. They all speak to the power of beauty over one’s emotions. It is neither a particular woman nor man that any of these rabbis is in love with, but their beauty. I would think that such beauty would be praised and lauded in this poetry, but the focus is more on the authors and the pain despair that they feel in wanting that beauty.

What I understood from Michaelson’s essay is that homosexuality and other deviance from the norms of gender and sexuality have a deeper place in theology than the prohibitions that are normally the focus of such discussions. He looks at binaries and structures of power through Othering, using the defining boundaries of Israel as a theological example. Sexual liminality, according to Michaelson, opposes and challenges the boundaries of Judaism. He goes on to describe relationships with Torah and God, and how any Jew approaches those relationships from their own perspective of gender and love. He examines how a male Kabbalist might take on the feminine role when relating to God’s masculinity, while God is also recognized to have a feminine aspect. Michaelson aims to challenge the rules and boundaries that have been understood around Judaism and notice the liminality and boundary crossing that actively occurs.

The issue of egalitarianism in terms of gender is one of tension in many traditional communities, especially religious communities. Judaism is no different, having patriarchal roots similar to most other ancient religions. While there have been contemporary pushes towards creating more gender equality, certain forms of Judaism remain committed to what they view as the traditionally proper roles for men and women. This is the topic that Yoel Finkelman elucidates in his essay “The Secret of Jewish Masculinity: Contemporary Haredi Gender Ideology.” Finkelman analyzes the “separate but equal” construct of gender roles that is claimed by Haredi communities, as well as the historical and contemporary realities of those roles, in order to understand how gender functions within Haredi culture.

As a woman raised in a Conservative Jewish household and amongst several egalitarian communities, traditional Judaisms such as Haredi and other forms of Orthodoxy have always confused and discomforted me. Having learned in school how to sing along with the prayer services and read Torah, I’ve felt silenced when joining an Orthodox community, relegated to the quiet side of the Mechitzah, or in a balcony left to overlook the men’s participation in the service while not given the opportunity to participate myself. Consequently, I have been curious as to how women in Haredi communities, whether by birth or as ba’alei teshuva, find happiness and contentment in system that seems to demean their power. Finkelman, in studying the construction of Haredi gender roles, attends to that question and more.

The claims made by those speaking out in support of the patriarchal Haredi system label the roles of men and women as “separate but equal,” with women taking responsibility of domestic life while men deal with the public world. There seems an imbalance in roles, as women are left with the responsibilities of creating a properly Jewish home for her husband and children, while only the men are given the obligation and opportunities of Torah study and other positive mitzvot. In objection to that supposed imbalance, Haredi ideology elevates the female role as crucial to the spiritual health of herself, her family, and her community. The Haredi home is perceived as a safe place, protected from the dangers of the secularized outside world. Thus, the domestic role assigned to women is made especially important, as she is “‘the instiller and protector of the vital, internal values of the Jew,’” (Finkelman 291). She is not simply a homemaker, but a guardian against secularization. Additionally, she is not given the obligations of Torah study and other positive mitzvot because she does not need them. She can find meaning in domestic tasks, “‘because women have a greater tendency toward spiritual growth than the men and therefore do not need those mitvos to bring that potential to fruition,’” (Finkelman 292). While some may view the opportunity to fulfill mitzvot as an advantage for the men, this assertion puts women above men, so holy that they do not need mitzvot in order to achieve spiritual success.

Finkelman points out that this ideology raises women in an abstract sense, utilizing the desire for spirituality, while continuing to confine their actual power and maintain a patriarchal social structure (292). Haredi ideology claims that women’s responsibility for the domestic sphere is just as vital a task as Torah study is for men. However, this claim is undermined by the economic reality of Haredi women having to enter the public sphere in order to take on work to financially support her family as her husband attends to his studies. This reality demonstrates that in the Haredi hierarchy, men’s Torah study takes precedence over women’s homemaking, contradicting the claims that are often made. Finkelman labels this contradiction as asymmetry, a display of the ambivalence within Haredi gender ideology that pushes and pulls members of the communities in two directions at once. In this case, there is tension between the Haredi woman’s domestic role in strengthening the nuclear family, and the wage-earning role she must take to support the preeminent male Torah study. This position gives the woman power in the form of financial control, which would threaten the patriarchal Haredi culture. Thus, the position of women in the workplace is painted as a necessary evil, a dangerous position that must be taken up. This endorses the notion that the wage-earning work that women perform is unwanted and precarious, downplaying the financial power that the women acquire by creating a distaste for it.

These three articles come from different news sources focusing on the same controversial incidents that took place in Israel in the 1950s. Thousands of cases from this period in Israel report Yemenite and other Mizrahi immigrants losing young children and infants, believing them to have been abducted by the Israeli government and used for experiments and research or put up for adoption by Ashkenazi families. The New York Times article written by Fezehai focuses mostly on the testimonials of people either searching for or reconnected with missing family members. Fezehai brings up some of the recent actions taken on by the Israeli government in response to rising calls for justice, including the admission by a cabinet member that “children were taken without their parents’ consent” and laws allowing families to access adoption files.

Abraham’s article uses this specific incident to talk about broader issues of racial division and oppression in Israel, bringing up an aversion on Israel’s part towards acknowledging the existence of an Arab-Judeo culture in favor of creating a binary between all things Arab and Jewish. Abraham calls significant attention to the racial prejudices that went into the abduction of Mizrahi babies and their adoption by Ashkenazim. Abraham also wrote one line that points to a particular narrative of Israel’s founding, mentioning “Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands in 1948.” The use of this phrasing makes it clear that Abraham is acutely aware of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and racial oppression in Israel in this article, likening the treatment of the Mizrahi Jews to that of Palestinians and other non-Jewish Arabs.

Fezehai and Abraham certainly have similar points to make through the articles, but come from different perspectives and different narrative understandings. One question I had that was not addressed was of the adoptive families and their level of participation in these incidents. Were they aware of how these Mizrahi babies had come to them, aware of the abductions and the lack of concept by the biological parents? Were they implicit in the scandal or bystanders to it?

While I understand the point that Seidman is arguing about the intimacy and desire involved in homosocial settings, I am confused by her use of the term “erotic” to describe these relationships and environments. She never explains her use of this term, which invokes images of a more sexual nature. Seidman repeatedly refers to “the erotic power of the homosocial structure” and other phrasings along the same lines. However, it seems to me that these sexually segregated situations foster intimacy, tenderness, and love, but not eroticism. Despite the title of this essay, she does elaborate on how sexual segregation is erotic.