An uneven analysis of the impact of feminism on the American Jewish
community. Fishman (senior research associate/Brandeis) argues -
only sometimes convincingly - that feminism has brought a breath of
life into a faltering American Jewish community. Perhaps the best
statistical evidence of this are the 280 women who have been
ordained as rabbis by Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative
Jewish seminaries in the 20 years since the gender line was broken
in 1972. In these seminaries, the number of women cantorial
candidates exceeds that of men, even though only 30 years ago it
was forbidden for women even to study Talmud. Fishman also
introduces us to a wide range of female life-cycle ceremonies that
modern Jews have begun to practice (one at which a woman rabbi
might officiate is the shalom bat - welcoming the daughter -
ceremony, paralleling the longstanding rites welcoming male Jewish
babies to the community) and she successfully renders the ongoing
tension between feminism and traditional, especially Orthodox,
Judaism. But the statistics and conclusions that support the
author's thesis sometimes appear suspect. She states, for instance,
that 70% of married women affiliated with the rigorously orthodox
Agudah sect practice birth control after the arrival of their first
child - even though this group's continued proclivity for large
families is well documented. Similarly puzzling is Fishman's
statement that "recent surveys show that even highly educated,
ambitious young women - but not men - say that they would rather be
thin than be successful and happy." The author is moot appealing
when she abandons sociological data for first-person accounts. Her
reportage of the attempts of American and Israeli women to hold
prayer services at Jerusalem's Western Wall, despite violent
opposition, is riveting. Fishman attempts to examine feminism's
impact on too many aspects of Jewish life, and the subsequent lack
of focus weakens her thesis - which, in any case, will appeal moot
strongly to those already committed to both feminism and
traditional Judaism. (Kirkus Reviews)
Today's Jewish women, successfully availing themselves of the
increased educational and occupational opportunities that feminism
has encouraged, feel a new sense of self and entitlement. Yet as
feminist advances have opened possibilities, they also have called
into question traditional roles. The challenge to Jewish women
today is to preserve the Jewish community and guarantee its
survival while creating meaningful new social and spiritual models
that respond to feminist enlightenment. Drawing on interviews with
Jewish women from eighteen to eighty across the United States, as
well as on new demographic data, scholarship, literature, and
media, A Breath of Life explores the full panorama of contemporary
options for Jewish women striving to combine community family and
individual needs. Through the voices of these women, Sylvia Barack
Fishman demonstrates the ways feminism has transformed both their
secular and spiritual lives. Ceremonies such as bat mitzvah, which
accepts women into the Jewish fold, are now widely practiced, and
girls receive as much Jewish education as boys. The vast majority
of adult women pursue both vocational and avocational interests,
marry and have children, and choose their own religious options. A
Breath of Life charts the course these women navigate, and explores
the challenges and pleasures they find along the way. Tracing the
emergence and development of a distinctly Jewish form of feminism,
which has grown alongside the larger feminist movement but which
specifically addresses the concerns of Jewish women, Fishman shows
how it has done more to revitalize American Judaism than any other
factor in the past two decades. Just as Eastern European Jews at
theturn of the century and Holocaust survivors after World War II
brought a religious intensity to American Jewish communities, today
feminism is providing a fresh wave of enthusiastic reinterpretation
and participation in American Jewish life. From study groups, to
participation in services, to leadership in the community Jewish
women are more involved than ever in Jewish life.
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