Choosing Limits, Limiting Choices: Women's Status and Religious Life

Publication Date: March 2005

Publisher: Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

Author(s): Tamar Ross; Blu Greenberg; Sylvia Barack Fishman

Research Area: Culture and religion; Population and demographics

Keywords: Jewish Continuity; Modernity; Feminism; Orthodox Judaism

Type: Other

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

Is Jewish Orthodox life threatened by changing gender roles? When the boys club admits the girls, do the boys drop out? And, as an addendum to that question, how are men and children reacting to strong women? What are the real and phony threats to Orthodox life, which are currently being attributed to women? What is the relationship between women who call themselves feminists and those who do not? These are the questions considered by the three panelists, who discuss how American Orthodox communities, leaders, and youth, are grappling with the challenges posed by modernizing American social norms.