Judaism Since Gender offers a radically new concept of Jewish Studies, staking out new intellectual terrain and redefining the discipline as an intrinsically feminist practice. The question of how knowledge is gendered has been discussed by philosophers and feminists for years, yet is still new to many scholars of Judaism. Judaism Since Gender illuminates a crucial debate among intellectuals both within and outside the academy, and ultimately overturns the belief that scholars of Judaism are still largely oblivious of recent developments in the study of gender. Offering a range of provocations--Jewish men as sissies, Jesus as transvestite, the problem of eroticizing Holocaust narratives--this timely collection pits the joys of transgression against desires for cultural wholeness.

Gender and Second Temple Judaism examines the myriad constructions of gender in Second Temple Judaism including early Christianity. The chapters examine the state of the field and methodology and hone in on specific texts.

""A Major Collection of Scholarship that Contains the most up-to-Date, Indeed Cutting-Edge Work on Gender and Jewish History by Several Generations of Top Scholars."--Atina Grossmann, the Cooper Union.

This book addresses a range of topics, including gendered readings of texts, legal issues in marriage and divorce, ritual practices, and women's literary expressions , along with feminist influences within the Muslim and Jewish communities and issues affecting Jewish and Muslim women in contemporary society.The volume focuses attention on the theoretical innovations that gender scholarship has brought to the study of Muslim and Jewish experiences. At a time when Judaism and Islam are often discussed as though they were inherently at odds, this book offers a reconsideration of the connections between these two traditions.

Demonstates through different essays Jewish Womens movement rides the fine line between tradition and transformation.

Published in Association with the Solomon B. Freehof Institute of Progressive Halakhah General Editor: Walter Jacob+

This book examines a key tradition in Judaism (the rule that exempts women from "timebound, positive commandments"), which has served for centuries to stabilize women's roles. Against every other popular and scholarly perception of the rule, Elizabeth Shanks Alexander demonstrates that the rule was not intended to have such consequences. She narrates the long and complicated history of the rule, establishing the reasons for its initial formulation and the shifts in interpretation that led to its being perceived as a key marker of Jewish gender.