Multifaceted Religious Feminism - The Case of Modern Orthodox Feminists in Israel

Abstract

This article deals with orthodox feminists in Israel. Its aim is to study how women create a religious feminist identity and attach to orthodox feminism as a shared space. For this purpose I interviewed 44 women, all of whom declared openly that they regard themselves as orthodox feminists. The interviews dealt with the creation of a religious feminist identity and the conceptions, beliefs, customs and soul searching created by this identity. Five different narratives are presented: the traditional, retiring, interpreter, juggler and rabbinical. Every one of them provides a different world view and a unique answer to the issue of how to be both religious and a feminist. These narratives are not binary (feminism versus religion, feminism or religion) but rather an open-ended interweaving between feminism and religion that produces religious feminism without a hyphen.

“It’s Not Equality”: How Race, Class, and Gender Construct the Normative Religious Self among Female Prisoners

“…From this perspective, women's engagement in conservative religions reinforces inequality, whether advertently or inadvertently. Others argue that gender-specific religious engagement is an active and empowered choice (Avishai, 2008;Casselberry, 2017;Mahmood, 2004;Nyhagen, 2017;Ozorak, 1996;Prickett, 2015;Shahar, 2015;Yanay-Ventura, 2016). From this perspective, women's decisions around clothing, body rituals, and daily practices demonstrate agentic religious engagement rather than submission to men's rules.…”

Religion, gender and international development

“…As these actors interweave religion and gender justice, they cannot be located on one of the poles and hence occupy a middle position. Religious feminists focus on feminist theological, scriptural or other (less text-based) forms of religious work, which is often combined with feminist social activism (Yanay-Ventura 2016;Woodheid 2001). This chapter refers to religious NGOs as NGOs that are in some ways religiously affiliated amongst other (secular) affiliations and ties, and focuses in particularly on larger and influential religious NGOs that have over the past decade developed and implemented gender programming (Fountain & Petersen 2018).…”

Fighting for Equal Spiritual Voice: The Case of the “Women of the Wall”

“…Yanay-Ventura’s (2014, 2016) analysis indicates that the discussion of religious feminism begins with acknowledging the existence of this conflict (Cohen, 2006). Several approaches that try to bridge feminism and religion have developed in the theoretical literature: adjusting feminism to religion by re-interpreting the concept of feminism; adjusting religion to feminism by redefining the concept of religion; and separating between religion and feminism (Yadgar, 2006; Ali et al, 2008).…”

“…Orthodox feminism in Israel is related to the desire for enhanced involvement in religious life and practices (El-Or, 1998; Yanay-Ventura, 2016). Later, women’s prayer groups were formed, in which women read from the Torah scroll (Friedman, 2009).…”