Feminist Jewish Ritual: The United States
Feminist seders have provided an important context for developing women’s spirituality. In 1975, a group of Israeli and American women decided to create their own Passover seder based on their experiences as Jewish women. Now an annual event held in Manhattan, it has been attended by Esther Broner, Gloria Steinem, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Bella Abzug, Grace Paley and several other "Seder Sisters" who have played important roles in the development of Jewish feminism. Shown here are Bella Abzug, Phyllis Chesler and Letty Cottin Pogrebin at the Women's Seder in 1991.
Photo: Joan Roth
Ritual behavior is one of the fundamental pillars of Judaism, and of all religions, whose concern is precisely with ultimate meaning and purpose. Men in normative (rabbinic) Judaism have far more access to the sacred through personal and communal ritual than do women, in terms of sacralization of the body, family and public ritual, marriage and divorce, and much more. Jewish women have always elaborated rich sets of rituals with which the sacralized their daily lives, life-cycle events, and holidays, but these rituals did not enjoy the status of male rituals. Over the past several decades, Jewish feminists have elaborated a host of new rituals for women that have achieved remarkable acceptance and attained normative status. They have gained access to male-identified rituals, developed a wide variety of new rituals, and feminized core male rituals.
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Gendered Difference in Traditional Jewish Ritual Observance
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Traditional Jewish Women's Ritual, Its Fate in Modernity, and Feminist Innovation
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Egalitarianism and Feminism
The first Jewish feminist to identify herself as a theologian, Judith Plaskow has created a distinctively Jewish theology that is at once academically rigorous, politically leftist and firmly woman-centered. The best known Jewish feminist theologian in both Jewish and non-Jewish circles, she appears here in 2004.
Photographer: Martha Ackelsberg
Institution: Judith Plaskow
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Integrating Feminism into Mainstream Judaism
In the latter half of the twentieth century, Jewish feminists began to develop a repertoire of new feminist ritual. Yet they simultaneously sought a "usable past" within Judaism, so as to seamlessly link their own ritual creativity to the body of Jewish tradition. This Tashlikh ceremony in Riverside Park in New York City was sponsored by MA'YAN: The Jewish Women's Project. The cantor is Naomi Hirsch.
Photographer: Joan Roth
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Resources and Their Significance
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Creating Successful Ritual
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