WOMEN IN JEWISH LAW

01:563:320:01

Time/Place TBA

Instructor: Mordecai Schwartz

office hours: TBA

Learning Goals:

  • Introduce students to some of the major ways in which Jewish law affected the construction of women’s roles in rabbinic culture and society
  • Introduce students to the classical works of rabbinic literature (collections of rabbinic midrash, the Mishnah, the Tosefta and the two Talmudim) and major medieval Jewish legal codes
  • Teach students to analyze primary sources critically

Assessment method:

  • Embedded essay question with rubric

Course Description:

This course will attempt to recover and analyze women’s voices in Jewish legal sources from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The women we will encounter are nearly entirely mediated by the male gaze. Rabbinic society was patriarchal in its construction and all its literary remains are the compositions of men. In large part, therefore, we will be embarking on a study of the attitudes of a relatively small group of Jewish men toward Jewish women. Our study will also take note, however, of how the legislation and codification of these attitudes shaped women’s roles in later Jewish culture. In addition, we will examine various modern critical approaches to this material.

Required Texts:

  • Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures. The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (other translations of the entire Hebrew Bible may be acceptable)
  • Miriam Peskowitz, Spinning Fantasies: Rabbis, Gender, and History (Contraversions, 9)
  • Judith Hauptman, Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman's Voice
  • Additional readings will be assigned throughout the semester, including primary sources in translation. All readings outside of Hauptman and Peskowitz will be posted on the class website: Use your Rutgers Email ID and password for access. Once logged on, click on “Women and Jewish Law” and then on “Resources”. Readings are arranged by unit.

Class Structure:

Readings will be assigned each week, usually at the end of the week, for the next two sessions. Class time will be dedicated primarily to a discussion of the readings. Topics will mostly follow those in Hauptman. The first few weeks will also be dedicated to chapters from Holtz and other introductory materials. We will revisit Holtz when we arrive at questions of codification and medieval Jewish culture.

Grading:

1. Midterm exam covering the first half of the course (25%).

2. Final exam covering the latter half of the course, during exam period (25%).

3. Two 2-page reflection papers, on discussed topics of the students’ choice, due the week following class discussion (15%).

4. One 10-page (maximum) term paper, due on the last day of class (20%).

5. Class participation, attendance, progress, and other subjective factors (15%).

Unit One- Introduction

Readings:

  1. Hauptman, pages 1-14
  2. Peskowitz, pages 1-25
  3. No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women by Estelle Freedman, pages 17-42
  4. Back To The Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts by Barry W. Holtz (Editor), “Talmud” by Robert Goldenberg, pages 129-176

Unit Two- Eve and Rabbinic Attitudes Toward Women and Gender

Readings:

  1. Countertraditions in the Bible : A Feminist Approach by Ilana Pardes, pages 13-38
  2. Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (New Historicism-Studies in Cultural Poetics , No 25) by Daniel Boyarin, pages 107-133

Primary texts:

  1. Rabbinic texts: Genesis Rabbah 8:1, B. ’Eruvin 18a (excerpted).
  2. Plato’s Symposium, 189a-192e

Unit Three- Sotah

Readings:

  1. Hauptman, pages 15-29
  2. Peskowitz, pages 131-153

Primary texts:

  1. Numbers 5:11-31
  2. Excerpts from Mishnah Sotah

Unit Four-Relations Between the Sexes

Readings:

  1. Hauptman, pages 30-59
  2. Peskowitz, pages 49-76

Primary text:

  1. B. Qiddushin 80b-82b