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Abstract
The twentieth century witnessed an array of fresh models of Jewish women's educational and religious leadership. Quite understandably, the majority of the scholarly focus has been on burgeoning egalitarian trends featured in the new roles for women within liberal Jewish denominations and among the Modern Orthodox. Yet increased appreciation for gendered perspectives within Jewish studies has also led to recognition that seemingly conventional female roles, once viewed as purely supportive in nature, have evolved into platforms for voicing uniquely feminine styles of Jewish authority. This article offers an initial portrayal and analysis of a relatively new phenomenon: the American female non-hasidic Haredi outreach activist. It does so, first, by locating these figures within overall trends of American Haredi Jewry as well as in relation to the broader phenomenon of Orthodox feminism. The central contention is that inasmuch as American Haredi Orthodoxy vehemently opposes many of the changes advanced by the Modern Orthodox sector, a “silent” revolution is actually taking place within its own elite frameworks. The instigation for the emergence of new religious leadership roles for Haredi women is the increasing focus of this sector on outreach to the non-observant, and the recognition that woman can be especially effective in these capacities. Yet such activities demand types of public behavior, often in mixed gender settings, that are inconsistent with the messages of strict modesty put forward within Haredi female education. Moreover, some of the female Haredi figures have begun to advance the notion that their functions are not merely vehicles for increasing engagement with Judaism, but actually represent a new empowered model of Orthodox women's leadership and activism.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. For references regarding Bais Yaakov and Chabad, see the discussion below.
2. For exceptions see Adler (Citation2010).
3. See the extended bibliography on the topic in Ross (Citation2007).
4. See RCA Statements (Citation2013).
5. Another controversial issue which has received more support from conservative authorities is the recitation of the mourner's prayer (Kaddish) by women in mainstream Orthodox public prayer services. See the discussion and sources in Berkovits (Citation2011).
6. For an exploration of the ways in which Orthodox feminism is redefining Modern Orthodox concepts of boundaries and authority, see Mirsky (Citation2007) and Gurock (Citation2009).
7. On the community kollel, see Ferziger (Citation2006) and Ferziger (Citation2009b).
10. Celebration of Judaism Unites Houston Women (Citation2008).
11. http://www.nerleelef.com/programs/english.html; http://www.thejerusalemkollel.com/womens_program.php.
13. Women's Issues—Book One (Citation2007a) and Women's Issues—Book Two (Citation2007b).
16. Women in Kiruv Conference Program (Citation2012).
17. Women in Kiruv Conference (Citation2012).
18. Women in Kiruv Conference (Citation2012).
19. These conflicts regarding female religious figures are, of course, connected to the broader issue of the haredi family and expanding employment opportunities for women. See Caplan (Citation2003) and Heilman (Citation2006). A haredi kollel head pointed out to me that in the last two decades advanced study in Bais Yaakov frameworks has also become more rigorous and widespread. This, he suggested, may partially account for the emergence of female haredi religious leaders. This phenomenon is deserving of further attention.
21. http://www.hadassah.org/site/c.keJNIWOvElH/b.6606301/k.4698/March_Is_Womens_History_Month.htm. For an Israeli female figure whose activities and style raise parallels to Lori Palatnik, see Leon and Lavie (Citation2013).
22. Leon and Lavie ask similarly regarding the response among Israeli male haredi figures to the Israeli female activists that they describe. They suggest that opinions are divided with some figures fully supportive and others highly critical. Furthermore, they raise the question of whether these female religious personalities actually challenge the strictly male-dominated hierarchy of Israeli haredi society but do not reach a conclusive answer. There is definitely room for a comparative study of these parallel Israeli and American phenomena.
23. See, for example, Ner Leelef's Women's Issues—Book Two (Citation2007b, 8–19).
24. For a broader discussion of the influence of the Chabad model on the development of American haredi outreach, see Ferziger (Citation2013). The parallels between Chabad shluchos and haredi female outreach activists actually go beyond the motivation for their establishment. Like the haredi activists, Chabad shluhos have long received extensive training in advance of setting out to run a Chabad House together with their husbands. Similarly, already in 1956 Chabad established an annual convention held in Brooklyn for its shluchos from around the world that is run at a separate time from its male shluhim convention so that each spouse can be home when their “partner” travels abroad (Loewenthal Citation2013).
Additional information
Adam S. Ferziger is a professor in the Israel and Golda Koschitsky Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University and is co-convener of the Oxford Summer Institute for Modern and Contemporary Judaism. He is the author of Exclusion and Hierarchy: Orthodoxy, Nonobservance, and the Emergence of Modern Jewish Identity (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005) and Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism (Wayne State University Press, forthcoming 2015).