GENDER IN JUDAISM

Aryeh Amihay

Details:
RGST 133D, Spring 2018
M W 12:30-1:45
Room: Girvetz 1108

Office HSSB 3048

Office Hours: M W 10:00-12:00
aamihay@ucsb.edu

Description and Mission

This course will examine aspects of gender in the Jewish tradition. Students are expected to develop a
sense of the historical evolution of Judaism, and hence an understanding of its plurality. The first half of
the course will focus on the canonical sources of ancient Judaism, namely the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic
literature. Themes will include the constructions of gender through narrative, metaphor, and law, as well
as the problem of the gender of God. The second half of the course will explore topics i Jewish mysticism
and asceticism, and finally the challenges of modernity, especially as they relate to egalitarian worship,
feminist theologies, and Judaism as it is constructed as part of an ethno-national identity, in Israel and
the United States.

In addition to developing an historical understanding of Judaism (in contrast to an essentialist dogmatic

understanding of it), students will also reflect on the construction of gender identities as a social-political
product. The diversity of readings will suggest that both Judaism and gender are not stable unified
essences, found in a person by virtue of their birth, but rather a complex set of performative choices,
resulting in the identity including what a person chooses to make of it. Students will be invited to question
the validity of any specific example or claim found in a text, and to consider its relevance to present-day
discourse in their own lives.

Tardiness and Absence

Tardiness will not be tolerated. Students are allowed four absences during the course. Any further absence
will be penalized and students with more than six absences will fail the course. Students who request an
absence to be excused or not counted, will fail the course.

Grading

15% Havruta and class participation (attendance does not count as class participation)
15% Response to a reading
20% Gender theory paper
10% Bibliography exercise
40% Final essay

All students are required to have one office hour meeting with instructor during the course. Grades
will not be submitted for no–show students.
Class 1 (Apr. 2) – Introduction

Meyers, “The Problem of Patriarchy”

Eilberg-Schwartz, “The Divine Phallus and the Dilemmas of Masculinity”
Ross, “Modern Orthodoxy and the Challenge of Feminism”

Class 2 (Apr. 4) – Hebrew Bible: Beginnings

Genesis 1-3
Genesis 12, 17
Exodus 1-4
1 Kings 6-11 [cf. 2 Samuel 7, 11-12 for context]

Pardes, “Creation According to Eve”

Olson, “Moses the Man, Masculinities, and Method”
Weitzman, “A Thousand and One Sex Scandals”

Class 3 (Apr. 9) – Hebrew Bible: Beloved Women

Song of Songs 1-8

Proverbs 6:16-7:27, 31:10-31

Exum, “Gendered Love-Talk and the Relation of the Sexes”

Almog, “Bodily Border, Social Norms and their Transgression in the Song of Songs”
Yee, “The Other Woman in Proverbs”

Class 4 (Apr. 11) – Hebrew Bible: Gender as Metaphor

Hosea 1-3
Jeremiah 2
Ezekiel 16, 23
Nahum 3
Lamentations 1
Isaiah 52

Weems, “The Rhetoric of a Metaphor”

Brenner, “Pornoprophetics Revisited”
Scholz, “Against the Poetics of Rape in Prophetic Literature”

Class 5 (Apr. 16) – Hebrew Bible: Gender and Law

Exodus 21-23
Leviticus 12, 15, 18, 20
Numbers 5
Deuteronomy 21-25

Frymer-Kensky, “Virginity in the Bible”

Goldstein, “Gender, Blood, and the Holiness Code”
Rooke, “Leviticus from a Gendered Perspective”
Gudme, “The Law of Jealousy as Magical Ritual and as Ritual Text”
Class 6 (Apr. 18) – Hebrew Bible: Gender and Agency

Genesis 19, 29-31, 38

Judges 16
1 Samuel 19, 25
Ruth
Esther

Adelman, “Michal: The King’s Daughter or the King’s Wife?”

Fuchs, “Status and Role of Female Heroines in the Biblical Narrative”
Trible, “A Human Comedy”
Bal, “Lots of Writing”

Class 7 (Apr. 23) – Rabbinic Literature: Femininity

Valler, “Mothers and Sons”

Peskowitz, “Gossip”
Secunda, “Construction, Composition and Idealization of the Female Body”
Hasan-Rokem, “The Feminine Power of Laments, Tales, and Love”

Class 8 (Apr. 25) – Rabbinic Literature: Masculinity

Satlow, “The Rabbinic Construction of Masculinity”

Lehman, “Rabbinic Masculinities”
Kosman, “R. Johanan and Resh Lakish”
Rosenblum, “Jewish Male Rabbinic Identity”

Class 9 (Apr. 30) – Rabbinic Literature: Gender and Law

Fonrobert, “Rabbinic Legal Discourse and the Making of Jewish Gender”

Labovitz, “Polysemy and the Rabbinic Vocabulary of Betrothal”
Naiweld, “The Sacrament of Language and Male Domination: Nedarim in Ancient Judaism”
Ilan, “Women’s History and Female Language in Halakhic Literature”

Class 10 (May 2) – Rabbinic Literature: The Gender of God

Schäfer, “The Rabbinic Shekhinah”

Haskell, “Breastfeeding and Religious Transmission in Rabbinic Literature”
Halbertal, “If the Text Had Not Been Written, It Could Not Be Said”
Leitao, “Blepyrus’s Turd-Child and the Birth of Athena”

Class 11 (May 7) – Medieval Jewry: Sefer Hasidim

Sefer Hasidim, selections

Biale, “Rabbinic Authority and Popular Culture in Medieval Europe”

Baskin, “The Problem of Women in Sefer Hasidim”

Class 12 (May 9) – Medieval Mysticism

Zohar, selections

Wolfson, “Erasing the Erasure: Gender and the Writing of God’s Body in Kabbalistic Symbolism”
Hellner-Eshed, “The Companions of Rabbi Shim’on in Their Own Eyes”
Fishman, “A Kabbalistic Perspective on Gender-Specific Commandments”
Class 13 (May 14) – Safed Kabbalah

Fine, “Isaac Luria”

Idel, “Ascensions, Gender and Pillars in Safedian Kabbala”
Patai, “Yiḥudim – Unifications”
Cuffel, “Gendered visions and transformations of women’s spirituality in Vital’s Sefer ha-Hezyonot”

Class 14 (May 16) – Egalitarianism

Nadell, “Raising the Question of Women’s Rabbinic Ordination, 1889”

Levitt, “The Sexual Contract”
Marx, “Feminist Influences on Jewish Liturgy: The Case of Israeli Reform Prayer”
Adler, “And Not Be Silent: Toward Inclusive Worship”

Class 15 (May 21) – Egalitarianism: Orthodox Precursors and Responses

Rapoport-Albert, “From Woman as Hasid to Woman as Tsadik”

Polen, “Radical Egalitarianism in Hasidic Thought”
Shilo, “A Religious Orthodox Women’s Revolution”
Weiss, “The Creation of the Gender-Segregated Beach in Tel Aviv”

Class 16 (May 23) – Feminist Theologies and Rituals

Plaskow, “God: Reimaging the Unimaginable”

Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within, selections
El-Or, “Hafrashat Ḥallah—The Rebirth of a Forgotten Ritual as a Public Ceremony”
Grant, “The Rite of Adult Bat-Mitzvah”

Class 17 (May 30) – Nationalism and Gender

Presner, “The Land of Regeneration”

Imhoff, “Masculinity and the Development of American Zionism”
Boyarin, “Zionism, Gender, and Mimicry”
Dworkin, “Masculinity / Femininity”

Class 18 (June 4) – Gender and Assimilation

Prell, “The Jewish American Princess”

Alpert, “Modeling American Jewish Masculinity and the Heroes of Baseball”
Gilman, “Assimilation in the Promised Lands”

Class 19 (June 6) – Judaism, Otherness and Identity: Queering Jewishness

Brettschneider, “A Political Analysis of Jewish Queer Ritual Innovation”

Hoffman, “Androgynous Tales: Gender Ambiguity in the Short Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer”
Omer-Sherman, “Jewish/Queer: Thresholds of Vulnerable Identities in Kushner’s Angels in America”

Class 20 (June 8) – Conclusion

Hyman, “Gender and the Shaping of Modern Jewish Identities”

Rosen-Zvi, “The Rise and Fall of Rabbinic Masculinity”
Antler, “Women’s Liberation and Jewish Feminism after 1968”
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