Study of World Religions MPhil Pathway
Module 1. Michaelmas Term: Who Owns Judaism? Gender, Ritual, and Authority
Module Co-ordinator: Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz; lat50@cam.ac.uk
The course will examine the interrelationships of gender, ritual, and authority in modern Judaism from a variety of perspectives, using ethnographic studies, feminist theory, ritual theory, queer theory, and anthropological analysis to identify and analyse trends, factors, and influences in a range of controversial issues affecting Jews around the world. We will trace the contours of current issues back to rabbinic texts, where relevant, and use historical information to examine development in ritual. How does ritual mediate religious power, and how do changing perceptions of gender roles influence access to power and generate change in ritual? How are concepts of authenticity and authority related?
Issues spanning the denominational range within Judaism will be examined (such as rabbinic ordination for women), as well as those that are currently particularly controversial in the Orthodox world (text study, new communal rituals for women). A wide range of examples and case studies will be investigated. The module aims to develop a critical awareness of the wider social and political implications of ritual, and how it can serve as an arena for contestation of authority. A variety of theoretical approaches will be used that can also be applied in other contexts.
1: The gateway to power: women and access to text study
In pre-modern Jewish societies women were generally barred from acquiring anything beyond a very basic Jewish education. This began to change in the early 20 th century, though access to the halakhic legal) tradition is still denied to women in the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) sector. However, recent developments in Israel and the USA have seen a huge rise in Orthodox women studying Talmud, the traditional prerequisite of a rabbinic education. How is this changing women's access to authority and power in the mainstream Orthodox Jewish world? And do women engage with these texts differently from men? If so, what are the implications?
Main readings
Belenky, M., Clincy, B., Goldberger, N., and Tarule,J. Women's Ways of Knowing: T he Development of Self and Voice and Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1986).
Boyarian, Daniel, 'Torah Study and the Making of Jewish Gender', in Athalya Brenner and Carole Fontaine (eds.), A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods, and Strategies (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 515-46.
Foucault, Michel, 'The Subject and Power', in H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 208-226.
Fuchs, Ilan, Jewish Women's Torah Study (New York: Routledge, 2014).
Shilo, Margalit, 'The First Decade of the Orthodox Women's Revolution in Israel', in Elyse Goldstein (ed.), New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights, 2009), pp. 227-37.
Wartenberg, Thomas, The Forms of Power (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).
Zierler, Wendy, 'Torah Study "For Women"', in Elyse Goldstein (ed.), New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights, 2009), pp. 102- 112.
2: Rabbinic ordination: the battle across the denominations
Although the first female (Reform) rabbi was ordained in Berlin in 1935, the second was only ordained in 1972, in the USA; women rabbis were accepted by the Conservative movement in 1985; and the ordination of women as rabbis or maharats is currently a contentious issue in Orthodoxy, with the emergence of 'para-rabbinic' posts for women alongside ordination programmes. The battles in each denomination are remarkably similar; how do they compare to similar developments in Christianity? How has rabbinic ordination affected ideas of women's authority across the denominational spectrum?
Main readings
Bomhoff, Hartmut et al. (eds.), Gender and Religious Leadership: Women Rabbis, Pastors, and Ministers (Lanham, Md., Lexington Book, 2019).
Chaves, Mark, 'The Symbolic Significance of Women's Ordination’, Journal of Religion (1997), pp.87-114.
Levy, Karen (Chai),'Sexy Rabbi', in Danya Ruttenberg (ed.), Yentl's Revenge: The Next Wave ef Jewish Feminism (New York: Seal Press, 2001), pp. 112-18.
Sheridan, Sybil (ed.), Hear our Voice: Women Rabbis Tell their Stories (London: SCM Press, 1994).
Sperber, Daniel, Maharat, Rabbanit, Rebbetzn: Women with Leadership Authority According to Halacha
Qerusalem: Urim, 2019).
3: Renewing the old: resignifying and reclaiming rituals
Recent decades have seen women claiming the right to perform rituals previously only carried out by men (e.g. wearing tallit (prayer shawls) and tefillin (phylacteries), leading public prayer); developing female forms of men's rituals (such as bat mitzvah ceremonies); and resignifying women's ritual practices (such as menstrual purification rituals). In addition, traditional women's customs, though largely unrecorded and invisible to men, are ripe for re-evaluation. Who decides the worth of a custom? What role do such customs and reclaimed rituals play in women's religious lives? Do they embody power or act as a substitute for it?
Main readings
Catherine, Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Brown, Erica S., 'The Bat Mitzvah in Jewish Law and Contemporary Practice', in Micah D. Halpern and Chana Safrai (eds.),Jewish Legal Writings by Women (Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 1998), pp. 232-58.
Cohen, Shaye J. D., 'Purity, Piety, and Polemic: Medieval Rabbinic Denunciations of "Incorrect" Purification Practices', in Rahel R. Wasserman (ed.), Women and Water: Menstruation in Jewish life and Law (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1999), pp. 82-100.
Goldstein, Elyse, ReVisions: Seeing Torah through a Feminist Lens (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1998).
Nusbacher, Ailene Cohen, 'Efforts at Change in a Traditional Denomination: The Case of Orthodox Women's Prayer Groups', Nashim (1999), issue 2,pp 95-113.
Ochs, Vanessa, Reinventing Jewish Ritual (Philadelphia, 2007).
Ruttenberg, Danya ,'Blood Simple: Transgender Theory Hits the Mikveh', in ead. (ed.), Yentl's Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism (New York: Seal Press, 2001), pp. 77-87.
Sered, Susan Starr, Women as Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Sztokman, Elana Maryles, The Men's Section: Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World (Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2011).
Taylor-Guthartz, Lindsey, Challenge and Conformity: The Religious lives of Orthodox Jewish Women (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2021)
Videos
'Queer Mikveh': Queering a Traditional Jewish Water Ritual https://www.youtube.coin/watch?v=_O9pjC1C334&t=609s
Mayyim Hayyim mikveh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrc7eTmAlV8
Rabbi Haviva Ner-David on ritual and mikveh
https:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v= XWPqwtJE3zQ
4: Celebrating the new: inventing ritual
Is the creation of new women's rituals linked with changes in power and authority? In recent decades women across the denominational spectrum have designed a wide range of new rituals, from berakhah ('blessing') parties and welcoming ceremonies for baby girls to rituals to mark miscarriage, divorce, widowhood, and ageing. How radical are such new rituals perceived to be, and how easily can they be integrated into Jewish tradition? Are they linked to new theological concepts?
Main readings
Adelman, Penina V., 'The Womb and the Word: A Fertility Ritual for Hannah', in Ellen M. Umansky and Dianne Ashton (eds.), Four Centuries of Jewish Women's Spirituality: A Sourcebook (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1992), pp. 247-57.
Adelman, Penina V. 'A Drink from Miriam's Cup: Invention of Tradition among Jewish Women’, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 10 (1994), pp. 151-166.
Grimes, Ronald L., 'Reinventing Ritual', Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 75 (1992), pp. 21-41. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
Lefkovitz, Lori and Shapiro, Rona, 'Ritualwell.Org--Loading the Virtual Canon, or: The Politics and Aesthetics of Women's Spirituality', Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues, 9 (2005), pp.101-125.
Neriya-Ben Shahar, Rivka, "'At 'Amen Meals' It's Me and God": Religion and Gender: A New Jewish Women's Ritual', Contemporary Jewry, 35 (2015), pp. 153-172.
Orenstein, Debra (ed.), Lifecycles, vol. 1: Jewish Women on Life Passages and Personal Milestones (Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights, 1994.
Website
Ritualwell - https:/ /ritualwell.org/
Module 2. Lent Term. Antisemitism, Islamophiobia, and ‘Christian Europe’
Module coordinators: Prof. Esra Özyürek (ego24@cam.ac.uk) and Dr Daniel Weiss (dhw27@cam.ac.uk)
European Christendom has been marked by two notable forms of hatred: antisemitism/anti-Judaism and Islamophobia. In this module we will explore both phenomena independently, as well as in relation to one other. Some scholars argue that these two forms of hatred are essentially different, as Judaism has often been conceived of as a category internal to ‘Christian Europe,’ while Islam has often been conceived as external to it; hence, antisemitism functions as the hatred of an ‘internal enemy’ and Islamophobia as the hatred of an ‘external enemy.’ Other scholars, conversely, argue that Jews and Muslims have often been imagined in very similar terms, or even as one and the same. In this module we will explore the religious and racial dimensions of these two minorities, whether conceived of as inside or precisely at the cultural margins of a ‘Christian Europe.’ As we examine these dynamics historically, philosophically, theologically, and anthropologically, we will aim to understand how they have formed and challenged understandings of the meanings and possibilities of the idea of ‘Europe.’
Seminar 1: Jews and Muslims in Christian Theology
Anidjar, Gil. (2003) The Jew, the Arab: A History of the Enemy. Stanford University Press.
Carter, J. Kameron (2008) Race: A Theological Account
Soulen, R. Kendall (1996) The God of Israel and Christian theology
Kalmar, Ivan. (2012) Early Orientalism: Imagined Islam and the Notion of Sublime Power. London: Routledge.
Heschel, Susannah. (2008) The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible In Nazi Germany. Princeton University Press.
Mufti, Amir (2007) Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and the Culture of Postcolonial Culture. Princeton University Press.
Topolski, Anya. 2020. The dangerous discourse of the ‘Judaeo-Christian’ myth: masking the race–religion constellation in Europe. Patterns of Prejudice.
Westerduin, Matthea. 2020. Questioning religio-secular temporalities: mediaeval formations of nation, Europe and race. Patterns of Prejudice.
Shohat, Ella. 2020. The Split Arab/Jew Figure Revisited. Patterns of Prejudice.
Seminar 2: From Anti-Judaism to Antisemitism
Bauman, Zygmunt. (1997) Postmodernity and its discontents.
Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer. (1997) Dialectics of Enlightenment Nirenberg, David. (2013) Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. New York: Norton
Hochberg, Gil. 2020. From ‘sexy Semite’ to Semitic ghosts: contemporary art between Arab and Jew. Patterns of Prejudice.
Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin. 2015. “Secularism, the Christian Ambivalence Toward the Jews, and the Notion of Exile.”
Hess, Jonathan. 2002. Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity
Seminar 3: Islamophobia
Runymede Report (1997) Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All
Silverstein, Paul. (2005) Immigrant Racialization and the New Savage Slot: Race, Migration, and Immigration in the New Europe. Annual Review of Anthropology.
--- (2010) The Fantasy of Violence of Religious Imagination: islamophobia and anti- Semitism in France and North Africa. In Islamophobia/Islamophilia. Indiana UP.
Kumar, Deepa. Islamophobia and The Politics of Empire. London: Verso.
Fekete, Liz. 2009. A Suitable Enemy: Racism, Migration, and Islamophobia in Europe. Pluto.
Rana, Junaid. 2011. Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in the South Asian Diaspora. Duke University Press.
Said, Edward. 1981. Covering Islam.
Seminar 4: Jewish-Muslim connections in Europe
Brann, Ross (2021) Iberian Moorings: Al-Andalus, Sefarad, and the Tropes of Exceptionalism
Stroumsa, Sarah (2019). Andalus and Sefarad: On Philosophy and Its History in Islamic Spain
Meedeb, Abdelwahab and Benjamin Stora. (2014) A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day. Princeton University Press.
Bunzl, Matti. (2007) Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Hatreds of Old and New in Europe.
Meer, Nassar (2014) Racialization and Religion: Race, Culture, and Difference in the Study of Antisemitism and Islamophobia. London: Routledge
Gilman, Sander. The Case of Circumcision: Diaspora Judaism as a Model for Islam?
Esther Romeyn, ‘Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: spectropolitics and immigration’, Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 31, no. 6, 2014, 77–101.
Katz, Ethan. (2015) The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France
Klug, Brian. (2013) Interrogating new Antisemitism. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(3): 468-482.
Baer, Marc. (2020) German, Jew, Muslim, Gay: The Life and Times of Hugo Marcus. Columbia University Press.
Stranger/Sister documentary