A Breath of Life: Feminism in the American Jewish Community

In this broad, balanced survey, Brandeis University researcher Fishman assesses the challenges facing Jewish women and the various ways to resolve them. Based on interviews with 120 women, scholarly works, popular literature and other sources, the book offers useful background on the development of Jewish feminism and nuanced looks at dilemmas and debates about marriage, parenthood, work and sexuality. Fishman describes the emergence and growing popularity of new rituals--female equivalents of the celebrations surrounding circumcision and the bar mitzvah. Proposing that feminism must sometimes bow to tradition, Fishman argues that Jewish religion and culture require some measure of hierarchy. Sympathetic to the movements within Judaism--Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative and Orthodox--she suggests that each branch has led the way in at least one area of feminist progress. ``Feminism is bringing newly ardent Jews--women--into the fold,'' she concludes. (May)