Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law - Hardcover

Tucker, Rabbi Ethan; Rosenberg, Rabbi Micha'el

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 965524198X ISBN 13: 9789655241983

Publisher: Ktav Publishing House, 2021

Synopsis

As gender equality has spread throughout society, including its religiously observant sectors, traditional communities turn to their guiding sources to re-examine old questions. This book opens the reader’s eyes to the wealth of Jewish legal material surrounding gender and prayer, with a particular focus on who can lead the prayers in a traditional service and who can constitute the communal quorum—or minyan—that they require. With honesty, transparency, and rigor, Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law is a powerful resource for grappling with these complex questions. The authors not only explore this specific issue in depth, but they also model how we can mine the Jewish legal tradition for its underlying values, enabling its complex sources to serve as effective guides for contemporary communal decision-making.

About this title

About the Author:

Rabbi Ethan Tucker was named one of America’s Top 50 Rabbis by Newsweek from 2012 to 2013, and is cofounder and the yeshiva head at Mechon Hadar, where he serves as chair in Jewish Law. Ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel he is a cofounder of Kehilat Hadar and a winner of the first Grinspoon Foundation Social Entrepreneur Fellowship. He lives in New York City. Rabbi Micha’el Rosenberg is an assistant professor of rabbinics at Hebrew College. He was ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, holds a doctorate in Talmud and Rabbinic Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Review:

"Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law not only explores this specific issue in depth, but it also provides a model how to mine the Jewish legal tradition for its underlying values, enabling its complex sources to serve as effective guides for contemporary communal decision-making. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, exceptionally well organized and presented, Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to rabbinic, and academic library Judaic Studies collections and supplemental studies reading lists." —James A. Cox, Midwest Book Review

"There are political, sociological and other ways to analyze why, in many of the world’s religions, women are excluded from leadership roles and participation in certain rituals. The authors of Gender Equality And Prayer In Jewish Law are Torah-driven. Their religious analysis and response to the modern world is totally framed by Halakha. The book is an excellent analysis about how certain halakhic values and conceptions related to gender have been constructed." —Aaron Howard, jhvonline.com

"Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law . . . is not a feminist manifesto, but, rather, a source-guide, translating and presenting the rabbinic texts so that they can speak for themselves. It shows that the tradition already contains significant elements of gender equality which lie unrecognised and carry potential for change that might surprise many readers of the JC." —Benedict Roth, thejc.com


"Recommended to all synagogue libraries and to all interested individual readers." —Roger S. Kohn, AJL Reviews

About this edition

• Publisher: Ktav Publishing House
• Publication date: 2021
• ISBN 10: 965524198X
• ISBN 13: 9789655241983
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 128