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Jews
and Feminism: The Ambivalent Search for Home
by Laura Levitt
Details
at Amazon.com
Editorial Reviews
Riv-Ellen Prell University of Minnesota
"Laura Levitt's Jews and Feminism crosses
boundaries and breaks rules to offer a visionary
possibility for a feminist, Jewish cultural
studies. This genuinely experimental work juxtaposes
theology, a feminist analysis of liberalism,
and a Jewish cultural analysis of emancipation
to construct an original reading of being a
Jew and a Jewish woman in the United States.
Levitt's ability to create dialogues between
feminist theory, the critical study of identity,
and Jewish texts in order to investigate the
meaning of "home" makes this work
a major contribution to women's studies, cultural
studies and Jewish studies. Jews and Feminism
announces that Jewish, feminist cultural studies
has come of age." --This text refers to
the Library Binding edition.
Nancy K. Miller, The Graduate School
and Lehman College, CUNY
"Laura Levitt's Jews and Feminism is an
eminently modern reading of the gender asymmetries
that haunt the heart of Judaism. Original and
imaginative, personal and theoretical, Levitt
challenges her readers to reconsider what it
means to be a feminist and a Jew at the end
of the twentieth century. This book may not
answer all the questions posed by its provocative
title, but it asks them." --This text
refers to the Library Binding edition.
Choice
"... an original and powerful contribution
to Jewish feminist literature."
David Blumenthal, Emory University
"... very subtle ... [Levitt] remind[s]
us of the complex texture of the many ideas
which make up our personal and cultural identity
... Coming from the cutting edge of feminist
and cultural studies, Jews and Feminism forces
us to recognize the very specific and local
content of all that we do." --This text
refers to the Library Binding edition.
Synopsis
By interrogating America's promise of a home
for Jews as a citizen of a liberal state, this
text questions the very terms of this social
"contract". Maintaining that Jews,
women and Jewish women are not necessarily
secure within this construction of the state,
the author links this contractural construction
of belonging and acceptance to legacies of
marriage as a contractural home for Jewish
women. Exploring the immigration of Jews from
Eastern Europe into America, the book raises
questions about the search for stability in
specific Jewish religious and cultural traditions,
which is linked to the liberal academy as well
as feminist study, thus offering an account
of an ambivalent Jewish feminist embrace of
America as home.
Ingram
By interrogating America's promise of a home
for Jews as citizens of the liberal state,
Jews and Feminism questions the very terms
of this social "contract." Maintaining
that Jews, women, and Jewish women are not
necessarily secure within this realm of the
state, Laura Levitt links this contractual
construction of belonging and acceptance to
legacies of marriage as a contractual home
for Jewish women.
About the Author
Laura Levitt is Assistant Professor of Religion
at Temple University where she also teaches
in the Women's Studies Department. She is co-editor
of Judaism Since Gender, also available from
Routledge.
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