Orthodox Women Are Educated Now. What Next?

In advocacy for the rights and liberation of Orthodox Jewish women, the right to education is nearly always treated as a key factor, and significant progress in Orthodox girls’ access to education is often cited as a major victory of the last century. In her opening address at the Second International Conference on Judaism and Feminism in 1998, notable Orthodox feminist and scholar Blu Greenberg noted that “the explosion of women’s learning” is one of the major “gains” which has occurred over the last few decades ("Numbers" 71-74). The emphasis on women’s education, combined with instating female leaders and scholars in Orthodox communities, is crucial to creating a positive feedback loop in Orthodox communities; the laws and social norms of these communities are created by studying and interpreting halakha (Jewish law), and for women to be liberated, they must have an active role in making rulings on halakha, particularly given the historical precedent of interpretations restricting the freedoms and self-determination of women (Greenberg, "Coming of Age" 80-81). Education is a necessary first step towards a central goal of granting women equal religious authority to men within Orthodox Jewish communities. For Orthodox women to truly become active and equal participants in their world, they must have input on the laws which govern them. All else follows. Nevertheless, education alone is not enough to achieve this. Jewish women living in more fundamentalist Jewish communities, particularly ultra-Orthodox women, may be educated, but they are still no more liberated than they were prior to the normalization of women’s education. For Orthodox women to achieve equality with their male counterparts, progress must be actively fought for in other areas, especially with regards to women in the Orthodox tradition gaining the ability to participate more fully in the religious structure of their communities, including the ordination of female Orthodox rabbis.

As Jewish scholar Tamar El-Or observed while studying ultra-Orthodox communities, “the knowledge that [ultra-Orthodox] women ask for and receive is supposed to help them construct their world as Jewish women.” The ultra-Orthodox women she studied were highly educated; they attended school as girls, prioritizing homework over housework in seeming defiance of their future place in the home as wives and mothers (Educated and Ignorant 80). And yet very few of these women will go on to be anything but (84). “Educated women are taught to be ignorant,” El-Or states simply (110-11). If the education Jewish women receive exists only to reinforce anti-feminist precepts and prepare them for their roles as subservient Jewish wives and mothers, there can be no liberation found in it. El-Or notes that “women who…demonstrated scholarly expertise, who were sharp-minded…were asking their teachers to discuss yet again the same laws, to repeat the same familiar admonitions and interpretations at the classes they attended” (110). These ultra-Orthodox women are educated, but they are unable to do anything for themselves or other women with that education. Without the freedom and authority to make their own judgements regarding halakha, rather than simply learning prior rabbinical rulings by rote, they remain trapped in the same gendered power dynamics that existed before women gained access to education.

As noted earlier, if Orthodox women are not allowed and able to think critically, to be scholars, to play an active role in interpreting scripture, they cannot be active players in their own communities, and thus cannot be truly equal to their male peers, independent or “free.” “Nobody asks a woman’s opinion on halachic matters,” Greenberg bemoans in an article arguing the case for female Orthodox rabbis. “Today there are no Orthodox women rabbis to serve as role models [to young Jewish girls]. No equivalent status of leadership is conferred upon Orthodox women” ("Orthodox Women Rabbis" 51). In 1993, Greenberg believed “the ordination of Orthodox women [was] close at hand” (52) and speculated that ordaining women will “speed the process of reevaluating traditional definitions that support hierarchy” (74). Yet, decades later, female Orthodox rabbis are still a radical concept to many Jews. While several seminaries have ordained Orthodox women, many in the wider Orthodox movement do not recognize them as legitimate rabbis (Moghe and Pomrenze). If the Orthodox movement does not yet recognize learned women as community leaders and scholars equivalent to a male rabbi, what path is there to an egalitarian interpretation of halakha? Orthodox women are not seen as authorities on their own scripture; therefore they have no formal say in how it is read.

Greenberg has herself attempted to reevaluate halakha, although her approach was not without its detractors. In a 1981 collection of essays, Greenberg justified the place of feminism in Orthodox Jewish thought and proposed alternate, feminist interpretations for several halakhic laws, from allowing a woman to present her husband with a get (initiating a divorce) (On Women and Judaism  138-39), to a broad allowance on abortion should the mother’s psychological health be at stake, effectively enabling a Jewish woman to abort a fetus at will (151). Reviewer Naomi Englard-Schaffer later tore apart the book, noting that Greenberg misinterpreted and mistranslated aspects of halakha to better fit her argument (132-45). While there is space to make new halakhic rulings, it takes rabbinical authority and experience to do so, and Greenberg’s suggestions were not widely accepted in Orthodox thought.

The gap between Orthodox men and women is not limited to rabbinical authority. Orthodox Judaism as a tradition is built on segregation of the sexes. Men and women sit separate from each other in religious services; women do not count towards a minyan, a quorum of Jewish men necessary for certain prayers (of note, this means that all-female prayer groups are inherently locked out of certain forms of worship); women are exempt from time bound mitzvot, establishing them as beings separate from men on a spiritual level—different divine commandments bind them. In many cases, women have less agency than their male counterparts; for example, the aforementioned prohibition on a wife divorcing her husband. This divide is deeply baked into Orthodox tradition, and persists to this day.  

However, through the normalization of women studying Torah, Jewish gender roles have the potential to break down in a way not immediately apparent to a casual observer. Several years after her initial study of ultra-Orthodox women’s education, Tamar El-Or returned to the topic of Orthodox Jewish literacy as it relates to identity. Referring to historian Daniel Boyarin (Carnal Israel; Unheroic Conduct), she discussed Jewish masculinity as a concept constructed not through aggression and sexuality—the way it was constructed in the ancient Hellenic world, a society ancient Jews interacted closely with—but through “his study [of Torah], his language, and in the halacha that grows out of both of them.” This masculinity is a “fragile alternative,” however, to a more traditional western model of masculinity, as something as simple as a woman studying would upturn it. Therefore “keeping [the woman] away from study [is] the best insurance for the continuation and constitution of the Jewish male as a religious scholar” (Next Year I Will Know More 178-79). Under this paradigm, the widespread education of Orthodox women—even including ultra-Orthodox women from the most fundamentalist and socially conservative Jewish sect—is a severe transgression of traditional Jewish gender roles. El-Or also notes in an earlier study on Haredi women in Israel that these gender roles which seem so atypical to Western gentiles create a system wherein women are often required to work in order to support their husband’s scholarly endeavors, which a man’s life in the Gur community is built around. While the right to work and earn a living is an essential component in Western feminism, the women El-Or studied were still subordinate to the men they helped to support ("The Length of the Slits"). If Orthodox feminists wish to bring these women to equal footing with their male counterparts, different norms must be challenged; hence, the focus on women's education. This considered, intense focus Orthodox feminists such as Blu Greenberg place on the triumph of women’s education is an understandable one. 

In the same vein, certain Jewish thinkers lament the perceived breakdown of traditional Jewish gender roles, although their complaints are not against the widespread education of Orthodox women and girls in and of itself. In 2016, Orthodox Rabbi Kenneth Auman discussed what he saw as the dangers of feminism in Jewish spaces, particularly the way Western feminist influences break down the divide between genders he sees as essential to Torah Judaism. As he puts it:

The Jewish world is filled with distinctions. …Innovations such as partnership prayer services and the ordination of women, for example, are being pushed not to combat negative outside influences, but rather to accede to them. Egalitarianism is evaluated in these circles through the lens of Western society, which considers it a desideratum, rather than through the eyes of the traditional Jewish outlook, which considers it anathema. (Auman 43-44)

Potentially recognizing the push for Jewish women’s education to be a battle that has already been fought and won—he is, after all, a professor at Stern College for Women (43)—Auman does perceive it to be a possible blow to traditional Jewish gender roles. “[The] innovation [of women’s education] … may be seen as a license to engage in … [egalitarian] innovations” (47). Auman’s staunch opposition to feminism and egalitarianism stands at odds with Orthodox Jews who consider egalitarianism to not be an obstacle to maintaining traditional Jewish practices and values. Over two decades previously, Greenberg argued for the ordination of Orthodox women ("Orthodox Women Rabbis" passim); all these years later, it seems Auman still has his way. If the “‘glorious revolution’…in danger of being hijacked by certain agendas” (43) that Auman warns against truly has legs, what ground has it covered in the past few decades? Where are Orthodox Jewish women to go from here?

Perhaps a more recent source has the answer. In 2020, scholars Rachel Harris and Karen Skinazi discussed the modern history of Orthodox feminism, tracing the progression through the 1970s, when Blu Greenberg gave the opening address at the first National Jewish Women’s Conference, to the 1990s and early 2000s, when Tamar El-Or published her case studies of educated Orthodox Jewish women in Israel, up to the present day. Harris and Skinazi discuss more modern developments in Orthodox feminism, such as the advent of Open Orthodoxy, which “has been pushing for greater egalitarianism within Jewish ritual” and is the only Orthodox movement to ordain female rabbis (9). Of course, other movements remain far more socially conservative; but women in these movements still have more freedom and chance at expression than they had even two decades ago. Orthodox women serve as political and religious leaders in both Israel and the diaspora, and art by and about Orthodox women has seen an explosion in recent years (16-18). Still, progress is not so straightforward:

As…[Orthodox] women have become increasingly educated and powerful, reactionary efforts have heightened restrictions on their behavior and appearance…these changes are often cyclical in nature and occur alongside a conservative backlash against women defying male control. (20)

As for this conservative backlash, the questions Kenneth Auman raised in 2016 remain unanswered: is Orthodox Judaism as an ideology fundamentally incompatible with feminism? Is a strict adherence to Torah, halakha, and rabbinic tradition inherently counter to ideals of egalitarianism? 

It seems inevitable that there will certainly always be sects of Orthodox Judaism as socially conservative as those Tamar El-Or studied in the 1990s. People such as Kenneth Auman will always exist, and the idea that the fundamentals of Torah Judaism inherently lead to a divide and inequality between the sexes will never be without proponents, at least not without intentional cultural genocide, a deeply immoral, unjustifiable act even if its goal is to “liberate” women who outsiders perceive to be oppressed by their culture. Nevertheless, the general trend among Orthodox women, influenced by the ideas of feminists such as Blu Greenberg and shown through the cultural developments which have occurred in the last several decades, has been that of more knowledge, self-determination, and chances at expression and influence over their worlds. To Auman’s horror, we are indeed trending towards egalitarianism.

So what should the future of Orthodox Jewish feminism look like? Through the victory of Orthodox education, ancient gender divides once thought to be central to Orthodox Judaism have begun to break down; yet, at the same time, even those who, like Auman, are staunchly opposed to egalitarianism accept this as a positive development. If this arc of social change continues, tenets of Orthodox feminism once thought radical, such as the ordination of female rabbis, inclusion of women in a prayer quorum, and even the conception of women as the spiritual and societal equals of men, may one day be regarded in the same way by the broader Orthodox community. With the increase in learned Orthodox women and their appointment to places of religious and political authority, reinterpretations of halakha to take the woman’s experience and needs into account, such as those proposed by Greenberg in 1981, will only become more commonplace, airtight, and accepted; given the ever increasing role of women in Orthodox religious life and scholarship, the mainstreaming of Orthodox female rabbis may not be far off. Orthodox women of all streams, even the ultra-Orthodox, have more opportunities and religious rights now than even two decades ago. Despite progress occuring slower than mid to late 20th century thinkers such as Blu Greenberg once predicted, in most Orthodox communities, progress is being made. Although this transition is not linear, Orthodox feminists must dig in their heels and continue using their education and increasing influence to create a more hospitable culture for Orthodox women. Social change comes slowly, but, little by little, it can be actualized.

Works Cited

Auman, Kenneth. “Feminism, Egalitarianism, Judaism: Where Are We Headed?” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, vol. 49, no. 1, 2016, pp 43–48, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44736765.

Boyarin, Daniel. Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture. Univ. of California Press, 1993.

Boyarin, Daniel. Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man. Univ. of California Press, 1997.

El-Or, Tamar. “The length of the Slits and the spread of luxury: Reconstructing the subordination of ultra-Orthodox jewish women through the patriarchy of men scholars.” Sex Roles, vol. 29, no. 9–10, Nov. 1993, pp. 585–598, https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00289206.

El-Or, Tamar. Educated and Ignorant: Ultraorthodox Jewish Women and Their World. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994.

El-Or, Tamar. Next Year I Will Know More: Literacy and Identity among Young Orthodox Women. Wayne State University Press, 2002

Englard-Schaffer, Naomi Y. “Review Essay On Blu Greenberg’s On Women And Judaism: A View From Tradition.” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, vol. 21, no. 2, 1983, pp. 132–45, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23260463.

Greenberg, Blu. “Jewish Women: Coming of Age.” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, vol. 16, no. 4, 1977, pp. 79–94, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23258423.

Greenberg, Blu. On Women and Judaism: A View From Tradition. The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1981.

Greenberg, Blu. "Is Now the Time for Orthodox Women Rabbis?" Moment, December 1993, pp. 50-53, 74, https://momentmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Is-Now-the-Time-for-Orthodox-Woman-Rabbis.pdf.

Greenberg, Blu. "Orthodox Feminists: What Do Our Numbers Mean?" Shofar vol. 16, no. 4, 1998, pp. 71-74, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42943984.

Harris, Rachel S. and Karen E. H. Skinazi. "Was I Afraid to Get up and Speak My Mind? No, I Wasn't: The Feminism and Art of Jewish Orthodox and Haredi Women. An Introduction." Shofar, vol. 38, no. 2, 2020, pp. 1-34, https://doi.org/10.5703/shofar.38.2.0001. 

Moghe, Sonia and Yon Pomrenze. "Rabbi Lila Kagedan: A history-making title in Orthodox Judaism." CNN, April 5, 2016. https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/05/living/first-orthodox-woman-rabbi-feat/.