Members save with free shipping everyday! See details
English0814707637
75.0
In Stock
Overview
Finalist, 2019 PROSE Award in Biography, given by the Association of American Publishers
Fifty years after the start of the women’s liberation movement, a book that at last illuminates the profound impact Jewishness and second-wave feminism had on each other
Jewish women were undeniably instrumental in shaping the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Yet historians and participants themselves have overlooked their contributions as Jews. This has left many vital questions unasked and unanswered—until now. Delving into archival sources and conducting extensive interviews with these fierce pioneers, Joyce Antler has at last broken the silence about the confluence of feminism and Jewish identity.
Antler’s exhilarating new book features dozens of compelling biographical narratives that reveal the struggles and achievements of Jewish radical feminists in Chicago, New York and Boston, as well as those who participated in the later, self-consciously identified Jewish feminist movement that fought gender inequities in Jewish religious and secular life. Disproportionately represented in the movement, Jewish women’s liberationists helped to provide theories and models for radical action that were used throughout the United States and abroad. Their articles and books became classics of the movement and led to new initiatives in academia, politics, and grassroots organizing. Other Jewish-identified feminists brought the women’s movement to the Jewish mainstream and Jewish feminism to the Left. For many of these women, feminism in fact served as a “portal” into Judaism.
Recovering this deeply hidden history, Jewish Radical Feminism places Jewish women’s activism at the center of feminist and Jewish narratives. The stories of over forty women’s liberationists and identified Jewish feminists—from Shulamith Firestone and Susan Brownmiller to Rabbis Laura Geller and Rebecca Alpert—illustrate how women’s liberation and Jewish feminism unfolded over the course of the lives of an extraordinary cohort of women, profoundly influencing the social, political, and religious revolutions of our era.
Joyce Antler is the Samuel J. Lane Professor Emerita of American Jewish History and Culture and Professor Emerita of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University. She is the author of You Never Call! You Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother (2007) and The Journey Home: How Jewish Women Shaped Modern America (1997) and is the author or editor of many other books on American Jewish history and women’s history.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Part I "We Never Talked About It": Jewishness and Women's Liberation
1 "Ready to Turn the World Upside Down": The "Gang of Four," Feminist Pioneers in Chicago 31
2 "Feminist Sexual Liberationists, Rootless Cosmopolitan Jews": The New York City Movement 71
3 "Conscious Radicals": The Jewish Story of Boston's Bread and Roses 115
4 Our Bodies and Our Jewish Selves: The Boston Women's Health Book Collective 154
Part II "Feminism Enabled Me to be a Jew": Identified Jewish Feminists
5 "We Are Well Educated Jewishly … and We Are Going to Press You": Jewish Feminists Challenge Religious Patriarchy 205
6 "Jewish Women Have Their Noses Shortened": Secular Feminists Fight Assimilation 243
7 "For God's Sake, Comb Your Hair! You Look like a Vilde Chaye": Jewish Lesbian Feminists Explore the Politics of Identity 278
8 "Rise above the World's Nasty Squabbles": International Dimensions of Jewish Feminism 315
When the protests are over, a guide to creating long-lasting social change beyond the barricadesFrom
the Women’s March in D.C. to #BlackLivesMatter rallies across the country, there has been a rising wave of protests and social activism. These events have ...
Response to financial meltdown is entangled with basic challenges to global governance. Environment, global security
and ethnicity and nationalism are all global issues today. Focusing on the political and social dimensions of the crisis, contributors examine changes in relationships between ...
An exploration of the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism drawing on primary sources and new methodsOver
the past generation, several major findings and methodological innovations have led scholars to reevaluate the foundation of Judaism. The Dead Sea Scrolls were the most ...
The surprising roots of the self-defense movement and the history of women’s empowerment. At the
turn of the twentieth century, women famously organized to demand greater social and political freedoms like gaining the right to vote. However, few realize that ...
In India's great epic Maha·bhárata, the eighth book, “Karna,”; recounts the events that occurred during
the mighty hero Karna’s two days as general of the Káurava army. This second volume resumes on the war's seventeenth and penultimate day. This will ...
“The Book of Karna” relates the events of the two dramatic days after the defeat
of the great warriors and generals Bhishma and Drona, in which Karna, great hero and the eldest Pándava, leads the Káurava army into combat. This ...
The Book of Liberation is perhaps the most enigmatic philosophical text from ancient India. Presented
as the teachings of Bhishma as he lies dying on the battlefield, after the epic war between the Pándavas and Káuravas, it was composed by ...
The Great Hall relates some of the most seminal events of the epic, culminating in
the famous game of dice between the Pándavas and the Káuravas. The Pándavas, happily settled in Indra·prastha, enjoy one glorious success after another. Yudhi·shthira, after ...
