'Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz's in-depth study of the religious experience of Orthodox women raises questions for the rabbinic establishment... an important new book.'<br />Simon Rocker, <i>The Jewish Chronicle</i>
'Taylor-Guthartz's precise academic writing, interwoven with her own personal knowledge and experience of the community, gives the women represented here agency and authority, exemplifying how traditional groups and practices do not exist at odds with the modern world, or even in parallel, but rather as an integral part of it, adding rich diversity and colour to the pattern of Jewish life today. This is a timely and important treatise, reflecting modern feminist values and shining a light on a previously unexamined segment of the community.'<br />Noa Gendler, <i>Jewish Renaissance</i>
'<i>Challenge and Conformity </i>opens up for our understanding a subject of immense importance to Judaism and the Jewish community. The religious lives of Orthodox women is a topic that has previously attracted little research. Taylor-Guthartz approaches it with academic skill and real empathy for the women she interviews and their communities. We learn of the great variety of women’s beliefs, customs and practices that are spread across the Orthodox Jewish world and, through Taylor-Guthartz’s eyes, we gain a greater understanding and appreciation of Jewish life that might otherwise have remained hidden.'<br />Neville Teller, <i>The Jerusalem Post</i>
<p>‘<em>Challenge and Conformity</em> serves as a rich chronicle of Orthodox British womanhood and the challenge of creating uniquely female Jewish spaces. It is well rooted in history, community context, and robust ethnographic data and will be helpful to bridge the lacuna on British scholarship of religious practices of Jewish women.’ Ilana C. Spencer, Religious Studies Review</p>
<p>'Challenge and Conformity serves as a rich chronicle of Orthodox British womanhood and the challenge of creating uniquely female Jewish spaces. It is well rooted in history, community context, and robust ethnographic data and will be helpful to bridge the lacuna on British scholarship of religious practices of Jewish women.' Ilana C. Spencer, Religious Studies Review</p>
Introduction
1.
Studying Jewish Women
The Double Invisibility of
Orthodox Jewish Women
The Scope of Women’s Religious
Lives
Overlapping
Worlds I: The Intersection of Men’s and Women’s Religious Lives
Overlapping Worlds II: Living in
Jewish and Western Contexts
Power and Patriarchy: Do Orthodox
Women Have Agency?
2.
Setting the Scene: The Jewish Landscape
Jews in London: Historical
Background
Community,
Communities, Networks, and Identity
The
Development of British Orthodoxy and the British Jewish Landscape
Jewish Religious Topography Today
Changing Moods among British
Jewish Women
Defining Terms: Talking about the
Anglo-Jewish Community
Previous Research on British
Orthodox Women
3. The View
from the Ladies’ Gallery: Women’s ‘Official’ Life in the Community
Women and the Synagogue
The Changing Place of Women in
Other Communal Arenas
4. Contested
Prayers and Powerful Blessings: Women’s ‘Unofficial’ Life in the Community
Creating Sacred Spaces
Nuturing the Community
New Developments: Sharing the
Sacred with Men
5.
Women’s ‘Official’ Life in the Family
The Sabbath
Food and Kashrut
Passover
Mikveh and ‘Family Purity’
Modesty
Visiting the Dead
Prayer and Relationship with God
6. Red
Threads and Amulets: Women’s ‘Unofficial’ Life in the Family
Questioning the Community:
Limitations and Caveats
Definitions and Status of
Practices
Testing Stereotypes and
Assumptions
What Customs Are Practised?
Who Practises These Customs?
Age as a
Factor in Knowledge and Performance of Customs
Origins
and Development
The
Question of ‘Magic’
Women’s
Understanding of Customs and Practices
Conclusion
Appendices: Background Data
Bibliography
Index