The Astonishing Contributions of Jewish Women to the Radical Feminist Movement
How Secular and Religious Jewish Women Changed Sexual Politics For Good.
The Radical Feminist movement that grew in the 1960s to 1970s was not monolithic, especially amongst its disproportionately Jewish activists. While secular Radical Feminists fought for change in governmental policy, such as the Equal Rights Amendment, religiously-identifying Jews sought to reform institutionalized Judaism, with goals including the ordaining women as rabbis.
Some of these women considered being Jewish their most salient identity, while others considered their womanhood to supersede this ethnic and religious heritage. Many were motivated by the deep patriarchy that controlled their Jewish identities, seeking a way to participate in this process. Others saw feminism as a reversion to God’s original plan for women, engaging in their own flavors of Rabbinic midrash.
Joyce Antler, the author of the pioneering work Jewish Radical Feminism (2018) pointedly explains in her introduction:
“To be a Jewish woman radical meant to question the place of the individual in regard to the state, the shop floor and factory, and the synagogue and religion, as well as to interrogate the presumed boundaries between domestic…
