Synopses & Reviews
She is feared and desired. She is the symbol of a family's failure and a culture's dissolution. She is a courageous ally, a loyal fellow traveler, and a mother struggling for the survival of the same family and culture whose destruction she supposedly seeks.
The gentile woman has been all these things and more to the Jewish people. Her almost mythic status has its roots in the dawn of Jewish history and repercussions that extend beyond our own time to shape the Jewish future. It also entails more baggage than any woman could possibly hope to carry.
Shiksa: The Gentile Woman in the Jewish World, unpacks that baggage. Shiksa tells the stories of gentile women and women converts living in the Jewish community today, sharing insights from rabbis, Jewish feminists, educators and therapists. The book explores relationships between Jewish and gentile women, particularly Jewish mothers and their gentile daughters-in-law, as well as those between Jewish men and gentile women. And it looks at some of the fascinating Biblical figures whose stories startle with their relevance to today's most intimate issues of Jewish identity.
At a time when the Jewish community is rife with concern over intermarriage, Shiksa offers a fearless examination of the gentile and converted women residing within its gates, occupying embattled yet permanent places as partners, daughters, sisters, mothers, friends.
Synopsis
A sweeping and provocative exploration of the stereotype and legend of the "shiksa." Christine Benvenuto sheds light on the reality and legend of "shiksas,"gentile women who live as wives, mothers, and friends within the Jewish community--drawing from interviews and her own conversion to Judaism as well as from a wealth of sources including the Bible. Derived from a word meaning 'loathsome, an abomination, ' "shiksa" is both a devastating insult and a mythical elevation, and creates a role entailing more baggage than any individual woman could hope to carry. The "shiksa" has long been the repository of Jewish male fantasy and desire. Her reputation as highly sexed and easily available has persisted for four thousand years. The gentile woman has also symbolized the threat of assimilation and a culture's dissolution. But those stereotypes tell only half the story. In biblical times, gentile women also attained heroic stature risking their lives for the fledgling Jewish Nation, just as gentile and converted women are taking leadership roles in the Jewish community today. In Shiksa, Christine Benvenuto thoughtfully and intelligently analyzes and demystifies both the contemporary reality, and the historical legend.
Synopsis
Within the Jewish people, the gentile woman has long been a magnet for intense feelings, from male yearning to communal hatred. She is simultaneously an erotic trophy and a parent's worst nightmare, the butt of crude jokes and a force credited with the power to bring down a people. Her almost mythic status has tangled historical roots in the culture's most potent fears and fantasies, and wide-ranging repercussions in the Jewish community today.
Yet, surprisingly, very little has been written about the actual non-Jewish women who make their way into the Jewish community, some through intermarriage and other liaisons, others entirely outside of relationships with Jews. Fleeting references and belittling caricatures aside, the gentile woman within Judaism remains a nebulous figure, veiled by layers of unexamined assumptions.
Let's begin with the "S" word . . .
- from Shiksa: The Gentile Woman in the Jewish World
Synopsis
A sweeping and provacative exploration of the real women behind the stereotype and legend "shiksa"
About the Author
Christine Benvenuto is the author of fiction, essays, and reviews that have appeared in many publications, including
The Village Voice, the
San Francisco Chronicle,
Tikkun and
Moment. She lives in Massachusetts.