Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy

Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy is the first systematic attempt to interpret the Jewish philosophical tradition in light of feminist philosophy and to engage feminist philosophy from the perspective of Jewish philosophy. Written by Jewish women who are trained in philosophy, the 13 original essays presented here demonstrate that no analysis of Jewish philosophy (historical or constructive) can be adequate without attention to gender categories. The essays cover the entire Jewish philosophic tradition from Philo, through Maimonides, to Levinas, and they rethink the subdisciplines of Jewish philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political theory, and theology. This volume offers an invitation for a new conversation between feminist philosophy and Jewish philosophy as well as a novel contribution to contemporary Jewish philosophy.

Contributors are Leora Batnitzky, Jean Axelrad Cahan, Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, Claire Elise Katz, Nancy Levene, Sandra B. Lubarsky, Sarah Pessin, Randi Rashkover, Heidi Miriam Ravven, T. M. Rudavsky, Suzanne Last Stone, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, and Laurie Zoloth.

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson is Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University. She is author of Between Worlds: The Life and Thought of Rabbi David ben Judah Messer Leon and Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being and editor of Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed Word.

Acknowledgments

Editor's Introduction: Jewish Philosophy in Conversation with Feminism Hava Tirosh-Samuelson

Part I. Re-Reading Jewish Philosophers

1. Loss, Presence, and Gabirol's Desire: Medieval Jewish Philosophy and the Possibility of a Feminist Ground Sarah Pessin

2. Thinking Desire in Gersonides and Spinoza Idit Dobbs-Weinstein

3. Spinoza's Ethics of the Liberation of Desire Heidi Miriam Ravven

4. The Lonely Woman of Faith under Late Capitalism; or, Jewish Feminism in Marxist Perspective Jean Axelrad Cahan

5. Dependency and Vulnerability: Jewish and Feminist Existentialist Constructions of the Human Leora Batnitzky

6. From Eros to Maternity: Love, Death, and "the Feminine" in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas Claire Elise Katz

Part II. Re-thinking Aspects of Jewish Philosophy

7. To Know What Is: Feminism, Metaphysics, and Epistemology T. M. Rudavsky

8. Into the Woods: Killer Mothers, Feminist Ethics, and the Problem of Evil Laurie Zoloth

9. Judaism's Body Politic Nancy K. Levene

10. Feminism and the Rabbinic Conception of Justice Suzanne Last Stone

11. Reconstructing Divine Power: Post-Holocaust Jewish Theology, Feminism, and Process Philosophy Sandra B. Lubarsky

12. Theological Desire: Feminism, Philosophy, and Exegetical Jewish Thought Randi Rashkover

Contributors

Index