Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Women are conspicuously absent from the Jewish mystical tradition. Even if, historically, some Jewish women may have experienced mystical revelations and led richly productive spiritual lives, the tradition does not preserve any record of their experiences or insights. Only the chance survival of scant evidence suggests that, at various times and places, individual Jewish women did pursue the path of mystical piety or prophetic spirituality, but it appears that they were generally censured, and efforts were made to suppress their activities. This contrasts sharply with the fully acknowledged prominence of women in the mystical traditions of both Christianity and Islam. It is against this background that the mystical messianic movement centered on the personality of Sabbatai Zevi (1626-1676) stands out as a unique and remarkable exception. Sabbatai's highly original liberationist message proclaimed that he had come to make women 'as happy as men' by releasing them from the pangs of childbirth and subjugation to their husbands ordained for them as a consequence of the primordial sin. This unprecedented redemptive vision became an integral part of Sabbatian eschatology, which the messianists believed to be unfolding and experienced in the present. Their New Law, superseding the Old with the dawning of the messianic era, overturned the traditional halakhic norms that distinguished and regulated relations between the sexes. This was expressed not only in the outlandish ritual transgression of sexual prohibitions, in which Sabbatian women were notoriously implicated, but also in the apparent adoption of the idea - alien to rabbinic Judaism - that virginity, celibacy, or sexual abstinence were conducive to women's spiritual empowerment. Now available in paperback, this book traces the diverse manifestations of this vision in every phase of Sabbatianism and its offshoots. These include the early promotion of women to center stage as messianic prophetesses; their independent affiliation with the movement in their own right; their initiation into the esoteric teachings of the kabbalah; and their full incorporation, on a par with men, into the ritual and devotional life of the messianic community. *** "To be congratulated for demonstrating that Jewish messianic mysticism, far from being an arcane scholarly domain of interest only to textual specialists, is a topic of key significance to anyone interested in the processes through which the corporatist boundaries of eighteenth-century European society travelled." -- Adam Sutcliffe, Eighteenth-Century Studies *** "Not only breaks down many stereotypes about the roles of women in Judaism and Jewish society, but it is also a major contribution to understanding how Sabbatianism and Frankism spread and operated...rich in original ideas and insights." -- Shaul Stampfer, Religious Studies Review *** "Exhaustively researched and brilliantly written." -- David Biale, Jewish Review of Books Subject: Jewish Studies, Religious Studies, History, Women's Studies]
Synopsis
With great vigour and from the vantage point of long experience of writing and teaching Jewish history, Moshe Rosman treats the key questions that postmodernism raises for the writing of Jewish history. What is the relationship between Jewish culture and history and those of the non-Jews among whom Jews live? Can we-in the light of postmodernist thought-speak of a continuous, coherent Jewish People, with a distinct culture and history? What in fact is Jewish cultural history, and how can it be written? How does gender transform the Jewish historical narrative? How does Jewish history fit into the multicultural paradigm? Has Jewish history entered a postmodern phase? How can Jewish history utilize the methodologies of other disciplines to accomplish its task? All these are questions that Jewish historians need to think about if their work is to be taken seriously by mainstream historians and intellectuals, or indeed by educated Jews interested in understanding their own cultural and historical past. While engaging with the questions raised by postmodernists, the author adopts a critical stance towards their work.
His basic claim is that it is possible to incorporate, judiciously, postmodern innovations into historical scholarship that is still based on documentary research and critical analysis. The resulting endeavor might be termed 'a reformed positivism'. Rosman presents a concentrated, coherent, cogent argument as to what considerations must be brought to bear on the writing of Jewish history today. By highlighting in one book the issues raised by postmodernism, How Jewish is Jewish History? provides those in the field with a foundation from which to discuss how it should be practiced in light of this generation's challenges. It is a valuable resource for students of Jewish history and historiography and a handy tool for scholars who must confront the issues aired here in their own more narrowly focused scholarly works.