We’ve been waiting. For years, young Jewish women, navigating the currents of religion, culture, and gender, have been waiting for a forum to address our issues. For some of us, our mothers may have burned their bras and donned tallitot; for others, we are the first in our families to analyze the place of feminism within Judaism. Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism, a compilation of 20 essays by Jewish women writers, arose to fill a need to, in the words of its editor, Danya Ruttenberg, “bring out the diverse range of young Jewish feminists’ thoughts, strategies, gripes and master plans, [and] provide a starting point for us to sort through today’s pressing questions.”
The most intriguing essays in Yentl’s Revenge are the ones that focus on larger issues within the Jewish community, specifically Loolwa Khazzoom’s exploration of her experience as a Mizrahi woman, caught between the Ashkenazi-centrism of North American egalitarian Jewish circles, and the sexism of Mizrahi religious circles. This intersection of racism and sexism raises questions often ignored by the Jewish community, and Khazzoom skillfully asks us to contemplate our own involvement in our solipsistic behaviors. Haviva Ner David’s essay, “Parenting as a Religious Jewish Feminist,” a fascinating account of raising a tzitzit-wearing baby girl in ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem, also raises new questions as to whether radical changes in traditional practice can occur in Orthodox Jewish communities.
Ultimately, however, Yentl’s Revenge disappoints. Rather than showing us the next wave of Jewish feminism, we are provided with little more than a ripple. While the casual, chatty tone of many of the essays lends the book a “young” or “next wave” quality, for the most part it lacks the powerful new visions or radical reinterpretations that its title would suggest.
In “On being a Jewish Feminist Valley Girl,” Tobin Belzer writes, “As a Valley Girl, complaining was one of my fundamental methods of communication. As a feminist, I’m empowered to complain. I’m as comfortable now naming a social injustice as sending a salad back when the dressing was not ‘on the side.'” Flippant remarks such as these reflect this compilation’s key flaw. In Yentl’s Revenge feminism is portrayed as an empowerment to complain, rather than a movement for social change. Perhaps the book would more aptly be titled “Yentl’s Kvetching.” Article after article provides us with women bemoaning their alienated experiences, but rarely providing suggestions for change.
The flowy, personal discourse of many of the essays leads the reader in circles, with many of the authors never substantiating their claims or coming to solid conclusions. The reader is left with the sense that many of the essays could have been thought-provoking, if only more focus and analytical depth had been coaxed out of the contributors.
While the volume ambitiously attempts to span a wide diversity of Jewish women’s perspectives, some essays seem to be included simply because they add to the book’s pluralism, and not due to their own merits. In “Challah for the Queen of Heaven,” Ryiah Lillith wants to “determine if I could stretch Judaism far enough that its margins overlapped with Goddess Worship and Witchcraft.” But she doesn’t engage in a cogent discussion of either Judaism or feminism, nor does she discuss exactly how one can manage to be both Jewish and pagan, so it is unclear what place an article such as this has in a collection about Jewish feminism.
Unsubstantiated arguments run rampant through Yentl’s Revenge. In her contribution, “Blood Simple,” editor Danya Ruttenberg claims that, in order to exempt women from the obligation of attending the mikveh, or ritual bath, women should simply stop identifying as women. In her argument, however, she does not lay the foundations well for this radical assertion, nor is the idea well developed in later paragraphs.
Ruttenberg later writes, “Feminism has been described (correctly, I think) as one of the greatest contemporary threats to the survival of Judaism.” If this is true, where is the discussion of the institutions within Judaism, specifically family structure and interpretation of mitzvah fulfillment, that are so threatened by feminism? More importantly, where is the sense of what feminism can give to Judaism? If feminism is a threat to the survival of Judaism-as-we-know-it, then we need to be shown if, or how, feminism can be crucial to the survival of Judaism-as-we-dream-it-can-be.
While Ruttenberg wants to remain more descriptive than prescriptive, and hence avoids giving us answers, she also fails to provide us with truly probing questions. The reader for whom this book is an introduction to these issues may find its broad scope and diary-like narratives intriguing. Those who are already invested in Jewish feminist issues, however, will not make many discoveries. Regrettably, the women—and men—who are most thirsty for this book will find little satisfaction within its pages.
