The Evolving Status of Women in Contemporary Judaism

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the place of women in Jewish religious life has undergone profound transformations that cut across all currents of Judaism. The American Reform movement ordained women rabbis beginning in the 1970s, followed by the Conservative (Masorti) movement in the following decades. Within modern Orthodoxy, debates concern women's talmudic education, their participation in communal life, and the emergence of new forms of female religious leadership. Initiatives such as partnership minyanim, including Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem, seek to increase women's participation within the framework of halakha. These developments are accompanied by reflections on the status of women in matrimonial law, notably the question of agunot, and continue to provoke controversy within the various communities.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan
• Jewish Virtual Library ↗