Jews and Feminism The Ambivalent Search for Home [Hardcover]

By interrogating America's promise of a home for Jews as citizens of the liberal state, Jews and Feminismquestions the very terms of this social contract . Maintaining that Jews, women, and Jewish women are not necessarily secure within this construction of the state, Laura Levitt links this contractual construction of belonging and acceptance to legacies of marriage as a contractual home for Jewish women.

Exploring the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe for America, as well as their desire to make this country their permanent home, Levitt raises questions about the search for stability in specific Jewish religious and cultural traditions which is linked to the liberal academy as well as feminist study, thus offering an account of an ambivalent Jewish feminist embrace of America as home.Laura Levittis Assistant Professor of Religion at Temple University where she also teaches in the Women's Studies Department. She is co-editor of Judaism Since Gender, also available from Routledge.