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A Renewed Look at 'Jewish Renewal': Two Case Studies--'Ezrat Nashim' and 'Minyan M'at'

Mon, December 17, 8:30 to 10:00am, Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, Cityview 2 Ballroom

Abstract

Five decades after the earliest expression of “Jewish Renewal” in the Havurah movement, the author’s research sheds light on the generations of “Jewish Renewal,” and on how and why the foundational institutions of “Renewal” emerged.
This paper analyzes, compares, and contrasts the dynamics that led to the emergence of two seminal but oft-neglected expressions of “Renewal”: Ezrat Nashim, the pioneering expression of Jewish feminism in the halakhic (normative) arena; and Minyan M’at, the first (together with Los Angeles’ Library Minyan) of the “post Havurah” generation of independent MINYANIM.
These two cases of the “post-Havurah” generation of Jewish renewal differed one from the other in their goals and expression, but shared common characteristics in their genesis—not the least of which was that individual and communal needs were not being met by existing structures. In the Havurah world the three Havurah communities—Boston, Washington, New York, each unique in its own way—met the needs of “The New Jews” of the late 1960s through the 1970s. But by the end of the decade young Jews in New York were moved to seek new structures to express their religious and social identity. What were the internal, and the exogenous, factors that insisted that there be new structures—the most important of which was arguably Minyan M’at?
And in the Jewish feminism arena, similar questions. Was it the case that the larger feminist revolution was not satisfying the needs of Jewish women? Or was the dynamic an internal one, in the nature of Jewish tradition and ritual itself? Were there other factors?
The paper, using interviews with those who were central to the creation of Ezrat Nashim and Minyan M’at, and with heretofore uncovered archival materials, probes these two case-studies, and suggests a theoretical construct of community, one that led the “New Jews” of the 1970s to develop new models of community and of religion that departed radically from both the mainstream and the existing counterculture structures. We suggest an analysis that markedly differs from conventional histories of the first post-Havurah generation—a renewed look at Jewish Renewal.

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