Song of Songs, as Written by a Woman: God, Sex, and the Contemporary "Off the Derech" Memoir

• In Event: Jewish Women and Autobiographical Acts

Abstract

"God loves all of us…But she calls your attention that which you have forgotten. Jews: look to Miriam, not Moses, for what you can learn from her. Muslims: look to Fatimah, not Muhammad…
"You have been taught that…you are not holy, that your body…could never harbour the divine….But you have been taught lies."

-Naomi Alderman, The Power, 2017

In her new work of science fiction, The Power, Naomi Alderman returns to ideas expressed in her first novel, Disobedience (2006): namely, that women need to reclaim their bodies, their sexuality, and their divinity-and that these three elements of self are intimately bound to one another.

Although the theme of leaving Orthodoxy has a rich Anglo-American Jewish literary history, Disobedience shifted the landscape by foregrounding repressed sexuality, and not assimilation, as its cause d'etre. Since its publication, a series of memoirs have emerged to form the bulk of the genre of "off-the-derech" literature. These memoirs often chronicle the authors' attempts to reclaim their bodies, their sexuality, and their divinity. Reva Mann juxtaposes descriptions of her husband's prayers against graphic, but equally holy, details of her sexual affairs; Deborah Feldman grapples with modesty laws and failed sexual relations; Leah Lax tells of leaving Orthodoxy and embracing her lesbianism as a delayed coming of age story. None of the authors explicitly abandon God or Judaism; instead, they come to the conclusion that they have, as Alderman's Mother Eve explains, been taught lies.

In this talk, I will discuss the evolution of the "OTD" tale in the context of 21st-century Anglo-American Jewish literature, recognizing, as Mother Eve does in her nod to multiple religions, that this genre did not emerge in a vacuum. I will thus conclude the talk by highlighting the convergences between contemporary Jewish "off-the-derech" and Muslim "veiled bestseller" memoirs as a key aspect in an emerging Jewish-Muslim women's cultural interface.

Author

• Karen E Skinazi, University of Bristol