Women's Tefliah Groups and the Boundaries of Orthodoxy

• In Event: Jewish Orthodoxies: Social Science Perspectives

Abstract

My presentation looks at the development of women’s tefila groups, to consider how this phenomenon reflects possibilities and boundaries of change in Jewish orthodoxy. Women’s tefila groups first developed in the 1970s and 1980s in major Jewish communities in North America. They were mainly formed by women who were highly educated in Jewish texts and who wanted to expand the realm of Jewish women’s communal ritual. Critical to their mandate was the necessity of remaining within an orthodox camp and within the framework of halakha: these groups maintained gender separation by creating women-only spaces for prayer; they engaged in lengthy negotiations regarding what parts of the traditional liturgy they could and could not recite; they debated if it was permissible for women to wear tallit and tefilin; and they tried to meet in orthodox spaces (for many of the groups, unsuccessfully). In response to their project, some orthodox authorities expressed support, while many others publicly opposed their actions and fought to keep their group outside orthodox settings.

Using interviews with key founders of women’s tefila groups, as well as archival materials, I ask what this case tells us about orthodoxy as a category and identifier. These women’s orthodoxy is one where modern notions of freedom and self-actualization are realized through religious practice, divine obligation, and religious authority, yet their orthodoxy is simultaneously negotiated with liberal ideals of gender equality and social innovation. Theirs is an orthodoxy that cannot be called fundamentalist or nonliberal. And while these women hold on to an orthodox identification, for others, their argument and debate with tradition puts them beyond its limits. Consequently, I explore what is at stake, ethnographically and theoretically, in categorizing them within or outside orthodoxy, or alternatively as another form of Yadgar’s traditionism.

Author

• Hannah Mayne, University of Toronto