HIST 237 - Gender and Sexuality in Jewish Society, Antiquity to Modernity

This course may also count for the major in (consult the program or department major requirements) :
Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Semester Offered: First Semester
Credits (Range): 3 hours
Attribute: 3SS, CD, WR

Topics in Jewish women’s history and the construction of gender in Jewish society from Graeco-Roman antiquity to the present. Studies ‘normative’ constructions of women’s roles, idealized constructions of Jewish maleness and femaleness, and realities of gendered behavior. Using rabbinic and communal materials, women’s letters, memoirs and rituals, explores family and power relations between women and men; women’s economic functions and power; gender and religion; transformation of roles in modernity; gendered responses to persecution; feminism.