jewish women
Jewish law has for centuries been biased against its own women. It has betrayed its foundation, its livelihood, the Jewish female. Jewish law through the centuries has been interpreted by the male scholars and recognized leaders of the Jewish religion. Thus, leading to masculine laws and demeaning woman's role in the religion. Today as this ancient religion approaches the twenty-first century, its victims (Jewish women) are staging a resistance against the same institution which they were taught to cherish. The Jewish women has taken a back seat in religion for too long, and now demand equal power and authority in their faith. The Jewish religion itself has created a stereotype of how the Jewish family should be maintained, a blueprint of each character's action and place in the household. The women, whose scripts direct them to housewives whose sole goal in life is to keep the Jewish family in intact no matter what the consequences to them, have become prisoners of their own myths. Contemporary Jewish women writers are revealing the injustices faced by them, which were ultimately caused by male dominated Jewish law. These injustices include taboo subjects such as battered Jewish wives (scarf) and the social iso
Because Jewish girls are taught that the marriage is made in heaven, oftentimes battered women are led "to deny what is happening to them by clinging to what they believe ought to be the reality." (Scarf, pg.52) The Jewish religion which places its men on a pedestal refuses to admit that it has a warped sense of values. Victims of abuse become victims of the Jewish community. When the wife seeks help from a rabbi, "the counselor may express surprise and tell her that she is the first Jewish woman ever to come to him for that reason." (Scarf, pg. 56) She leaves feeling humiliated and convinced that she is the only battered Jewish woman on earth and that it is her fault. Women are beginning to sound there voices and talk about there injustices in the Jewish faith. Mimi Scarf confronts an extremely disturbing and realistic topic concerning Jewish marriage. It has long been a myth that Jewish men are more even tempered and generous than other and "wife beating in Jewish homes is aberrant." (Scarf, pg.51) Jewish women have been programmed to believe the idea of the stereotypical Jewish husband who does not beat his wife. More disturbing than this state of mind is the fact that because Jewish law is patriarchal, when women do confront the problem of an abusive husband, they are given very little support by the Jewish community. Furthermore, when voicing their concerns to family members, they are blamed and are told that they have brought it upon themselves. This is exactly what the abusive husband tells her: "Look what you are making me do to you. I hate you for what you make me do." (Scarf,pg.55). Rosa Kaplan brings to our attention Jewish laws' unjust treatment of single women. Because the Jewish male is the central character of the religion and community, barriers are formed in order to ostracize women who do not have a direct correlation to a husband. Through th
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Approximate Word count = 1289
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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