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Dear Friends, It is with tremendous pride that I write to update you about our activities. This year marks a decade since the creation of the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Center for the Study of Women in Judaism. We have enjoyed a year filled with events and cooperative ventureson both sides of the Atlantic, many of which are featured in the pages that follow.

We have sponsored conferences, evenings celebrating recent research, and fellowships which promote excellence in faculty and graduate scholarship. In addition, we have concentrated on furthering our ties with the community this year. A series of study sessions which we co-sponsored with Kolech and the Gender Studies program took place once a month. Women from the Bar-Ilan area gathered to study with a variety of scholars. Following the death of our dear friend and board member, Professor Chana Safrai, we dedicated these sessions to her memory. We will miss Chana and mourn the loss of her presence in the scholarly community. As in the past, we hosted evenings for students, co-sponsored with the Rackman Center. (Details of these evenings appear below.) We have also planned future co-operative ventures with the Ministry of Education, including a mini-series of talks on gender and literature planned for this fall, as well as a number of other projects. Our new website will allow us to publicize our activities.

Another new venture is a series of collaborations with the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University. This year we co-sponsored a conference in Boston called Untying the Knots in which many scholars from Bar-Ilan participated. The HBI is an institute with which we share many goals. We are pleased that our first joint venture was a success and lookforward to many more shared projects.

Finally, one of the most exciting events for me was an evening in honor of Mrs. Heller held in New York, organized by the New York Friends of Bar-Ilan University. At this event, Mrs. Heller was presented with a gift thanking her for her contributions to our center.

All of this would not be possible without the hard work of our team here – firstand foremost our co-ordinator Rivka Hindin, as well as Orit Kandel and Esther Weinberg. I am pleased to have this opportunity to thank them. The support of participants through attendance at conferences or by means of correspondence has also enriched our activities and ideas tremendously and we are grateful for your encouragement. We are proud to be one of the centers that organized the most activities on campus this year.

Next year I will be on sabbatical in the United States. During this time, I will remain in contact with the Center and with Professor Tova Cohen, who will supervise all of our activities

From our Director

„¢Ò·

September 2008 - Elul 5768

The Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Center

for the Study of Women in Judaism

Bar-Ilan University

52900 Ramat-Gan, IsraelTel. (972) 03-531-8286 Fax. (972) 03-535-1233 jwmn@mail .biu.ac. i l www.biu.ac.il/js/jwmn

THE FANYA GOTTESFELD HELLER CENTERFOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN IN JUDAISM

8Newsletter No. 8

on campus. I look forward to actively resuming my role as head of the Center when I return. I hope you enjoy reading about our many activities and as always, we welcome suggestions and comments.

Wishing you a Shana Tova, full of learning and growth,

Dr. Elisheva Baumgarten

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New York Event in Honor of Mrs. Fanya Gottesfeld Heller

This past December, the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Center for the Study of Women in Judaism marked a decade since its establishment. An event was held in New York City, at Kehillat Jeshurun on the Upper East Side. The Bar-Ilan Friends in New York honored Mrs. Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, and recognized her outstanding commitment to the Center and to Bar-Ilan University.

At a reception which was well-attended by friends of the Center as well as many of Mrs. Heller's friends, Dr. Elisheva

Bar-Ilan Celebrates “Israel at 60” with a Highlighted Panelon Gender in Israel

The Martin Szusz Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archeology at Bar-Ilan University held a conference titled The Diverse Faces of the State of Israel on May 22, 2008. The conference was co-sponsored by The Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Center for the Study of Women and Judaism. This conference was one of a series of events held by the University in celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel.

The conference focused, among other important topics, on women and gender in pre-state and contemporary Israel. Dr. Sharon Geva discussed the way in which two heroines of the Shoah are remembered by the Israeli public. Dr. Reina

Rutlinger-Reiner discussed the similarities between the early beginnings of the Hebrew theater and the new beginnings of the current religious women's theater. Dr. Lilach Rosenberg and Prof. Margalit Shilo dealt with the nature of feminism of religious women in Israel sixty years ago and today. Dr. Anat Herbst discussed the situation of single parent families. We were pleased that the topic of women in Judaism was prominently featured at this important and successful conference.

Baumgarten spoke about women and Jewish history,focusing on a number of cases from the Cairo Geniza. Following her talk, Dr. Baumgarten awarded Mrs. Heller a gift expressing the University's appreciation for her generosity over the years to the Center, and for her dedication to the study of women in Judaism. The evening was a great success, and we hope to have the opportunity to host Mrs. Heller in Israel in the year to come.

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Fanya Gottesfeld Heller MA and PhD 2008 Prizes

Rafaela Stankevitch (PhD, Department of Jewish History) This dissertation The Community of Lackenbach in Burgenland (Austria): Preserving its Religious and Social Uniqueness in the Early Modern and Modern Era (1671-1938), focuses on nineteenth century Hungarian Jewry. One of the chapters of the study centers on the family in modern Hungary. The Center supported her visit to the archives in the Central Library of Burgenland, Austria.

Michal Shaul, (PhD, Department of Jewish History)Michal Shaul's dissertation Holocaust Survivors and Holocaust Memory in the Ashkenazi Haredi Community in the Yishuv and in the State of Israel, 1945-1967, investigates the response of the Haredi Community in Israel to the Holocaust. One of her chapters discusses the education system and especially Bais Yaacov teachers. The Center supported her trip to YIVO (Institute for Jewish Research, New York) last year.

Travel Grants 2008

Tehilla Be'eri(PhD, Faculty of Law)

The State of Mind Needed to Constitute

the 'Kiddushin'

Ruti Feuchtwanger-Segel(PhD, Gender Studies

Program) Becoming a Knower:Acquisition of Knowledge and

Status by Religious Women Studying Talmud in Order to

Teach

Ronit Libermansch-Vardi(MA, Gender Studies

Program) The Construction of Female

Menopause in Israeli Popular Medical Discourse

Ayelet Segal(PhD, Talmud Department) Pre-Nuptial Agreements in

Jewish Law

Yifat Monnikendam, (PhD, Talmud Department) Yifat’s dissertation Halakhic Issues in the Writings of the Syriac Church Fathers Ephrem and Aphrahat studies fourth century Syriac texts and compares between rabbinic and Syriac traditions. This past spring she traveled to Leiden in Holland where the University houses a large collection of syriac manuscripts. We are glad to have assisted this trip which was crucial for her progress.

Jennifer Roskies (PhD, Gender Studies Program) Jennifer Roskies is writing her dissertation In Their Own Words: Jewish Women on Gender and Identity, on Jewish Women and Politics in the United States and Israel. This summer, Jennifer will be traveling to the Hadassah- Brandeis Institute in Boston, where she will work with Prof. Sylvia Barrack Fishman.

Galia Shiloach(MA, Gender Studies

Program) Women Renewing Management: From Feminist Theory to Feminist Practices among Women Managers in

Israel

MAPhDThis year, as in the past, the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Center is pleased to support the research of outstanding graduate students whose work relates to the study of women in Judaism. The review committee selected the following recipients:

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The conference displayed the extent of Dafna Izraeli’s contributions in these areas and generated an updated framework for thought and discussion. The conference was a tremendous tribute to Dafna Izraeli as a woman, professor, mother, and sister.

Guests of the conference came from Norway, the United States, and Britain as a gesture to Dafna Izraeli’s scholarship which had developed parallel to their own. Susan Lewis, of Middlessex, UK, was Dafna Izraeli’s co-editor of the book "Dual Earner Families: International Perspectives".Julia Brannen, from the University of London and Rosanna Hertz, chair of women’s studies program at Wellsley College, Boston, published chapters in their book, and joined us at the conference. Two other guests were Ann Nilsen from Bergen and Irene Levine from Oslo College University, who contributed with comparative family related analysis. In addition, many Israeli scholars spoke at the conference.

Major International Conference on Employment, Welfare and Families at Bar-Ilan

Untying the Knots: Theorizing Conflictsbetween Gender Equality and Religious Laws

The Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Center hosted this year's annual conference in memory of Dafna Izraeli at Bar-Ilan University. The conference was co-hosted by The Dafna Izraeli Gender Studies Program, the Sociology Department, and the Israeli Sociological Association, and was part of a series of events taking place in Bar-Ilan for International Women's Day. The conference, Employment, Welfare and Families: Israel in a Comparative Context drew over 250 participants over the course of the two days in March.

The aim of the conference was to try and contextualize Israel and the specific processes that have shaped its welfare statepolicies and its' labor market from the perspective of women and families. Particular attention was given to processes that occurred since the 1980’s, in comparison with the restructuring of welfare states in European countries, and in North America.

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Throughout the world, conflicts between women’s equality and practices, justifiedin terms of cultural and religious norms, present pressing challenges for theorists, lawyers and policy makers. Conflicts emerge in a variety of areas, ranging fromdisciplining the body, to regulating the family, to establishing the parameters of national or cultural membership. The urgency of these conflicts has made them thetopic of research in a number of academic disciplines.

On April 15, 2008, the Center co-sponsored a conference with the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, at Brandeis University in Boston. The conference created an international forum for dialogue among lawyers, activists and academics working on conflicts between gender equality and practices, justified in terms of culturaland religious norms. Participants from the United States, Canada, Israel, Senegal and South Africa discussed controversies and transformative innovations in Jewish, Muslim and African customary law, drawing a crowd of over 100 people.

Two panels at the conference focued on women in Judaism. In “Intersections of Civil and Religious Law”, moderated by Lenore Weitzman (George Mason University and visiting scholar at the HBI) participants discussed work in Israel and the Diaspora to address the problem of get-refusal and get-based extortion in Jewish divorce. The economic impact of discriminatory family laws was central to many of the papers. Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari (Bar-Ilan University), Susan Weiss (Center for Women’s Justice) and Prof. Norma Baumel Joseph (Concordia University) participated in this session.

HBI co-director Sylvia Barack Fishman moderated a fascinating panel on “Innovative Approaches to Jewish Law”. Dr. Ronit Ir-Shai (Harvard Divinity School and Bar-Ilan University) evaluated different models for feminist re-interpretation of halachic rules. Dr. Irit Koren (Columbia University and Bar-Ilan University) and Michal Roness (Bar-Ilan University) also participated in this panel.

Untying the Knots: Theorizing Conflictsbetween Gender Equality and Religious Laws

This conference is one of the first of a number of events planned with the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and we look forward to future co-operative ventures!

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In November, the Center co-sponsored an event with The Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women's Status on campus. The event titled, "Family Violence: When Will it End?" was held during the International Month for Awareness of Violence against Women. The conference was well-attended, and was an important conscious raising activity.

We also co-sponsored a Women's Awareness Fair during the week of the International Women's Day with many activities. A central event was a conference, on Pre-Nuptial Agreements that drew over 300 participants in Bar-Ilan's Mintz Auditorium. Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari spoke, as did a rabbinic court pleader (to'enet rabbanit) about how the pre-nuptial agreement can help in situations where a husband refuses his wife a get.

Througout the year, girls of Bat-Mitzvah age participated in a program organized by the Rackman Center and co-sponsored by the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Center. The program consists of three parts: family and tradition, society, and self – with themes of leadership, growing up, and female self-image, intertwined within the whole program. The goals of the program were to empower the students, to give them tools for

studying Jewish texts, to deal with questions of identity with an emphasis on female identity, to develop a commitment and sensitivity to society and individuals within it, to develop leadership and to help them understand the meaning of Bat-Mitzvah. The program combined Biblical and Talmudic texts with philosophy, Halakhah, and modern Hebrew exegesis, using poetry and art.

We are pleased to work together with the Rackman Center to further these important projects that further the advancement of the status of women in Israeli society.

On May 5, 2008, the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Center hosted a breakfast at Bar-Ilan for the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute 2008 mission to Israel. The mission focused on pioneering women in Israel, and the breakfast highlighted the work of two scholars in the Gender Studies Program at Bar-Ilan who have researched pioneering women.

Dr. Tami Razi spoke about Shoshana Persitz, the first womanto organize a social work network in Tel Aviv during pre-state Israel. Ms. Maya Michaeli spoke about Jenia Avrebach, the

HBI Spring Breakfast in Bar-Ilan

Advancing the Status of Women in Israel: Joint Programs with Rackman Center

first female architect in Tel Aviv. Both talks were informativeand interesting. The Center for the Study of Women in Judaism has supported many topics such as these since its inception, and we are pleased to see this work come to fruition!

The breakfast was also a wonderful opportunity for our staff and the Gender Studies program to meet with the HBI mission participants, and identify similarities and ways in which we can continue to work together in the future.

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In a wonderful tribute to the important work of Prof. Margalit Shilo, the Center for the Study of Women in Judaism celebrated the recent publication of her book The Challenge of Gender: Women in the Early Yishuv (Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 2007). Prof. Shilo is the head of the Department of the Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

The evening in her honor, was co-hosted by the Gender Studies Program on June 11, 2008. Dr. Gur Alroey and Prof. Debbie Bernstein (both of Haifa University), spoke, and Dr. Lilach Rosenberg (Bar-Ilan University)

"The Challenge of Gender", an Evening in Honor of Prof. Margalit Shilo

chaired the session. Prof. Bernstein, a long time friend and colleague of Prof. Shilo, talked about the characteristics of her work and about the extent of her contribution to studying the land of Israel and gender studies. Dr. Alroey examined the case of abandoned women in pre-mandate Israel and discussed the influences of Prof. Shilo's work on his own. We wish Prof.Shilo good luck with her new book.

Feminism and Modern Orthodoxy: Book Event and Award Evening

The Center celebrated the end of a very successful academic year with a festive evening in honor of Dr. Tova Hartman on July 11, 2008. Her book, Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism (Brandeis University Press, 2007) was written by Dr. Hartman following her experience in the creation of Shira Hadasha, an orthodox synagogue where women take an active part in community life and in the prayer services.

The book, which won the prestigious American National Jewish Book Award, was discussed and analyzed by Dr. Eli Holzer (Dept. of Education, Bar-Ilan University) and Dr. Elisheva Baumgarten. Dr. Holzer discussed the ways in

which including men and women in synagogue life change the nature of the community and its activities and analyzed the different interpretative mechanisms that result from this change. Dr. Baumgarten spoke about the merits of the book for research on women and religion and especially commended Dr. Hartman for not having been apologetic in her narrative, and confronting a controversial subject head on. In thanks to her supporters, Dr. Hartman explained that while many people think that we are in a post-feminist time, in Judaism as in many other areas, feminism still encounters many challenges.

The event was also dedicated to the 2008 Fanya Gottesfeld Heller prize recipients, who were present to accept their awards. Ruti Feuchtwanger-Segel spoke on behalf of the grantees and thanked the Center and Mrs. Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, whose support was invaluable in their research. We wish all of these students good luck in the upcoming academic year and in their research.

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The Faculty of Jewish StudiesBar-Ilan University

52900 Ramat-Gan, IsraelTel. (972) 03-531-8286 Fax. (972) 03-535-1233 E-mail: jwmn@mail.biu.ac.il Website: www.biu.ac.il/js/jwmn

Director: Dr. Elisheva Baumgarten,

Department of Jewish History and Gender

Studies Program

Co-ordinator: Rivka Hindin

Academic Governing Board:

Chairman: Prof. Moshe Orfali,

Dean of the Faculty of Jewish Studies

Prof. Meir Bar-Ilan (Jewish History, Talmud)

Prof. Judith Baumel-Schwartz (Jewish History)

Prof. Tova Cohen (Jewish Literature)

Dr. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari (Law)

Prof Sarit Kraus (Computer Science)

Prof Larissa Remenick (Sociology)

Prof. Margalit Shilo (Land of Israel Studies)

International Advisory Board:

Malke Bina, Rochelle Furstenburg, Blu

Greenberg, Benjamin Heller, Fanya Gottesfeld

Heller, Suzanne Hochstein, Tova Ilan, Rabbi

Emanuel Rackman, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin,

Leah Shakdiel, Dr. Edward Steinberg, Col.

(Ret.) Ahuva Yanai

International Academic Advisory Board:

Prof. Sylvia Barack Fishman (Brandeis University)

Dr. Naomi Cohen (Haifa University)

Prof. Yehuda Gelman (Ben Gurion University)

Prof. Avraham Grossman (Hebrew University)

Prof. Susan Handelman (University of Maryland)

Prof. Paula Hyman (Yale University)

Prof. Debbie Kaufman (Northwestern University)

Dr. Chana Naveh (Tel Aviv University)

Prof. Alice Shalvi (Schechter Institute of

Jewish Studies)

Dr. Debbie Weissman

Dr. Joel Wolowelsky (Yeshiva of Flatbush)

Disguises, Secrets, Veils: An Art Exhibit by Chana

Cromer

The Center is pleased to support the new work of Chana Cromer. Disguises, Secrets, Veils explores the theme of secrets and disguise in the Bible through the use of mixed media on textiles. In her past exhibit The Hollow of His Thigh in 1999, she explored Jacob's struggle with the angel, in works that dealt with vulnerability, osteoporosis and exposure from a feminine perspective. In two additional exhibitions Unveiling the Text, 2006, and From Dreams to Revelation, 2007, Cromer

Upcoming EventsMany exciting events are being planned for this coming year. We will be holding two conferences. The first will be held together with the new track inthe Dafna Izraeli Gender Studies program entitled Gender in the Field and the Academy will showcase work and research being done in different NGO's and Centers for women throughout the country. Our second conference will be an event with the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute on Gender and Jewish Thought. This conference will be held in Boston. In addition, we look forward to hosting an international scholars’ workshop, where we will discuss sources for studying women in Judaism.

As in previous years we will celebrate publications, and award travel grants and research grants.

Check out our new website: http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/jwmn/. We look forward to seeing you at our events!

explored Joseph's dreams and his metamorphosis from dreamer to vizier of Egypt in a series of delicate layered fabrics used in mixed media works.

Though all the works were infused with femininity, the artwork in these past projects have dealt with the Promethean figures of Jacob and Joseph and theExodus from Egypt. Until now she has worked on subjects such as jealousy, growth through adversity and vulnerability through male figures in the Bible. InDisguises, Secrets, Veils, she researches heroines in the Bible who have secrets or disguise themselves.

Leah is one such protagonist. She disguises herself in her sister Rachel's clothing in order to marry Jacob. Who is Leah under the bridal veil of her disguise? We also know that Jacob dresses in his brother, Esau's clothing in order to get his father Isaac's blessing. How does Leah's story compare with Jacob's? How are they similar and how are they different?

The series she is working on will be done in mixed media on paper and textile and will deal with disguises of female biblical figures in contrast to their masculinecounterparts, with the use of color and line, form and texture, textile and its layers. Other heroines that will be explored are Tamar, Queen Esther, Miriam and Joheved.

We look forward to seeing parts of Chana Cromer's work on display at Center events in the future.