Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion, and Law

This book series is under the editorship of Lisa Fishbayn Joffe and Sylvia Neil.

The mandate for the series is to provide an avenue for publication of work that furthers our mission to foster dialogue about conflicts between women's claims to gender equality and practices justified in terms of religious and cultural tradition. This includes research on the rights of women in Jewish law, both in Israel and the Diaspora, and comparative work that considers women's rights under religious law from an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective.

Criteria for Selection

Work that breaks new theoretical ground by:
  • Developing new approaches to the place of gender in the political theory of multiculturalism.

  • Developing new theoretical tools for conceptualizing feminist projects for transforming the interpretation and justification of religious law.

  • Engaging in analysis of conflicts over gender and culture/religion in a particular religious tradition, cultural community or nation with a depth and complexity not seen in previous work.

Work that engages with debates over gender and culture/religion from a cross-cultural perspective by:
  • Working with case studies that compare challenges and innovations in different legal, cultural or religious regimes.

  • Working on a single regime or set of legal regimes, but constituting a contribution to a dialogue with other works previously published or contemplated for inclusion in the series. This would entail, for example, works that address similar questions or take similar approaches to gender and religious law challenges in Jewish law and Muslim law published sequentially so that they “speak” to each other.

We welcome letters of inquiry regarding manuscripts that might be suitable for the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion and Law. Please contact the editors at fishbaynjoffe@brandeis.edu.

Guidelines for proposals

Newest Publications

Book Cover. Text reads: Mark Goldfeder. Legalizing Plural Marriage: The Next Frontier in Family Law. There is a photo of 3 interlocking wedding rings.

Mark Goldfeder (2017)

Book cover. Text reads: A Home for All Jews: Citizenship, Rights, and National Identity in the New Israeli State. Orit Rozin. There is an old photo of a couple and their young baby looking out a round window which has rivets around it.

by Orit Rozin (2016) — Finalist in the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Europe and Israel for the AJS 2018 Jordan Schnitzer Award

Book Cover.  Text reads: MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE IN THE JEWISH STATE: ISRAEL'S CIVIL WAR. Susan M. Weiss and Netty C. Gross-Horowitz. Background photo is a view of a man and a women from the elbows, chained to each other with a large linked metal chain.  The man holds in one end in  his hand. She holds a bouquet of white flowers.

Susan Weiss and Netty Gross. (December 2012)

Book Cover. Text reads: SELF-DETERMINATION and WOMEN'S RIGHTS in MUSLIM SOCIETIES. At the bottom: Chitra Raghavan and James P. Levine, editors. The photograph is of two Muslim women walking, viewed from behind. They are wearing burkas. One has a shoulder bag. The title has ornate borders with patterns found in Islamic art.

Chitra Raghavan, ed.; James P. Levine, ed.; Jeremy Travis, fwd., (July 2012)