New portrayals of the religious lives of American Jewish women from colonial times to the present.

In April 1998, the front page of the Los Angeles Times proclaimed that Jews “live in extraordinary times, when American women have transformed their status in Judaism, creating one of the most dramatic cultural shifts in centuries of Jewish history.” At the end of the 20th century, Jewish women had redefined the ways they lived their Judaism; innovative religious ceremonies welcoming the birth of daughters proliferated, girls came to mark their bat mitzvah, and Jewish women turned out for feminist seders and became rabbis. As demonstrated in this collection, however, women have a long and rich history of imagining and crafting meaningful Jewish lives. Offering a gendered overview of three centuries of American Jewish religious life, these essays raise key questions about how women from across the nation conceptualized their ideas of Jewish womanhood even as they transformed their roles at home, in synagogues, as volunteers, and in the public eye.

Cross-listed in the Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture and Life

Pamela S. Nadell is professor of history and director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University. Her most recent book is American Jewish Women’s History: A Reader. Jonathan D. Sarna, Joseph and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, has written, edited, or co-edited 20 books on American Jewish history and life. His most recent book, American Judaism, won the 2004 National Jewish Book Award. He serves as chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History.

“Women and American Judaism is more than a collection of scholarly articles about the past. It participates in the contemporary debates about who we are as American Jews and how we express whatever cultural distinctiveness we attribute to ourselves.”
–The Forward