Description
In this thesis, I seek to argue that written works by Jewish women can function as ways for women to engage with traditional Jewish conversations housed in institutional spaces, like synagogues and yeshivas. To establish that such writings have existed since the early 1900s, I focus on Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers, written in 1925, and contemporaneous women's organizations. Then, I examine the development of Jewish feminism and its influence on writings that attempt to interact with institutional conversations, like the poem "A Meditation in Seven Days" by Alicia Ostriker, written in 1989. In order to argue that this often overlooked function of writing by Jewish women is still relevant and useful for modern writers, I look at Myla Goldberg's 2000 novel Bee Season, and to show how women are using writing to bring new perspectives to old conversations I analyze Naomi Alderman's 2006 work Disobedience.
