Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism

Worshipers in American synagogues may not remember or even be able to conceive of their sanctuaries without the physical and spiritual presence of women, but as Goldman's study shows, it wasn't always so. A professor of history at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Goldman posits that ""it was in the synagogue that women's absence in public Judaism first became explicit and then unacceptable,"" a realization that, in turn, led to transformations in synagogue design and organization that shaped American Judaism. Focusing on the 19th century, she explores the changing boundaries of the traditional Jewish home-centered female world, as it converged with the expectations of American middle-class life. Rabbinic controversies and altercations because of gender-based rules paint a picture of the sanctuary in ""embarrassing disarray,"" as women who were separated and silenced became a ""seductive and sexualized"" presence. Mixed choirs, family pews and women's organizations, Goldman says, emerged as institutions that began to validate women's voices, remove the rough edges from American Judaism and give it the measure of respectability it sought from its Protestant neighbors. While Goldman has some valuable insights, her dense, academic study reads like the scholarly dissertation that it once was, and does not draw enough connections to American Judaism today. (June)