Ronit Irshai

Ronit Irshai
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Ronit verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
Bar Ilan University | BIU · Gender Studies Unit

Ph. D.

About

42
Publications
13,461
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Introduction
Ronit Irshai, associate professor, previously the head of the Gender Studies program at Bar Ilan University and a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Ronit does research in Jewish and Gender Studies, Jewish sexual ethics, religious feminism and theology. Current research interests includes homosexuality, transgenders and contemporary Jewish law.

Publications

Publications (42)
Book
Full-text available
Holy Rebellion examines the shifting entanglements of religion, gender, and law in times of cultural transformation. Irshai and Zion-Waldoks explore theological , halakhic, political, and sociological processes to show how they advance women's rights and are met with a conservative backlash. The authors analyze the reciprocity of cultural narrative...
Article
Full-text available
In this article we draw on Michel Foucault’s concepts of critique and genealogy to offer an account of the strategies that were developed by Jewish religious feminism (Especially Orthodox) to dismantle religious patriarchy and to create better ways to deploy gender justice within Jewish tradition.
Article
המאמר מנתח את פסקי הדין שניתנו בבית הדין הרבני האזורי בירושלים ובבית הדין הגדול לערעורים בנוגע לתביעה נגד הרב אבינר על רקע הטרדה מינית. המאמר טוען כי הטיה נרטיבית הובילה את ההרכבי ם של שני בתי הדין לאמץ את טיעוניו של אבינר, ולדחות את אלו של התובעת. נוסף על כך, ההטיה הנרטיבית השפיעה על הניתוח ההלכתי של המקרה, והובילה את בית הדין הגדול לדיון ב...
Article
Full-text available
This article reassesses certain assumptions concerning the conception of gender as a rigid binary structure within Jewish tradition, through the analysis of the scriptural ban on cross-dressing (Deut. 22:5), and its development within past and contemporary Jewish legal discourse. It proposes that the prohibition on cross-dressing has been tradition...
Chapter
Full-text available
The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology offers an overview of Jewish theology, an aspect of Judaism that is equal in importance to law and ethics. Covering the period from antiquity to the present, the volume focuses on what Jews believe about God and also about the relation of God to humans and the world. Parts I and II cover exciting new resea...
Article
Full-text available
Given the multifaceted obstacles facing Palestinian Muslim women in Israel, this article aims to understand what enabled the impressive sea change marked by the 2017 appointment of a Palestinian Muslim woman to the position of qadi (judge in a Muslim Shari'a court of law). The article describes some of the events leading up to this historic moment...
Chapter
Full-text available
This article seeks, in its first part, “to make sense” of what has been termed “feminist research in Judaic sciences" and proposes differentiating between four types of feminist research: critical feminist research, gendered feminist research, mediating feminist research, and research with a “feminist sensitivity.” In light of these distinctions, t...
Article
Full-text available
The present article examines the halakhic attitudes toward homosexuality in Modern Orthodoxy and in the Conservative movement, through the prism of “Aqedah Theology” and the link between religion and morality. The article argues that even if there is no clear halakhic boundary between some of the positions of Conservative and Modern Orthodox Judais...
Article
Full-text available
This article contributes to the expanding field of trans-Jewish-feminist studies in general, and to the scholarship about Jewish law in particular, by analyzing the ways in which the Reform movement has gradually legitimized transgender people and accepted them fully. Applying Judith Butler's ideas about the heterosexual matrix as an analytical too...
Article
Full-text available
The article describes Rav Waldenberg's stance on Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) via a close reading of three responsas by him. It opens with an introduction to queer and gender theory with regard to transgenders, and it continues with the rulings in both the Orthodox and Conservative Halakha, while each denomination understood Rav Waldenberg differ...
Article
Full-text available
The present article examines the halakhic attitudes toward homosexuality in Modern Orthodoxy and in the Conservative movement, through the prism of the “Aqedah theology” and the link between religion and morality. The article argues that even if there is no clear halakhic boundary between some of the positions of Conservative and Modern Orthodox Ju...
Article
Full-text available
This article traces the history of the Aqedah theology (the relationships between religion and ethics) as developed by Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik and Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, and its ethical, halakhic, and gender implications in contemporary Modern Orthodox and National Ultraorthodox thought. The idea that ethics has an autonomous status and m...
Article
Full-text available
The present article examines the halakhic attitudes toward homosexuality in Modern Orthodoxy and in the Conservative movement, through the prism of the “Aqedah theology” and the link between religion and morality. The article argues that even if there is no clear halakhic boundary between some of the positions of Conservative and Modern Orthodox Ju...
Article
Full-text available
This article joins the new interest in a feminist hermeneutics of scripture featured in this journal in 2014 and contributes new insights about the status of feminist hermeneutics in patriarchal traditions through the prism of Modern Orthodox Jewish feminism. Through analyzing contemporary Jewish Modern Orthodox feminist midrashim, Irshai seeks to...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this lecture I will review the attitude of Orthodox Jewish law (halakhah) over the past half-century to sex-reassignment surgery by analyzing Dor Tahpukhot, by Rabbi Idan Ben-Efrayim. This work, published in 2004, is the first comprehensive halakhic treatment of the topic. The dominant approach of Orthodox halakhists is that such procedures are...
Chapter
Full-text available
In the two iterations of the Holiness Code, in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 22, the Torah explicitly prohibits homosexual intercourse between men. It seems that the text is clear enough and the prohibition absolute; no lenient interpretation seems possible. But Judaism always reads divine injunctions through an exegetical prism. The only question is...
Article
Full-text available
Halakhic literature discusses whether acquiescence by a victim to sex under threat of death indicates her willingness to participate in the sexual act, simply as an attempt to save her life. This article elucidates the term ‘ones (rape) in sexual contexts in halakhic literature, focusing on a question posed to Rabbi Asheri immediately following the...
Article
Full-text available
The present article examines the way in which Jewish theology deals with the potential clash between Divine injunctions and moral imperatives. I take Modern-Orthodox feminism (“religious feminism”)¹1 Orthodox Jewish feminism requires a practical halakhic as well as a conceptual and theological answer to the tension between the modern idea of gender...
Article
Full-text available
Jewish law includes two parallel systems of halakhic ruling: public and private. There is often a significant gap between what halakhic authorities proclaim publicly and what they are willing to say, on the same topic, in private. The ability to deviate from the original ruling in order to solve concrete problems answers one of the central demands...
Article
Full-text available
Although some might suggest that this topic has been flogged to death, Isaac Sassoon's book, especially its use of the feminist perspective, makes a fresh contribution to the field. Sassoon has set himself a two-fold task in this study of the status of women in the Bible and rabbinic literature: first, to identify the ideological ingredients of the...
Article
Full-text available
The past few years have witnessed the halachic discussion, in Modern Orthodox circles, of various suggestions for radical changes in the structure of prayer in the synagogue.1 According to these suggestions, women would be permitted to perform the reading of the Torah in synagogue in the framework of a standard orthodox congregation, and not in sep...
Article
Full-text available
המאמר משרטט קווים לדמותו של הפמיניזם האורתודוקסי בישראל, תוך שימתו בהקשר החברתי והמשפטי שבו הוא פועל. באמצעות הפריזמה התיאורטית שהציע רוברט קָוֶור, שעל-פיה קיימת זיקה דינמית ועמוקה בין נומוס לבין נרטיב, נעשה ניסיון לזהות את אופן פעולתו של הפמיניזם האורתודוקסי ולנתח את סיכוייו לשנות את פני היהדות האורתודוקסית-המודרנית בישראל. המאמר פותח בסקירת חיצי...
Book
Full-text available
This book is the first attempt to present, from the perspective of feminist jurisprudence and feminist-liberal bioethics, a comprehensive, comparative study of Jewish law (halakhah) on contemporary reproductive issues. Taking as its point of departure the controversial claim that halakhah betrays a male bias, it questions the influence of gender co...
Article
Full-text available
I wish to relate to several important points noted by Dr. Jotkowitz and clarify them more fully. In my opinion, the most plausible reading of the rabbinic sources indicates that a fetus does not have the status of a person under Jewish law. This is the view that emerges from the second option I outlined for understanding Mishnah Ohalot 7:6 (regardi...
Article
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Article
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:Within most Modern Orthodox circles in Judaism (and effectively all ultra-Orthodox circles), feminism is perceived as a dangerous threat because of its seemingly radical challenge to sacred Jewish values such as the Jewish family and the binding, largely immutable nature of halakhah (Jewish law, broadly construed). This article creates a framework...
Article
Full-text available
The halakhah binds observant Jews to fulfill the biblical commandment to "be fruitful and multiply." The rabbis in the Talmud expanded this biblical obligation into two injunctions: lashevet—" to populate the world," and la'erev— "to father more children," interpreted as meaning that each man ought to father as many children as he is able. This com...

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