Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings

Published in 1994, this book is dated but not outdated. It traces classic anti-Jewish stereotypes into feminist exegetical and theological writings. Since Christianity began as a Jewish sect and had to differentiate itself from the Jewish mother faith, it incorporated an anti-Jewish myth which projected Jewish faith and people as the antithesis of Christian belief and values, blamed Jews for the death of Christ and made it into a scapegoat for various other evils. The anti-Jewish myth depicted Judaism as obsolete and a mere prologue of Christianity, and deliberately obscured the reality of Judaism as a vibrant and dynamic alternative to Christianity.

Feminist religious writings have inherited and at times intensified this anti-Jewish myth by portraying Jewish monotheism as the antithesis of women-friendly religion. Stereotypical representations depict Judaism as particularly patriarchal and oppressive to women. Some popular Christian feminist publications argue that Jesus liberated the women of the New Testament (who were Jewish) and was persecuted by the synagogue for his rejection of restrictive laws and rituals. Some Goddess thealogians describe the monotheistic (male) God of Judaism as singularly responsible for the disappearance of peaceful matriarchal prehistoric Goddess cultures. Judaism is blamed for the origin of patriarchal religion and charged with persecuting Goddess worship and destroying polytheistic matriarchal religions. Such portrayals ignore the contributions of Jewish feminism and render the distinct perspective and contributions of Jewish women invisible. This book critically examines and disproves such arguments.

It can be purchased from Oxford University Press

 

The art work on the cover of the book, as well as to the left, shows a popular anti-Jewish motif in Christian church art. The Crucified Christ crowns the ecclesia who is sitting majestically on a lion while stabbing the synagoga who is riding a donkey with broken legs. Rosemary Radford Ruether aptly called anti-Judaism the "left hand of Christology." The "teaching of contempt" as Jules Isaac called anti-Judaism, is a poisonous Christian legacy that continues to inform traditional as well as progressive Christian theologies, including feminist, womanist, liberation, Asian and black theologies.