Gender

Abstract This chapter explores how gender has been negotiated in Jewish philosophy by considering how Jewish feminist philosophers have both critiqued and deployed key conceptual moves in the Jewish philosophical tradition. Despite the potent critique that Jewish feminist philosophy offers of the traditions out of which it grows, it shares something important with its predecessors: both Jewish feminist philosophy and the Jewish philosophical tradition that it critiques are structured by a sustained engagement with pantheism and panentheism. This chapter uses the work of three key thinkers in Jewish feminist philosophy—Judith Plaskow, Tamar Ross, and Mara Benjamin—to provide an introduction to the ways that Jewish philosophical engagement with gender continues to participate in debates about pantheism and panentheism. By making God part of everyday rituals and social interactions, Jewish feminist philosophers seek to develop a theological language that can give voice to previously ignored experiences of childbearing, childrearing, and care for others. By highlighting the ways that these critical moves are contiguous with the Jewish philosophical canon’s engagement with panentheism, this chapter also raises significant questions about the efficacy of the turn to panentheism as a tool for bringing women’s experiences to bear in Jewish philosophical conversations.