This volume edited by Frederick Greenspahn, the Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, includes papers presented at a conference on the changing spiritual options for women in historical and contemporary communities. It includes ten scholarly essays in the field of Jewish women’s and gender studies by leading scholars such as Judith Baskin, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Judith Hauptman, and Chava Weissler. Each article analyzes a different academic field,  ranging from Jewish feminist approaches to the Bible, gendered attitudes in the laws of halitzah (Levirite marriage), the spirituality of Eastern European Jewish women, women’s transformation of contemporary Jewish life, women in Jewish law, and the treatment of women in Jewish American and Israeli literature.

This review by Deborah Weissman (PhD in Jewish Education, Hebrew University) suggests that this book is true to its title, in offering “new insights and scholarship” on women and Judaism.  It includes an introduction by Judith Baskin (director of Jewish Studies program at the University of Oregon), ten more articles grouped in the categories of “Classical Tradition,” “History,” “Contemporary Life,” and “Literature,” and an epilogue by the editor.  The collection seems to be directed mainly at laypersons not familiar with recent developments in the field.   According to the reviewer, precisely because it is for the layperson, the articles tend to neglect the place of Jewish feminist scholarship within the wider field of women’s studies.

The author explores the blurring of private/public space in the blogs written by Orthodox Jewish women, in what she calls a “virtual viebershul” [Yiddish: “wives’ synagogue”], a term she borrows from Kressel Housman’s blog: “Ayshes Chayil: Mi Yimtza?”].  Because the women maintain their anonymity in this domain, they can create a virtual space (a private home) where they talk freely without fear of judgment from the public or private eye.  Issues raised in the blogs include the role of “Rebbetzin”, and struggles in maintaining the “image of the good wife and mother” in the frum community.

Marilyn Herber summarizes a few of the memorable personal stories found in this volume on non-fiction writings by Canadian Jewish women and urges: “all readers to keep a copy of Living Legacies handy. Perusing a single story takes but a minute, but the impact can last a lifetime and beyond.”

This volume, edited by Liz Pearl (M.Ed., an educator and therapist specializing in psychogeriatrics and expressive arts therapy in Toronto), includes some 40 essays and memoirs by Canadian Jewish women such as Ellen Frank, Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, Jenny Laing and Gloria Levi.   The topics range from the search for a unique identity to word grudges, to mental illness, to the search for identity, to finding a daughter/sister.  See the website for to order the book, to read reviews, and to peruse the table of contents: http://at.yorku.ca/pk/ll.htm

 Mitzvah Girls is an ethnographic study about how Hasidic Jewish girls are brought up in Brooklyn to become the women responsible for raising the next generation of non-liberal Orthodox Jews (haredim).  Ayala Feder gives us a fascinating view of the “other side”, examining language, gender, and attitudes to the body from infancy to adulthood in the context of homes, classrooms, and city streets.  She points to several examples in the lives of these young women that collapse conventional distinctions between the religious and the secular.