Holy Rebellion: Feminist and Queer Approaches to Jewish Law

In her lecture, religious scholar Ronit Irshai traces the radical transformation of these principles, which not only influence romantic relationships and the family as a patriarchal institution, but also define the meaning of sexuality and its role in Judaism. This will be followed by a conversation with the newly ordained rabbi Avigail Ben Dor Niv. 

Ronit Irshai is associate professor and head of gender studies at Bar-Ilan Univeristy in Israel, research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem (for pluralistic Judaism), member of the board of the Reckman Center of Bar-Ilan University (for women’s rights) and member of “Kolech,” a religious-feminist forum.ciaa Her book Holy Rebellion: Religious Feminism and the Transformation of Judaism and Women’s Rights in Israel (co-authored with Tanya Zion-Waldoks) will be published this year.

Avigail Ben Dor Niv will be ordained as a rabbi on 1 September. She studied at the Abraham Geiger College and the School of Theology at the University of Potsdam. Born and raised in Israel, she studied at the Secular Yeshiva and later earned a BA with distinction from the Department of Talmud at Tel Aviv University. She taught Bible studies at a high school in Tel Aviv. She also studied at the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem. She is married, has one child and lives in Berlin.