Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought

As a series of magazine articles on the general concerns of contemporary Jewish women, Blu Greenberg's pieces went relatively unnoticed and for the most part were critically unexamined. Placed together in the less hurried confines of a book, however, her attempts to graft certain feminist values onto normative Jewish tradition invite much more careful scrutiny and examination. She writes with lucidity and often with sensitivity. But, as indicated in her sub-title, Mrs. Greenberg claims to base her ideas on Jewish law, on classical Jewish texts, and on the vast corpus of the halakhic tradition, and it is on these grounds that her material does not sustain a critical analysis. Regrettably, her articles now emerge as a recounting of feminist arguments of the most conforming sort, papered over with occasional halakhic rhetoric which barely conceals that which lies underneath: imprecise scholarship, slippery logic, and major conclusions often based on nothing more than personal feelings, emotions, and intuitions. Her operating principles are taken from the same tedious catalogue of complaints offered by Betty Friedan and company for years, and her suggestions for tampering with Jewish law echo the dreary litany long recited by various non-halakhic ideologies.