THE CASE OF FEMINISM- MECHANISMS OF CHANGE
Walter Jacob
Emancipation swept the old Jewish world away overnight. Nothing like that had happened for thousands of years. More radical changes were coming in the form of vast emigration, the Shoah, and the State of Israel . Judaism had to adapt quickly. The initial impulse, as always, was to do nothing and to reject any change in the words of Moses Sofer (1763-1839):“Any change is forbidden by the Torah .”
The old Jewish community, virtually“a state within a state” that governed itself was gone, and Jews , still without civil rights, were now treated as individuals in the new nation states. This revolution had been set in motion by Napoleon throughout his vast conquests. His new world view, with its promise of eventual civil rights and economic and social freedom, was hailed with joy by all Jews . Much of what he had promised and partially given was swept away with his defeat, but neither the ghetto walls nor the community of a“state within a state” could be reestablished by even the most conservative Central European states.
Jewish life had to be reconstituted and virtually reinvented as the community that had governed through Jewish law as a“state within a state” enforced by the Christian government was gone. The older mechanisms for change were no longer possible as communal authority was gone, the broader regional councils had disappeared and rabbinic decisions were ignored. Rabbis found their status, power, and decisions rejected. The Jewish individual with newfound freedom questioned everything. As Jews fought for equal rights and raised other issues in the new nation states, they also questioned every aspect of Jewish life that had thus far been taken for granted. This included the role of the bet din, synagogue services, the educational system, marriage and divorce laws, and everything else that was organized in such detail by the Shulhan Arukh. This