soon included the place of women in Jewish life. Jewish women were in a better position than their gentile contemporaries as they could control property, trade, had a voice in their marriages, and could initiate divorce. These and other rights had been in place for centuries, but women were not equal to men, and especially in religious matters, their role was very limited and secondary. Voices demanding change were soon raised, but the change came haltingly in virtually every area; nor was a historical or theological basis for them developed. New mechanisms had to be invented and adopted to initiate change in this ans every sphere of Jewish life.
This paper will deal with the emerging mechanisms for change and innovation. I will show how these avenues evolved within the Reform Jewish community and eventually became valid for other segments of the newly fragmented Jewish society. Each community in this pluralistic Jewish world was a voluntary society, and anyone who was dissatisfied could join another group since persuasion had replaced coercion.
The successes and limitations of each of these mechanisms can best be shown by tracing a practical issue; I have chosen the slow awakening of feminism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It illustrates these mechanisms well. The struggle for equal rights for women in Jewish life has been continuous until the present; this is in vivid contrast to most problems of the newly emancipated Jewish community, which were resolved long ago. Women have struggled” for two centuries. This paper will therefore deal with the creative methods used by the Reform community to deal with feminist issues. This should provide insight into the mechanisms of change used by the modern emancipated Jewish world as it shaped its future.
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