Eliezer Berkovits - Women in Jewish Law

Women in Jewish Law

Berkovits was critical of the lack of rights a married Jewish woman has in relation to her husband in issues of marriage and divorce. Rabbi Prof. David Hartman said in a March, 2009, lecture about Berkovits that Berkovits was deeply concerned with the treatment of women in Jewish life, law, and practice. He affirmed the equity of women and men within the institution of Jewish marriage, but never advocated any abrogation of existing Jewish law.

Berkovits called for the ethical courage on the part of Jewish legal authorities to put what already exists in principle into practice. He was a major inspiration for many traditional Jewish women who sought to carve out a more equitable position within the boundaries of the Jewish law.

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