The Jewish and Islamic religious feminist struggles that have taken place in recent decades in Israel are largely based on building a broad body of religious knowledge that allows for additional just interpretations of sacred texts from a perspective that promotes women. Religious feminists from both religions are working to replace traditional interpretations that oppress women with other new ones that improve their personal, religious, social, and political status.
Our discussion aims to reveal the similarities and differences between the development of women`s religious scholarship in Islam and Judaism in Israel and to trace the religious interpretation and learning strategies of religious women scholars and their impact. To do so, we compare the activity of women`s religious scholarship in the organizations Women and Horizons and Kolech. We have just finished writing a joint article on this topic. While writing the article together and learning about each other`s religious communities, we, a Jewish scholar and Muslim scholar were surprised to discover many similarities and encountered wide gaps between the feminist scholarship of the two religions.
In the discussion, we would like to present together our conclusions from the research on the two types of religious learning in Israel and their challenges. We would like to talk about our shared writing experiences.
Nahed Ashqar Sharary is a Ph.D. candidate examining the challenge of indigenous Palestinian Islamic feminism in Israel. Moria Ran Ben Hai is a social historian who compares modern Orthodox feminism in Israel and the United States.