For Women and Girls Only: Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy Through the Arts in the Digital Age
Tuesday, December 10 | 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM ET | In-Person Event | Mortara Center for International Studies, Georgetown University Main Campus
Presented by the Center for Jewish Civilization , Mortara Center for International Studies , School of Foreign Service , Women’s and Gender Studies Program , and Gender⁺ Justice Initiative.
Celebrate the release of For Women and Girls Only: Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy Through the Arts in the Digital Age by Jessica Roda, Assistant Professor of Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Join us for a unique panel of reunited scholars and artists, followed by a reception.
For Women and Girls Only argues that access to technology has completely transformed how ultra-Orthodox women express their way of being religious and that the digital era has enabled them to create an alternative entertainment market outside of the public, male-dominated one. Because expectations surrounding modesty, ultra-Orthodox women do not sing, dance, or act in front of men and the public. Yet, in a revolutionary move, they are creating “women and girls only” spaces onsite and online, putting the onus on men to shield themselves from the content. They develop modest public spaces on the Internet, about which male religious leaders are often unaware. The book also explores the entanglement between these observant female artists and those who left religion and became public performers. Dr. Roda shows that the arts expressed by all these women offer a means of not only social but also economic empowerment in their respective worlds.
About the speakers:
Dr. Jessica Roda is an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist trained between Europe and North America whose research interests include music, religion, cultural heritage, gender, health, and media. She has published over fifteen scholarly articles, three books, and a special issue of an academic journal on these topics in French and English.
About the panelists:
Dr. K. Soraya Batmanghelichi is the Associate Professor for the Study of Modern Iran at the University of Oslo, Norway. A women’s activist and feminist scholar, her research focuses on contemporary women’s movements, sexuality, and gendered public space in Iran and the modern Middle East.
Malky Goldman is an actor, artist, and writer currently located in New York City. Originally from a Yiddish-speaking home in Jerusalem, she relocated to the United States and graduated from Hunter College with a Degree in Fine Art.
Yael Luttwak is the Artistic Director of the JxJ Dc Jewish Film and Music Festival. She is passionate about the power of film, music, and Jewish cultural arts to inspire audiences, create conversations, educate, and build community. She holds a B.A. from University of Rochester and an M.A. from London Film School.
About the moderator:
Dr. Jacques Berlinerblau is the Rabbi Harold White Professor of Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Berlinerblau has published on a wide variety of issues ranging from secularism, to religion and politics, to Jewish-American fiction, to African-American and Jewish-American relations, to American higher education.