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Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised?
Author(s) -
Cohen Shaye J.D.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
gender and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-0424
pISSN - 0953-5233
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0424.00076
Subject(s) - judaism , covenant , sign (mathematics) , religious studies , history , zionism , gender studies , sociology , theology , philosophy , archaeology , mathematical analysis , mathematics
From Hellenistic to modern times, in the eyes of Jews and non‐Jews alike, circumcision is a sign that marks the boundary between Jews and non‐Jews. Jews are circumcised, gentiles are not. What, then, of Jewish women? Why are they not marked with a bodily sign attesting to their place within the covenant? Cohen argues that the Jews of antiquity seem not to have been bothered by this question probably because the fundamental Otherness of women was clear to them. Jewish women were Jewish by birth, but their Jewishness was assumed to be inferior to that of Jewish men. Jews and Christians, however, who opposed circumcision, used the non‐circumcision of women as one of their supporting arguments.