Nashiut ethics: Articulating a Jewish feminist ethics of safekeeping

This work presents an organic argument for the creation of nashiut ethics, a new approach to Jewish theology and ethics which has at its starting point the experiences and perspectives of Jewish women, not Torah or rabbinic law, which exclusively reflect the experiences and perspectives of Jewish men.;The dissertation begins with a broad overview of the treatment of women in Jewish law, in response to which nashiut ethics is born, identifying three basic categories of Jewish law which reify the Otherness and support the subordination of women. It then moves to an analysis and critique of the pioneering thought of Rachel Adler, Judith Plaskow and Rebecca Alpert, all of whom point us in the direction of altering the canon to include and reflect feminist insights and wisdom.;Seeking to move women's stories and experiences into the center of Jewish ethical discourse, nashiut ethics claims that so-called "radical" Jewish women's lives and writing as well as ethnographic interviews conducted with contemporary Jewish women, can be rich resources of moral guidance. Methods for transforming these non-traditional sources into ethical texts are then elaborated and modeled.;It is based on the method articulated by womanist theologian Katie G. Cannon that ethical insights are extrapolated from the life and work of Emma Goldman. It is based on the method developed by mujerista theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz that ethical insights are drawn from the ethnographic interviews. The understandings gleaned from the women's voices then become the lens through which the Torah and rabbinic texts are viewed, to determine what from the tradition can be embraced by nashiut ethics and what must be left behind. They also provide a framework for considering contemporary moral issues. These two processes are also demonstrated.