In Taking Back God Leora Tanenbaum recounts the stories of women across the United States, starting with herself, who love their religion but hate their second-class status within it.

 

"At the outset of this well-written book, Tanenbaum tells her own story to the reader, as she has told it to the many women she interviewed, to provide a context to her own quest . . . She describes herself as an observant Jew who 'respects Jewish law and adheres to it to the fullest of my abilities. Jewish law guides many, if not most, of the small and large actions I take every single day.' A proud feminist . . . She admits to days filled with contradictions in a life that is both modern and preserving of Jewish traditions. As she takes Jewish law seriously, she also leaves open the opportunity to struggle with the law. While Tanenbaum attends Orthodox services, she doesn’t appreciate sitting upstairs and separate, far from the action. But she says she gains spiritual strength from many aspects of the service, and also attends a monthly partnership minyan near her home on the Upper East Side where women have opportunities to have a role in leading the service. Tanenbaum sees her own struggle as mild in comparison to what others face. The author and her subjects seem to connect, as fellow travelers along paths of faith, even as their paths diverge. Women were very open with her, welcoming her into their places of worship and their public and private conversations. She had no problem finding women to interview; she went to conferences, made connections, and then was linked to other women. 'Dissatisfied people,' she notes, 'want to talk.' She found that the Muslim women in particular wanted to be heard, and appreciated the opportunity to talk to someone who would listen to them respectfully and without judgment. Frequently, the curiosity was reciprocal. She noticed that people who are devout want to know about other faiths . . . Muslim women talked to her about their longings for and efforts at women-led prayer, and also about their frustrations with having to enter their places of worship through a back door; one woman told of hearing a visiting imam preach about the permissibility of wife beating. These women . . . are confident that the egalitarian impulse and gender justice are there, within Islam. They also spoke candidly about how they feel about covering themselves with the traditional hijab . . . Tanenbaum’s chapters on Jewish women are incisive, providing some of the best concise explanations of Jewish rituals and practice, and Orthodox feminists’ perspectives . . . Books change their writers as well as their readers, and Tanenbaum admits that writing this book broadened her outlook."—Sandee Brawarsky, The Jewish Week