howard's review
4.0
I first heard of this collection in college where I read one (or two?) essays from it during a sex, gender, and Jewish identity seminar. I bought the book shortly after that class and only 3 years later am I getting to it. I found many of these essays extremely valuable and insightful, despite being published over 20 years ago. I was honestly not expecting the level of diversity of subject that I found in here, including essays from queer, disabled, and many non Ashkenazi Jews, as well as essays about sexual liberation and one about the specific issues faced by transgender Jews. While the feminism in this collection is very clearly of the third wave and is not as inclusive as I might expect from writers today, a lot of it was on the right track and I believe if I looked up the authors today many of them will have expanded their views of feminism and inclusion with the changing times and societal expectations. This includes some of the language use choices in the various essays. That being said, this was still extremely progressive in terms of inclusion and I have no qualms recommending this collection or many of the essays from it.
Favorite essays (in order of appearance) by Dina Hornreich, Sharon Wachsler, Danya Ruttenberg, Karen (Chai) Levy, Yidkah (Jessica) Rosenfeld, Ursula Katan, Emily Wages, Loolwa Khazzoom, Tobin Belzer, and Hanne Blank
HOWEVER, I want to have some words with whichever editor decided that none of the essays were allowed to use the Oxford comma. I find this stylistic choice very disruptive and I believe this collection would be improved by the addition of Oxford commas where necessary.
Favorite essays (in order of appearance) by Dina Hornreich, Sharon Wachsler, Danya Ruttenberg, Karen (Chai) Levy, Yidkah (Jessica) Rosenfeld, Ursula Katan, Emily Wages, Loolwa Khazzoom, Tobin Belzer, and Hanne Blank
HOWEVER, I want to have some words with whichever editor decided that none of the essays were allowed to use the Oxford comma. I find this stylistic choice very disruptive and I believe this collection would be improved by the addition of Oxford commas where necessary.
shuly's review against another edition
4.0
Overall, I'd say that while I really enjoyed the collection, certain essays lagged behind the pack. There were some pretty progressive, exciting thoughts on trans people and people of color but much of it felt like it was presented for a white/cis audience--it's readily apparent that the book was designed with a early 30s cis white Ashkenazi jewish woman, which isn't a bad thing, but for those of us who don't fit that description it sometimes felt like we were outsiders to a conversation among those people.
All that being said, I think a lot of that has to do with the time this was published. Popular feminist discourse has come a long way in the last decade and I'd really like to see a collection of modern feminist jewish women in the future, featuring trans women's voices and more space for women of color!
All that being said, I think a lot of that has to do with the time this was published. Popular feminist discourse has come a long way in the last decade and I'd really like to see a collection of modern feminist jewish women in the future, featuring trans women's voices and more space for women of color!
yossikhe's review against another edition
5.0
A diferencia de la percepción de mucha gente, el judaísmo es extremadamente diverso. Aparte de ser una prueba de eso, Yentl’s Revenge da voz a un grupo al que han tratado de callar por más de dos milenios: las mujeres judías. Leer sus experiencias y conectarme con ellas en un nivel tanto humano como identitario, sin duda alguna enriqueció mi judaísmo. Además, la diversidad de mujeres que forman parte de la compilación logran que la lectura sea entretenida, cambiante e inesperada. En particular, puedo decir que mi cosmovisión judía cambió con los ensayos de Danya Ruttenberg (sobre la transexualidad, la menstruación y la mikveh), de Karen Levy (sobre ser una rabina, mujer y atractiva al mismo tiempo), Yiskah Rosenfeld (sobre el papel feminista de Lilith y de Eva en la Torah), de Haviva Ner-David (sobre una educación feminista judía en la que sus hijas usan tzitzit) y de Dina Hornreich (sobre las contradicciones y las etiquetas). Asimismo, fue impactante leer el ensayo de Ursula Katan, víctima de abuso sexual incestuoso por sobrevivientes del Holocausto, recordando que la categoría de víctimas no nos hace ángeles y no nos quita la capacidad de hacer daño. Otro que me pareció impactante fue el de Loolwa Khazzoom, en el que habla de ser Mizrahi en un judaísmo dominado por la cultura Ashkenazi. Como parte de la comunidad judía en México, no diría que mi entorno como judío-árabe es ashkenocentrista y nunca me había puesto a pensar en la identidad que alguien como yo tendría en EE.UU., una comunidad dominada por la historia Idish, el Guefilte Fish y el Bagel & Lox.
Algo que interesantemente noté en la lectura fue el hecho de que muchas de las mujeres que escribieron abandonaron el judaísmo en un periodo de sus vidas, tan sólo para que aparezca de otras formas más tarde. Quitar la propia identidad es imposible y es maravilloso que el judaísmo tenga tantas corrientes, y tan flexibles, que le dan cupo a cualquiera. Sería importante que esas corrientes sean más visibles.
En fin, Yentl’s Revenge es una antología perspicaz que podrá dejar cuestionándose a cualquier persona judía por días.
Algo que interesantemente noté en la lectura fue el hecho de que muchas de las mujeres que escribieron abandonaron el judaísmo en un periodo de sus vidas, tan sólo para que aparezca de otras formas más tarde. Quitar la propia identidad es imposible y es maravilloso que el judaísmo tenga tantas corrientes, y tan flexibles, que le dan cupo a cualquiera. Sería importante que esas corrientes sean más visibles.
En fin, Yentl’s Revenge es una antología perspicaz que podrá dejar cuestionándose a cualquier persona judía por días.
theresanels's review
4.0
I guess take this rating with a grain of salt considering I’m not Jewish, but I really enjoyed these essays. The Lilith and Eve essay is still my favorite, I think.
More...