A Response to Lisa Fishbayn Joffe and Discussion Points

Abstract

This piece is a response to the challenging and inspirational paper presented by Dr. Fishbayn Joffe as part of the University of Manchester’s Sherman Conversations on the last fifty years in Jewish Studies and Gender Studies. I engage with Dr. Fishbayn Joffe’s focus on various attempts to resolve the legal problems related to kiddushin, and explore these issues through my academic experiences learning and teaching about kiddushin with a wide range of scholars and students over the past 25 years. After examining various avenues for legal change, given the inherent inequity of kiddushin, I ultimately argue in favour of its abandonment.