The Gender Challenge of Hebrew The Brill Reference Library of Judaism Editors Alan J. Avery-Peck (College of the Holy Cross) William Scott Green (University of Rochester) Editorial Board David Aaron (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati) Herbert Basser (Queen’s University) Bruce D. Chilton (Bard College) José Faur (Netanya College) Neil Gillman (Jewish Theological Seminary of America) Mayer I. Gruber (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) Ithamar Gruenweld (Tel Aviv University) Maurice-Ruben Hayoun (University of Strasbourg and Hochschule fuer Juedische Studien Heidelberg) Arkady Kovelman (Moscow State University) David Kraemer (Jewish Theological Seminary of America) Baruch A. Levine (New York University) Alan Nadler (Drew University) Jacob Neusner (Bard College) Maren Niehoff (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Gary G. Porton (University of Illinois) Aviezer Ravitzky (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Dov Schwartz (Bar Ilan University) Günter Stemberger (University of Vienna) Michael E. Stone (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Elliot Wolfson (New York University) VOLUME 42 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/brlj The Gender Challenge of Hebrew By Malka Muchnik LEIDEN | BOSTON Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Muchnik, Malka, author. The gender challenge of Hebrew / by Malka Muchnik. pages cm. — (The Brill reference library of Judaism ; volume 42) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-28270-4 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-28271-1 (e-book) 1. Hebrew language—Gender. 2. Hebrew language—Sex differences. I. Title. PJ4625.M83 2015 492.45’5—dc23 2014028948 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1571-5000 isbn 978-90-04-28270-4 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-28271-1 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. 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Contents Preface ix 1 Introduction 1 Language and Gender as a Cultural and Social Problem 1 Initial Studies on Language and Gender 2 Is Gender a Grammatical or Semantic Issue? 4 Symbolization and Language Organization 5 Gender Markedness 7 Gender Markedness in Natural Languages 7 Gender Markedness in Constructed Languages 9 Grammatical Gender in Hebrew 10 Feminine Markedness and Derivation 10 Grammatical Gender of Animate and Inanimate Nouns 15 Grammatical Gender of Numerals 16 Semantic Impact on Gender 17 Language and Gender Representation 19 Gender and Brain Representation 23 Gender and the Speech Community 25 Language and Gender Research 28 Linguistic Changes in Gender 31 2 Language and Gender in Classical Hebrew 33 General Remarks 33 Gender in the Bible 34 Men and Women’s Representation in Biblical Terms 34 Women’s Status in the Bible 38 Women and Leadership in the Bible 44 Gender Proverbs in the Bible 47 Grammatical Gender in Biblical Hebrew 49 Gender Shifting of Pronouns and Inflected Prepositions 49 Gender Shifting of Verbs, Participles and Copulas 53 Gender Shifting and Special Cases of Nouns 57 Differences in Forms of Address 61 Gender in Mishnaic Times 63 Grammatical Gender in Mishnaic Hebrew 63 Women’s Status in Mishnaic Period 66 Mishnaic Stories about Women 71 vi contents Gender in the Middle Ages 74 Grammatical Gender in Medieval Hebrew 74 Women’s Status in Medieval Times 77 3 Language, Gender and Religion 83 Men and Women in Judaism 83 Women and the Study of Religious Texts 87 Expectation for Women to Remain Silent 90 Jewish Women’s Status Over the Course of Time 92 Linguistic Terms for Religious Functions 95 Jewish Ceremonies 99 Birth Ceremonies and Prayers 99 Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah Ceremonies 103 The Wedding Ceremony 105 Special Religious Texts for Women 106 Religious Texts Written by Women 111 Feminist Changes in Judaism 114 Language Changes in Liturgical Texts 119 Blessing for Not Being Created a Woman? 120 Adding the Names of the Matriarchs 124 Alternative Names for God 126 Mentioning Women in Ceremonies 128 4 Gender in Modern Literature and Language 131 The First Women Writers in Hebrew 131 Special Female Genres and Style 133 Special Women’s Literature? 135 Women Writers in Israel 137 Hebrew Revitalization and Gender 139 Father Tongue or Mother Tongue? 143 Women Writers Entering the Canon 144 Gendered Language in Literature 147 Social Reasons for Linguistic Differences 150 Gender Distinctions in Hebrew 152 Gender in the Number System 153 Gender in Animal Names 155 Androcentric Generics 158 Gender Saliency and Discrepancy 159 Gender Perceptions in the Language 161 contents vii Gender and Metaphoric Uniqueness 166 Stereotypes Reflected in the Language 169 Popular Gendered Expressions 174 5 Gender Changes in the Language 178 Language Change or Social Change? 178 Different Types of Linguistic Changes 180 Applying Linguistic Changes 182 Changes in Constructed Languages 186 Grammatical Changes in Hebrew 187 Changes in Forms of Address 189 Morphological Changes 195 Lexical and Semantic Changes 196 Changes in Professional and Occupational Titles 198 Masculine Use for Female Occupations 203 Masculine Fixed Expressions in Hebrew 206 Gender Use in Proper Names 210 Gender Changes in Proper Names 213 Switching Linguistic Gender 216 Language, Gender and Sexuality 219 Hebrew Terms Referring to Homosexuality 222 6 Summary and Conclusions 226 The Problem of Language and Gender 226 The Gender Problem in Hebrew 226 Gender in Hebrew throughout History 227 Gender Representation in Judaism 227 Gender in Modern Language and Literature 228 Gender Changes in Modern Hebrew 228 Conclusions 229 References 231 Subject Index 249 Author Index 253 Preface Hebrew is historically a unique language, particularly from the gender per- spective. It has been spoken since the second millennium BCE and has devel- oped into what we call Modern Hebrew. This linguistic process, however, was far from being standard linguistic development: the language was not spoken for almost 1700 years, from the exile of the Jewish people in the Roman era to its revival at the end of the nineteenth century. This very long linguistic history provides us with fascinating insights into attitudes toward gender. From the sociolinguistic perspective, we can infer information about how speakers and leaders in the different periods perceived men and women and their roles in the community. In terms of grammar, Hebrew was and still is totally gender-marked, allowing us to better understand the relation between language and gender. Moreover, the very fact that it is almost impossible to change the gender aspect of the language enables us to discern exceptional processes, which may allude to interesting phenomena. This book describes the extraordinary relationship between language and gender in Hebrew, and the special challenge speakers face when communicat- ing in this language. Chapter 1 provides a general introduction and overview of the gender research and approaches taken in the study from various aspects. A historical account of Classical Hebrew and its relation to gender is presented in Chapter 2, which includes the biblical, Mishnaic and medieval periods of the language. Chapter 3 offers a view of the Jewish religious world and its approach to gender in the different eras. Chapter 4 presents an examination of Modern Hebrew and gender in the language and Israeli literature. Chapter 5 analyzes contemporary gender changes in Hebrew. Chapter 6 summarizes the different issues covered in the book and presents conclusions. To facilitate understanding, Hebrew words are presented throughout the book in simple, not precise, professional transcription. I hope that this comprehensive study on language and gender contributes to a better understanding of the unique development of Hebrew, an ancient language at the service of a modern nation. It is my sincere hope that this study makes speakers more aware of the problem and encourages them to try to find appropriate solutions to the linguistic and gender challenges of our time. chapter 1 Introduction Abstract This chapter describes the unique problem of gender. It deals with gender markedness in natural and constructed languages, and focuses on the special grammatical femi- nine markedness in Hebrew. The influence of grammatical features and structures is examined regarding the brain representation of gender as well as the attitude of the speech community towards gender in language. After reporting on the major research theories developed and some salient research that has been conducted about different languages, the chapter then turns to gender topics in Hebrew. Language and Gender as a Cultural and Social Problem The importance of describing the problem of language and gender is related to human perception