ABSTRACT
Cynthia Ozick is deeply committed to a central tenet of Judaism, Rabbi Hillel's statement, "love the stranger," a view also expressed, with some variation in emphasis, by several twentieth-century existentialists such as Martin Buber and Simone de Beauvoir. In the 1970s, Ozick had supported classical feminism, namely, the equality of women and men, and opposed it to liberation, a facile solution, in her view, that merely serves to define men and women in separate terms. Her essays advocate change in two areas: one is to dismiss limited views applied to women as artists and writers; the other is to reform aspects of traditional Judaism that maintain separation and inequality based on gender. Ozick advocates a dialogic relation between men and women, and this is the result of her thoughtful and thought-provoking consideration of Jewish texts, culture, and tradition.
