This miniature bookcase relates to the exponential growth in women’s Jewish scholarship in recent decades. Jewish women throughout the last 2 millennia have not been notably learned- this area was overwhelmingly dominated by men. However, we are witnessing a real change with women achieving great influence, prominence and knowledge: writing, teaching, leading institutes of higher education for other women, and women rabbis in all denominations of Judaism. This is nothing short of a revolution, social and intellectual.

I chose to address this new excellence by creating a mini-bookcase (referencing the traditional ‘Jewish Bookcase’). I created 5 shelves, each covering 500 years from the beginning of the first millennium of the Common Era (AD). Each scholar has her name on the spine of a tiny hand-made book, each 6.6 x 5.5 x 1.8cm.

The earlier shelves are either empty or sparsely filled, whereas the shelf from 2000 CE is overflowing with books, depicting the recent phenomenal multiplication of outstanding women currently active in the field of traditional Jewish learning.

This work relates to the themes of ‘Spinoza, Marrano of Reason’ in several ways: it depicts breaking boundaries; defining Judaism in the modern world; and speaks to the relationship between old and new, traditional and modern.