Elad Caplan

Gender, Judaism, Internet: Religious Authority and Feminism in Online Spaces

This dissertation deals with relationships between gender, Judaism and the internet, and focuses on opportunities and challenges facing Jewish religious feminists in obtaining religious authority for women in online spaces. The purpose of the study is to examine the ways in which female religious authority is shaped in different online spaces, and how these spaces can serve the purposes of religious feminism in reforming the structures of religious authority. The study seeks to shed light on the relationship between religion and the Internet, and the relationship between religious women and the Internet in particular.