Jewishly Conscious Wedding -- Resources

As you may have guessed, not only have I thought long and hard about various social, political, and environmental concerns about the wedding (see previous post), I have also put a great deal of thought into the Jewish aspects of the wedding.

Specifically, here are some resources I found useful in trying to plan a wedding that is both halachic and meaningfully inclusive of women:

• Most important are the following JOFA Journal issues:

i) On making halahcic weddings more egalitarian: Summer 2003 JOFA Journal's special wedding edition.

ii) On the issue of halachic pre-nuptial agreements, and other means to avoid agunah issues, see the Summer 2005 JOFA Journal on the subject.

• Relatedly, here is the RCA (Orthodox) halachic pre-nuptuial agreement.


• Additionally, I would point out that there are many other relevant resources available on the JOFA website about Jewish marriage from an Orthodox, Feminist perspective.


• We also found this article, "What's the Truth about...a Chatan and Kallah Not Seeing Each Other before the Wedding?" quite illuminating. Turns out this is not an ancient, time-honored Jewish custom, but rather a relatively recent innovation.

Also worth knowing about is JUFJ's Green and Just Celebrations Guide, which provides a lot of ideas about making simchas more environmentally and socially conscious. This of course relates to the subject of the previous post, but with a particularly Jewish bent, so I'm including it here.