Landress (graduate affairs, New York U. School of Law) examines representations of Jewish Orthodoxy in American and Israeli women's fiction published between 1980 and the present to show how they reflect different attitudes towards Orthodoxy. She considers how literature in which the feminist critique of patriarchy is affected by the religious and cultural authority of traditional Judaism and influences the dialogue between Judaism and feminism, within the context of the decades following second-wave feminism. She details developments in Jewish feminism and draws on feminist and Jewish feminist theory and genre theory to examine how the literature is affected by and affects feminism to reflect changing views about it, as well as national differences. She describes the context of the feminist and Jewish feminist sphere and the Israeli socio-political context, recurring themes in the literature, and narratives that represent haredi women's lives and critique traditional gender roles in haredi communities, including those by Hanna Bat Shahar, Yocheved Reisman, and Yehudit Rotem. She illustrates how American writers like Allegra Goodman, Anne Roiphe, Rebecca Goldstein, and Naomi Ragen use haredi Orthodoxy to critique American models of feminist emancipation; fiction by authors like Yochi Brandes and Mira Kedar that addresses social and political conflict in Israel; and the novels of Mira Magen and Lilach Galil El-ami, who engage feminism in their representation of protagonists who affirm Jewish spirituality. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)