An open conversation: Femininity in Religious Spheres: Experience, Presence, and Representation

Agi Wittich

PhD student in the Department of Comparative Religions, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her research focuses on Women-Oriented Iyengar Yoga Practices, and especially of the tensions of novelty and traditionalism. She also chairs the Limid BeChevruta study group, titled Femininity in Religious Spheres: Experience, Presence, and Representation.

About the study group

This research group will serve as an academic, professional, and social platform for students interested in issues situated at the intersection of comparative religion and gender studies. Using a variety of theories and methodologies, the group will focus on topics such as the presence of women in the religious world, the religious experience of women, and the representation of women in the religious world. Discussions will examine the broader context of issues related to femininity in the religious sphere, such as social customs, history, ideology, and worldviews, as well as the literary and artistic expressions of these experiences, either as conflicts or avenues of growth.

In order to facilitate fruitful discourse and a variety of theoretical positionings, the group invites scholars from different departments, who are interested in similar fields, to participate. The goal of the group is to create peer education on the issue of femininity in the religious sphere. The resulting interdisciplinary academic discourse will contribute to the individual research of each of the participants and enrich their knowledge and thinking. Depending on the nature of the group that is formed, the meetings will include feedback on academic writing and methods for research development, alongside discussion and joint learning of selected topics. Some of the meetings will deal with theoretical aspects and relevant research methods, as well as the study of current issues from research in Israel and abroad, while other meetings will discuss the research of each participant and offer constructive feedback.

Yael Kidron

 PhD student in gender studies in bar ilan university. her research topic is "a designing model for religious femininity: rebbetzin Yemima Mizrachi's leadership". by exploring the case study of rebbetzin Yemima Mizrachi, Mrs. kidron argues that Torah studying for women is a wide-spread phenomenon which have implications for religious lives as well as to secular lives.

Designing model for religious femininity: rebbetzin Yemima Mizrachi's leadership

Rebbetzin Yemima Mizrachi is a popular preacher amid general public of women who have a varied religious orientation. Her many publications include a web site and a Facebook page, a weekly radio show, books, calendars and "The Weekly Pamphlet" (her Torah lesson for the weekly Torah portion) which is being distributed to hundreds of subscribers. The current research aims to examine Rebbetzin Yemima Mizrachi's Leadership as enabling a designing model for religious femininity. The research questions check out what are the characteristics of the feminine-religious model, the characteristics of the leadership model, and wishes to find out how the female audience relates to this feminine-religious model. Those research questions will be studied via an inter-disciplinary approach which combines perspectives of religion and gender.

Qualitative feminist methodology will be conducted. Data collection will be made through observation, interviews and text analysis. Data will be analyzed by "The Listening Guide" of Gilligan.  To sum up, the research wishes to specify the phenomenon of Torah study for women as a social feminine phenomenon which is simultaneously religious and secular. The research will contribute to the mutual influences of feminine religious leadership, feminine theology and feminine religious practices. The research hopes to contribute to the research of gender and religion in the local Jewish-Israeli aspect as well as in the global aspect of the relation between gender and religion in conservative societies.

Clémence Baschet

PhD student in geography beginning her fieldwork in Jerusalem. She studies gender and faith through the funeral spaces of the holy city to understand the place of the women in the three monotheisms.

At the threshold of the heavenly Jerusalem: Graves, gender and Judaism - dealing with the power of the funeral space

The talk focuses on the graveyard of Har HaZeitim and the usual or exceptional role Jewish women have play there. This burial ground is quite unique, hence the fact that it is overlooking the Temple Mount.

In theory and practices, the place and role of women and men around death are differentiated. They don’t have the same role, responsibilities or even the same norms in the way they address their unique God. Concerning death, women are rather put aside. The goal of my fieldwork is to understand how those written rules and traditions are lived by women in Jerusalem, the holy place of the Last Day. Through funeral space, I am interested in their practices : how do they deal with this very peculiar space, at the same time public, confessional and very intimate. Graveyards are spaces of construction and strengthening of one’s identity. A grave is the cultural, political, gender and religious result of a society. It’s a social statement, but also an act of faith, waiting for eternity.

The goal is to understand how women take care or not of the graveyards.  How do they understand and live their religion through experience of grief on an individual scale, but having to compose with it on a community level ?

Michal Etzion

PhD student in gender studies in Bar Ilan university. Her research topic is Women’s agency and missionary living: The experience of Chabad shlichot (emissaries). By exploring the Chabad emissaries, the study seeks to examine the fascinating tension between their concept of mission as an active feminist act and their life in a pious ultra-orthodox community with a clear roles division between men and women.

Women’s agency and missionary living: The experience of Chabad shlichot

The study examines the Chabad shlichot experience during their religious shlichot  (outreach). The research claim is that Chabad's mission is clearly a feminist act in its autonomous activities to spread  the Judaism. Therefore, The Purposes of this study are: 1 . To give a voice to  the Chabad shlichot  who spread religion 2. To examination of the various meanings of the female-religious agency experienced by the Chabad mission. 3. To describe the "lived religion" expression of the missions life. 4. To analyze the female missionary aspects of the Chabad mission's life and work. Within these Purposes, the study seeks to discover new insights into the theories of agency, lived religion, and sociology Missions.

This study has a theoretical and methodological practical contribution. The practical contribution of this study is to give a voice to the emissary women who spread religion. This point of departure may reveal the phenomenon, to reveal and criticize it. The study seeks to examine the fascinating tension between their concept of mission as an active feminist act and their life in an ultra orthodox  community with a clear roles division of men and women. Another contribution of this study is the theoretical contribution. The theoretical contribution will focus on the evaluation of the theories presented. This study will expand and develop the theory of female religious agency in order to strengthen the understanding of the limits of agency As a result, feminist sociology may derive theoretical gains from the discussion of women's sphere of agency in the conservative and pious sphere.

Another theoretical contribution to this study is to expend the "lived religion" theory by examining the religious practices of the emissary women. These will focus the understanding of the practical expression of the missionary women against the practices and beliefs that are institutionally described by religion. In addition, this study will focus on the Jewish female context of spreading religion. In doing so, it may enrich new practices and skills with the "Sociology of Missions" theory. Finally, the methodological contribution in this study will offer a methodology that has not yet been performed in this research field. The research will used a semi-structured interview as a tool to collect data on Jewish women's mission which spread religion and may produce phenomenological data that has not yet been produced. In this study The qualitative research method was selected. It includes semi-structured interviews to be used as a tool for data collection, as they have characteristics that are appropriate to the research field and its purposes. The research participants will have 40 Chabad shlichot living outside of Israel. I will interview shlichot headed by various Chabad houses. They went on a mission of the Lubavitcher Rebbe with their family and set up "Chabad houses" with their spouses. The age range of the participants is wide, ranging from 20 to 80. Since the shlichot start the mission at the beginning of their marriage and continue the mission for the rest of their lives, most are mothers of large families.

Esther Friedman

Doctoral student at the Melton School of Jewish Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her dissertation looks at the way Orthodox teachers’ personal ideologies may be impacted by teaching in North American community schools.  Esther has taught Tanakh for over 25 years, and is the chair of the Bible department at Tanenbaum CHAT, Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto. She lives in Toronto with her husband and children.

The Impact of the Student and Milieu on Teacher Ideology:  Orthodox Tanach Teachers in non-Orthodox schools in North America

This study examines whether the ideological issues and dilemmas that Orthodox Bible teachers face when teaching in a pluralistic environment can impact personal beliefs. According to Blumer’s (1969) theory of symbolic interactionism, meanings are the product of social interaction between people. Meaning-making and understanding is an ongoing interpretive process, during which the initial meaning might remain the same, evolve slightly, or change. Those who live in insulated religious communities may not have the opportunity to interact deeply with those who think differently and may therefore never have the opportunity to examine personal beliefs. Biblical texts that contain ideological challenges, including gender roles, were used as a vehicle for understanding the experience of Orthodox teachers in pluralistic community schools. Teachers were asked to reflect on the ways that their pedagogies and personal beliefs evolved over the course of their years at the school. The research question in this grounded theory study focuses on the ways individuals experience a process, and the researcher will develop a theory to explain and identify the steps in the process.  Twenty-two Orthodox teachers of diverse Orthodox affiliations (i.e. Modern Orthodox, Centrist, Ultra-Orthodox and Chabad) and seven small groups of students have been interviewed to date. Findings thus far include descriptions of interactions over differing worldview about gender, personal struggles that these encounters revealed, and the teachers’ attitudes towards ideological change.