In October of 2014, 12-year-old Sasha Lutt read from a tiny Torah scroll as a part of her bat mitzvah in the Women's section of the plaza at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site. Surrounded by members of the multi-denominational organization, the Women of the Wall, one of whom had smuggled the scroll into the plaza, Sasha became the first woman to read from the Torah at the site. For more than twenty five years, the Women of the Wall have been waging a campaign to gain the Israeli government's permission to pray at the Western Wall. Despite widespread media coverage, this is the first comprehensive study of their struggle. Yuval Jobani and Nahshon Perez offer an in-depth analysis of the Women of the Wall's attempts to modify Jewish-orthodox mainstream religious practice from within and invest it with a new, egalitarian content. They present a comprehensive survey of the numerous legal rulings about the case and consider the broader political and social significance of the Women of the Wall's activism. In this way, Jobani and Perez are able to address broader issues of religion-state relations: How should governments manage religious plurality within their borders? How should governments respond to the requests of minorities that conflict with ostensibly mainstream interpretations of a given tradition? How should governments manage disputed sacred sites and spaces located in the public sphere? Women of the Wall: Navigating Religion in Sacred Sites offers a critical new look at theories of religion-state relations and a fresh examination of religious conflicts over sacred sites and public spaces.
Introduction Chapter 1 - Laying the Groundworks: Concepts, Definitions, and Methodology. Chapter 2 - Women of the Wall in Focus: Examining the Various Aspects of the WoW's Struggle. Chapter 3 - The Dominant Culture View and the Women of the Wall: Competing Significances, Elusive Tradition, and Inegalitarianism. Chapter 4 - Evenhandedness, Thick Sites, and the Women of the Wall: Permissible but Inapplicable? Chapter 5 - Privatization, Thick Sites and the Women of the Wall: A Suggested Solution. Concluding Remarks Appendix Thick Sites, 'Gag Solutions', and the Ayodhya Dispute.
Yuval Jobani is an Associate Professor in the Department of Hebrew Culture Studies and School of Education at Tel-Aviv University. Nahshon Perez is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University.
Reviews for Women of the Wall: Navigating Religion in Sacred Sites
Richly detailed, concise study --Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues The fight for gender equality at the Western Wall in Jerusalem is a fascinating story, well told in this book. But Jobani and Perez have a larger ambition: to help us understand how the state should deal with religious diversity and disagreement. They have produced a finely nuanced and highly persuasive defense of the necessary dividing line between religion and politics. --Michael Walzer, Emeritus Professor of Social Science, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton The history of world Jewry will owe a great debt of gratitude to Yuval Jobani and Nahshon Perez for their comprehensive, authoritative, invaluable account of the women's 30-year struggle for the right to pray with dignity at Jerusalem's Western Wall. -Letty Cottin Pogrebin, author of Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America This excellent analysis of the role of the Women of the Western Wall in promoting pluralism demonstrates that state support for the dominant cultural view at the expense of diverse groups endangers democracy. -Frances Raday, Counsel for Women of the Wall, Professor of Law, Hebrew University As the first comprehensive academic study of the group Women of the Wall [WoW], this volume makes important contributions to several scholarly fields... a rich, complex volume of import to a wide range of disciplines including gender studies, law, political science, and religious studies... The work is a timely contribution to scholarly discussions on contemporary feminism both inside and outside particular traditions. --Reading Religion (RR), a publication of the American Academy of Religion (AAR)
- Winner of 2017 Best Book Award, Israel Political Science Association Honorable Mention / Finalist of the Association for Israel Studies' Shapiro Prize for Best Book in Israel Studies in 2017.
- Winner of 2017 Best Book Award, Israel Political Science Association Honorable Mention / Finalist of the Association for Israel Studies' Shapiro Prize for Best Book in Israel Studies in 2017.
