Women As Ritual Experts The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem

by Sered, Susan Starr

• ISBN13: 9780195111460
• ISBN10: 019511146X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-11-21
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This ethnography explores the religious beliefs and rituals of a group of elderly Jewish women, originally from Kurdistan and Yemen, who now live in Jerusalem. Sered visited the women in their homes and accompanied them on trips to holy tombs, local ethnic synagogues, and Judaica classes. Shefinds that, though mainly illiterate and excluded from formal religious practices, the women are experts in rituals aimed at safeguarding the well-being of their extended families. By analyzing their rituals, daily experiences, life-stories, and non-verbal gestures, Sered uncovers the strategiesthese women have used to circumvent the patriarchal institutions of Judaism, and how they have developed their own "little tradition" within and parallel to the "great tradition" of Torah Judaism.

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(1)
The Women	4	(2)
Women and Religion	6	(4)
Note on Methodology	10	(2)
Middle Eastern Jewry---An Overview	12	(3)
Setting the Stage	15	(3)
Old Women as the Link Between the Generations	18	(16)
Supplicants and Guardians of the Dead	18	(4)
Spiritual Guardians of Their Descendants	22	(2)
Guardians of the Unborn	24	(2)
The Domestication of Religion	26	(8)
The Dual Meaning of Religiosity: Women, Men, and Morality	34	(15)
The Women	34	(2)
The Men	36	(3)
Charity---The Greatest Women's Mitzvah	39	(2)
An Exceptional Woman	41	(2)
An Exceptional Man	43	(3)
Women, Men, and Moral Development	46	(3)
Between Woman and God	49	(16)
Belief	50	(1)
Everything Is in God's Hands	51	(3)
The Wheel of Fate	54	(1)
Between Women and God	54	(2)
Evil Eye	56	(2)
The Chosen People in the Holy Land	58	(3)
Gestures	61	(4)
From the Female Perspective	65	(22)
Women and [Il]literacy	66	(5)
Women and Modesty	71	(3)
Reinterpreting Stories	74	(3)
Women, God, and Halacha	77	(2)
The Holidays	79	(8)
Sacralizing the Feminine: Food Preparation as a Religious Activity	87	(16)
Kashrut	88	(2)
Domestic Religion	90	(2)
Cooking as Caring	92	(1)
Food and Festivals	93	(8)
Cooking as a Female Sacred Act	101	(2)
The Liberation of Widowhood: From the Private to the Public	103	(18)
Childhood	103	(1)
Wives	104	(2)
Widows	106	(4)
Day Center	110	(2)
Synagogue	112	(2)
Pilgrimage	114	(7)
Ritual Expertise in the Modern World	121	(17)
New Opportunities	121	(6)
Ritual Specialists in the Old Country	127	(5)
Vulnerability of Women's Religion	132	(2)
Innovation and Tenacity	134	(4)
Conclusion: The Making of a Ritual Expert	138	(4)
Glossary of Hebrew Terms	142	(3)
Notes	145	(16)
Bibliography	161	(10)
Index	171