tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/judaism-2202/articlesJudaism – The Conversation2024-03-27T12:38:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210712024-03-27T12:38:11Z2024-03-27T12:38:11ZThe roots of the Easter story: Where did Christian beliefs about Jesus’ resurrection come from?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583768/original/file-20240322-29-86j1i0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2013%2C923&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mosaic of the Resurrection in the Basilica of St. Paul in Harissa, Lebanon.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mosa%C3%AFques_de_la_basilique_Saint_Paul_(Harissa)09.jpg">FredSeiller/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Easter approaches, Christians around the world begin to focus on two of the central tenets of their faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. </p>
<p>Other charismatic Jewish teachers or <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/The_Jewish_Spiritual_Heroes%2C_Volume_I%3B_The_Creators_of_the_Mishna%2C_Rabbi_Chanina_ben_Dosa?lang=bi">miracle workers</a> were active in Judea around the same time, approximately 2,000 years ago. What set Jesus apart was his <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15.12-19&version=NRSVUE">followers’ belief in his resurrection</a>. For believers, this was not only a miracle, but a sign that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish messiah, sent to save the people of Israel from their oppressors.</p>
<p>But was the idea of a resurrection itself a unique belief in first-century Israel? </p>
<p>I am <a href="https://religiousstudies.wvu.edu/faculty-and-staff/faculty/aaron-gale">a scholar of ancient Judaism</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/redefining-ancient-borders-9780567025210/">its connection to the early Christian movement</a>. The Christian concept of Jesus rising from the dead helped shape many of the faith’s key teachings and, ultimately, the new religion’s split from Judaism. Yet religious teachings about resurrection go back many centuries before Jesus walked the earth.</p>
<p>There are stories that likely predate early Jewish beliefs by many centuries, such as the Egyptian story of the god <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100255831">Osiris being resurrected by his wife, Isis</a>. Most relevant for Christianity, though, are Judaism’s own ideas about resurrection.</p>
<h2>‘Your dead shall live’</h2>
<p>One of the earliest written Jewish references to resurrection in the Bible is found in the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+26&version=NRSVUE">Book of Isaiah</a>, which discusses a future era, perhaps a time of final judgment, in which the dead would rise and be subject to God’s ultimate justice. “Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise,” Isaiah prophesies. “Those who dwell in the dust will awake and shout for joy.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three rows of yellowed manuscript on a scroll, with jagged edges." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Great Isaiah Scroll: the best preserved of the biblical scrolls found at Qumran, by the Dead Sea, which was probably written around the second century B.C.E.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Isaiah_Scroll.jpg">Ardon Bar Hama/The Israel Museum, Jerusalem/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Later Jewish biblical texts such as the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+12.2&version=NRSVUE">Book of Daniel</a> also referenced resurrection.</p>
<p>There were several competing Jewish sects at the time of Jesus’ life. The most prominent and influential, the Pharisees, further integrated <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2023%3A8&version=NRSVUE">the concept of resurrection</a> into Jewish thought. According to <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/war-2.html">the first-century historian Josephus</a>, the Pharisees believed that the soul was immortal and could be reunited with a resurrected body – ideas that would likely have made the idea of Jesus rising from the dead more acceptable to the Jews of his time.</p>
<p>Within a few centuries, the rabbis began to fuse together the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+37.1-12&version=NRSVUE">earlier biblical references to bodily resurrection</a> with the later ideas of the Pharisees. In particular, the rabbis began to discuss the concept of <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Ketubot.111a?lang=bi">bodily resurrection</a> and its connection to the messianic era.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Beige stone boxes sit on the ground in rows, with a building with a golden roof in the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Jewish Cemetery on Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Graves face the Temple Mount, where some believe that the resurrection of the dead will culminate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:121224-Jerusalem-Mount-of-Olives_(27497923512).jpg">xiquinhosilva/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Jews believed that the legitimate Messiah would be <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2011&version=NRSVUE">a descendant of the biblical King David</a> who would vanquish their enemies and <a href="https://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/31-pssal-nets.pdf">restore Israel to its previous glory</a>. In the centuries following Jesus’ death, the rabbis taught that the souls of the dead <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1127503/jewish/The-Resurrection-Process.htm">would be resurrected</a> after the Messiah appeared on earth.</p>
<p>By the 500s C.E. or so, the rabbis further elaborated upon the concept. The Talmud, the most important collection of authoritative writings on Jewish law apart from the Bible itself, notes that <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sanhedrin.10.1?lang=bi">one who does not believe in resurrection has no share in the “Olam Haba</a>,” the “World to Come.” The Olam Haba is the realm where these sages believed <a href="https://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/25/Q2/">one’s soul eventually dwells</a> after death. Interestingly, the concept of hell itself never became ingrained within mainstream Jewish thought.</p>
<p>Even now, the concept of God giving life to the dead is affirmed every day <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/146958?lang=bi">in the Amidah</a>, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mechayeh-hameitim-rethinking-the-resurrection-blessing/">a Jewish prayer recited</a> as part of the daily morning, afternoon and evening services.</p>
<h2>Old ideas, new beliefs</h2>
<p>The fact that the first followers of Jesus were Jews likely contributed to the concept of resurrection becoming ingrained into Christian thought. Yet the Christian understanding of resurrection was taken to an unprecedented degree in the decades following Jesus’ death.</p>
<p>According to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus, a Jew from Galilee, entered Jerusalem in the days before Passover. He was accused of sedition against the Roman authorities – and likely other charges, such as blasphemy – largely because he was <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+21%3A12-13&version=NRSVUE">causing a disturbance</a> among the Jews getting ready to celebrate the holiday. At the time, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/passover-pesach-history/">Passover was a pilgrimage festival</a> in which tens of thousands of Jews would travel to Jerusalem.</p>
<p>After being betrayed by one of his followers, Judas, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26.47-68&version=NRSVUE">Jesus was arrested, hastily put on trial</a> and sentenced to be crucified. The Roman authorities wished to uphold the pax Romana, or Roman peace. They feared that unrest amid a major festival could lead to a rebellion, especially given the accusation that at least some of Jesus’ followers believed him to be the “<a href="https://ehrmanblog.org/why-was-jesus-crucified/">King of the Jews</a>, as was recorded later in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+2%3A2&version=NRSVUE">Matthew’s</a> and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+15.2&version=NRSVUE">Mark’s Gospels</a>.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crucifixes often display the Latin abbreviation ‘INRI,’ short for ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’ This statue in Germany’s Ellwangen Abbey shows the abbreviation in three languages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ellwangen_St_Vitus_Vorhalle_Kreuzaltar_detail2.jpg">Andreas Praefcke/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>According to the Gospels, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+27.32-28.10&version=NRSVUE">Jesus was put to death</a> on what is now Good Friday, and rose again on the third day – which today is celebrated as Easter Sunday.</p>
<p>Jesus’ early followers believed not only that he had been resurrected, but that he was <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/themovement.html">the long-awaited Jewish messiah</a>, who had fulfilled earlier <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hosea+6.1-2&version=NRSVUE">Jewish prophecies</a>. Eventually, they also embraced the idea that he was <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/300246095">the divine Son of God</a>, although scholars still debate exactly how and when this occurred.</p>
<p>In addition, the nature of Jesus’ resurrection remains <a href="https://marcusjborg.org/posts-by-marcus/the-resurrection-of-jesus/">a source of debate</a> among theologians and scholars – such as whether followers believed his <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24.36-43&version=NRSVUE">resurrected body was made of flesh and blood</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Cor+3.17-18&version=NRSVUE">or pure spirit</a>. </p>
<p>Yet the grander meaning of the resurrection, which is recorded in all <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28%3A1-10%2CMark+16%3A1-11%2CLuke+24%3A1-12%2CJohn+20&version=NRSVUE">four canonical Gospels</a>, remains clear for many of the approximately 2 billion Christians around the world: They believe that Jesus <a href="https://www.religion-online.org/article/resurrection-faith-n-t-wright-talks-about-history-and-belief/">triumphed over death</a>, which serves as a cornerstone foundation of the Christian faith.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Gale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ideas about resurrection had been developing for centuries before Jesus’ life, but his followers took them in new directions.Aaron Gale, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2186772024-03-21T12:25:02Z2024-03-21T12:25:02ZPurim’s original queen: How studying the Book of Esther as fan fiction can teach us about the roots of an unruly Jewish festival<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582875/original/file-20240319-24-z4q69e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C1022%2C699&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Esther denouncing Haman, who, according to the Purim story, attempted to have all Jews within the Persian Empire massacred. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/esther-denouncing-haman-haman-a-favourite-at-the-court-of-news-photo/929217364?adppopup=true">Hutchinson's History of the Nations/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Once upon a time, in the ancient Near East, there was a beautiful queen.</p>
<p>Scribes wrote of her lovely form, her regal majesty and her fierce bravery. The people honored her in lavish celebrations marked by debauchery. She was linked to <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/327/oa_monograph/chapter/2616211#rfn55">the morning star</a>, and her name was “Ishtar” – or “Esther,” <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Jastrow%2C_%D7%90%D6%B4%D7%A1%D6%B0%D7%AA%D6%B0%D6%BC%D7%94%D6%B7%D7%A8.1">as she was called in Hebrew</a>.</p>
<p>This is the story that inspires the Jewish holiday of Purim, which begins this year on the evening of March 23. Across the world, Jews retell the story of <a href="https://bibleodyssey.com/articles/esther/">Queen Esther</a> in <a href="https://theconversation.com/purim-spiels-skits-and-satire-have-brought-merriment-to-an-ancient-jewish-holiday-in-america-177700">lavish spectacles</a>, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/purim-plays-and-carnivals/">called Purim spiels</a>, that feature costumes, jokes, satire, noisemakers and food and wine.</p>
<p>Purim is the only celebration in Judaism with an entire biblical book about its origins. <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Esther?tab=contents">The Book of Esther</a> tells how she and her pious cousin, Mordecai, defeated the scheming Haman, a powerful royal adviser, thereby saving the Jewish people from annihilation.</p>
<p>Yet among researchers, the actual origins of the holiday – and of Esther herself – are still hotly contested. Few scholars interpret Esther’s story as a record of historical events, and they note a number of oddities surrounding the book. The text, sometimes called the Megillah, contains <a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/megillat-esther-a-godless-and-assimilated-diaspora">no mention of God</a>, or of religious activities such as prayer or sacrifice; its narrative is colorful and suggestive.</p>
<p>When archaeologists began to dig up cuneiform texts in the 19th century, a further peculiarity emerged: Esther and her cousin Mordecai shared names <a href="https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/dictionary-of-deities-and-demons-online/ishtar-DDDO_Ishtar">with Ishtar</a> and <a href="https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/dictionary-of-deities-and-demons-online/marduk-DDDO_Marduk">her cousin Marduk</a>, two of the most prominent deities in ancient Mesopotamia. Ishtar, like Esther, was a divine queen associated with both eroticism and battle. Marduk, like Mordecai, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20182036">overcame a deadly enemy and celebrated his triumph with a banquet</a>. Moreover, the name Purim seems to derive from <a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/on-the-origins-of-purim-and-its-assyrian-name">the Babylonian word “pûru</a>” – a “lot” in both the senses of “<a href="https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/cad_p.pdf">portion</a>” and “<a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3209686">fortunetelling dice</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kwcXAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA94&ots=Oj4t1mFmis&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=false">Earlier scholars of those cuneiform texts</a> concluded that the Book of Esther was retelling a Babylonian myth about Ishtar and Marduk. No such myth has been found to date, however, leading to an apparent historical dead end.</p>
<p>When I learned about these connections as <a href="https://udayton.edu/directory/artssciences/religiousstudies/brownsmith-esther.php">a young biblical scholar</a>, a modern parallel immediately came to mind: the genre of fan fiction. </p>
<h2>Fanfic, then and now</h2>
<p>In fan fiction, amateur writers create stories based on the characters and imaginative worlds of popular media.</p>
<p>Sites such as the <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/">Archive of Our Own</a>, <a href="https://www.fanfiction.net/">FanFiction.net</a> <a href="https://www.wattpad.com/">and Wattpad</a> host millions of “fics,” from short sketches to novel-length epics. The popularity of these stories has extended beyond the internet: “Fifty Shades of Grey” <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hayleycuccinello/2017/02/10/fifty-shades-of-green-how-fanfiction-went-from-dirty-little-secret-to-money-machine/">was a fic of the teen series “Twilight</a>,” while the bestselling novel “The Love Hypothesis” <a href="https://www.cinemablend.com/star-wars/bestselling-romance-novel-inspired-by-fanfiction-about-star-wars-rey-and-kylo-ren-is-becoming-a-movie">began as a story about characters from “Star Wars</a>.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582897/original/file-20240319-30-tbbvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a black shirt and red scarf stands in front of a sign that says 'Fifty shades.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582897/original/file-20240319-30-tbbvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582897/original/file-20240319-30-tbbvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582897/original/file-20240319-30-tbbvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582897/original/file-20240319-30-tbbvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582897/original/file-20240319-30-tbbvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582897/original/file-20240319-30-tbbvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582897/original/file-20240319-30-tbbvty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Author E.L. James attends a special fan screening of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ the movie based on her books, in New York in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FiftyShades-GreyFanFiction/149d58f2e10f4e548709808c0573a816/photo?Query=fan%20fiction&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=71&currentItemNo=44">Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File</a></span>
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<p>Fan fiction studies has become an established corner of academia: studying these texts, their creators and the factors that influence them.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2021.2037">I am not the first scholar</a> to wonder whether ancient texts were the fan fiction of their time. Scholars and fans alike have noted the way that <a href="https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=anthos_archives">the Aeneid builds upon Homer’s compositions</a>, for example, and <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20">John Milton’s epic “Paradise Lost</a>” mines the tales of the Bible.</p>
<p>I believe it makes sense to think of Esther, too, as the ancient equivalent of today’s fan fiction: a tale of familiar characters, re-imagined and repurposed to reflect the identities of their creators.</p>
<p>To begin, Esther and Ishtar had more in common than just their name. In fact, everything in my first paragraph describes them both, from the raucous celebrations held in their names to their legendary beauty. The author of the Book of Esther seems to have been describing a character already familiar to readers, just like a modern fan fiction writer does.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582888/original/file-20240319-8674-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An open scroll shows text with a colored floral pattern at the top and bottom of the manuscript." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582888/original/file-20240319-8674-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582888/original/file-20240319-8674-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582888/original/file-20240319-8674-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582888/original/file-20240319-8674-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582888/original/file-20240319-8674-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582888/original/file-20240319-8674-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582888/original/file-20240319-8674-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 18th-century parchment scroll of the Book of Esther, preserved at the Mejanes Library in Aix-en-Provence, France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/a-scroll-of-parchment-from-the-xviiith-century-preserved-at-news-photo/949696604?adppopup=true">Patrick Horvais/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This comparison is not hindered by the fact that the plot of Esther did not derive from a known Mesopotamian myth; plenty of <a href="https://fanlore.org/wiki/Alternate_Universe">“alternate universe” fics</a> tell new stories in new settings, using the change of scenery to reveal new facets of their beloved characters.</p>
<p>Nor does the divide between Mesopotamian polytheism and Jewish monotheism pose a problem. For many authors, fanfic provides an opportunity to <a href="https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479811748.003.0009">transform and critique its source text</a>, adding elements that were glaringly absent from the original, such as queer relationships. </p>
<p>In short, thinking about the story of Esther as ancient “fanfic” could explain the striking parallels between her character and Ishtar. But the implications of this framework are more than simply academic. Calling Esther fan fiction can teach modern readers something about the celebration of Purim – and about storytelling itself.</p>
<h2>Writing ourselves into stories</h2>
<p>The first lesson is that, from ancient Jewish scribes to modern teenage girls, people have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2023.2441">rewriting other people’s stories</a> to reflect their own reality and identities.</p>
<p>Today, a fanfic author might compose a saga about how <a href="https://fanlore.org/wiki/Mary_Sue">a girl like her</a> won hearts and saved lives in male-dominated Middle-earth, the world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series. Back in ancient Babylon, Jewish scribes might have re-imagined a popular goddess as a Jewish heroine. Transformative writing is empowering and defiant, then as now.</p>
<p>The second lesson is that carnival and queerness and joy are built into ancient scripture; they are no modern development. Ishtar was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25683215">a gender-fluid queen</a> who <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1062957">declared</a>, “I am a woman (but) verily I am an exuberant man.” Her followers included “<a href="https://doi.org/10.25162/9783515130974">assinnu” and “kurgarru</a>,” ranks of Mesopotamian priests who were famous for transgressing gender norms.</p>
<p>It should thus come as no surprise that Esther is a story that names and elevates a number of eunuch characters, ascribes <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4139801">feminine and nonbinary traits</a> to the heroic Mordecai and imagines its heroine as sexual and daring. Purim’s long-standing tradition of <a href="https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/cross-dressing-on-purim/">cross-dressing</a> and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-03-15/ty-article-magazine/why-do-jews-dress-up-for-purim/00000180-5bb4-d718-afd9-dfbccaa70000">flamboyant costumes</a> has a rich history.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582895/original/file-20240319-8759-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in an orange bikini-style outfit and a large red headdress dances in the street near a tall stuffed bear figure." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582895/original/file-20240319-8759-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582895/original/file-20240319-8759-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582895/original/file-20240319-8759-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582895/original/file-20240319-8759-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582895/original/file-20240319-8759-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582895/original/file-20240319-8759-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582895/original/file-20240319-8759-pb38a9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dancers perform during a Purim parade festival in 2012 in Holon, Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MideastIsraelPurim/295ac0e151b849e2886aa0ecf16a2a2e/photo?Query=purim&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=780&currentItemNo=139">AP Photo/Dan Balilty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Likewise, fan fiction is a deeply queer practice. A disproportionate number of stories <a href="https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2022.2205">address gender and sexuality</a>, and its creators are themselves <a href="https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/fansplaining/viz/TheFansplainingShippingSurveyResults/SurveyDemographicsGenderandSexuality">disproportionately</a> <a href="https://www.flowjournal.org/2023/02/fan-demographics-on-ao3/">LGBTQ+</a>.</p>
<p>The third lesson is one that I strive to teach all my students: Scripture can be both relatable and startling when we look at it through fresh eyes. </p>
<p>The Bible instructs Jews to retell the story of Esther each Purim. But by <a href="https://urj.org/blog/get-act-yes-you-can-write-purim-spiel">creating themed Purim spiels</a> each year, drawing on sources from Motown to Moana, Jewish congregations clothe the familiar plot in exciting new garb.</p>
<p>Thinking about biblical stories as fan fiction invites readers today to imagine the ancient scribes as “fans,” brimming with emotional reactions and strong opinions. The Bible is a diverse library of texts created in manifold times and contexts, and its authors were passionately invested in the stories they told and retold – just like modern amateur authors.</p>
<p>This Purim, I invite you to approach the Bible’s tales as the result of a dynamic process, a panoply of voices that each sought to influence their tradition by adding their own words to it. In the hands of fan fiction writers and Purim spiel creators, that process continues today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Esther Brownsmith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether thousands of years ago or right now, fans have always created new stories based on familiar characters, weaving their own experiences into the tale.Esther Brownsmith, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2239292024-02-28T16:52:39Z2024-02-28T16:52:39ZRestaurants outside of Palestine and Israel are being attacked in protest of the war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577061/original/file-20240221-18-tts63c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Olives at a stall in Machne Yehuda Market, Jerusalem.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rebecca Haboucha</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 2023 and the ensuing war between Palestine and Israel, there has been a rise in <a href="https://cst.org.uk/data/file/9/f/Antisemitic_Incidents_Report_2023.1707834969.pdf">antisemitism</a> and <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2023-11-09/i-was-terrified-islamophobic-incidents-up-by-600-in-uk-since-hamas-attack">Islamophobia</a> around the world. </p>
<p>Much of this hate-driven crime has been committed against restaurants owned by Israelis and Palestinians, as well as by Jewish and Muslim people. Scholars <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-how-boycotting-everything-russian-and-blaming-russian-society-rather-than-putin-is-xenophobic-179267">highlight</a> the long-standing trend of <a href="https://www.bonappetit.com/story/russian-restaurant-owners-ukraine-war">restaurants being attacked</a>, physically or virtually, on social media, in relation to sociopolitical events.</p>
<p>My research looks at <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003085430-4/reimagined-community-london-rebecca-haboucha?context=ubx&refId=bb3d8c68-e404-4d4e-9e7b-49cee15abf6b">culinary heritage and diaspora</a>. People attacking restaurants in protest create a false dichotomy between food culture and national conflict, wherein one group casts the opposing group’s restaurants variously as villains or as diplomats. The question is what power such protest can wield in addressing war abroad. </p>
<h2>Food as a tool for soft power and protest</h2>
<p>Throughout the 20th century, food has been used as a tool for soft power, that is a means for achieving influence through means other than directly political ones. </p>
<p>When places like restaurants and warehouses, where food is sourced or served, have become <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2603315">sites of protest</a>, the aim has been to directly address a contemporary issue (<a href="https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc2031397/m2/1/high_res_d/1981-v59-n02_a02.pdf">segregation</a> in the American south, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190629038.013.46">human rights violations</a> in apartheid South Africa or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.12298">diplomatic relations</a> between Japan and Korea). The protest is about enacting a change that could have observable, immediate effect by addressing those responsible. </p>
<p>Restaurants do often represent ethnic or <a href="https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.soas.idm.oclc.org/lib/soas-ebooks/reader.action?docID=7109689&ppg=4">national cuisines</a>. This can build the public’s idea of a particular community’s cuisine. </p>
<p>However, very few diasporic restaurants are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.16980/jitc.13.4.201708.93">sponsored</a> by the diaspora’s home government as a resource for diplomacy. More often, the restaurant’s culinary culture is related to the owner’s personal identity. In this way, the restaurant operates what might be termed <a href="https://liveencounters.net/2017-le-mag/12-december-2017/jennifer-shutek-gastrodiplomacy-in-palestineisrael/">“unofficial” culinary diplomacy</a>.</p>
<p>The attacks perpetrated against Israeli and Palestinian food stores and restaurants over the past five months, however, follow a different model. </p>
<p>In London, one attack on a restaurant, which was later classified as a burglary, evoked fear in the Jewish community. This led to public comments by <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/09/jewish-restaurant-pita-attack-golders-green-free-palestine/">local politicians condemning</a> the excuse to <a href="https://theconversation.com/attacks-on-jews-always-rise-globally-when-conflict-in-israel-and-palestine-intensifies-216590">target Jews</a> as a response to the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East. </p>
<p>Similarly, a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67172707">Palestinian takeaway in London</a> has been receiving dozens of death threats, daily. The staff have spoken about being frightened and intimidated.</p>
<p>In Philadelphia, the Philly Palestine Coalition stormed an Israeli restaurant, <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/usa/antisemitic-mob-targets-jewish-falafel-restaurant-in-philadelphia-g3xe630y">Goldie Falafel</a>, after closing time, chanting: “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” This accusation was rightly likened to the long-recognised antisemitic trope of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26770791">“blood libel”</a>.</p>
<p>Dating back to the middle ages, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1535685X.2015.1110380">blood libel</a> accused Jewish people of killing Christians to use their blood in Jewish ritual. The unfounded accusation that a Jewish restaurant owner is “genocidal” is a modern iteration of that idea in that it wrongly views a Jewish individual – and the Jewish people – as violent and hateful against others and uses that view as a justification for antisemitism.</p>
<p>The restaurant’s owner, Michael Solomonov, does not hide the Israeli inspiration of his restaurants or his Israeli-American identity. However, the fact that the restaurant was closed at the time of the attack shows that the protestors’ accusation was not entirely about the owner himself. Rather, it was an attempt to publicly scare Jews and hold them responsible for the actions of the Israeli government. </p>
<h2>Eating together can create community</h2>
<p>In this kind of attack, a national cuisine (Israeli or Palestinian) becomes a nationalistic symbol. The distinction is important. The protesting group simplifies their understanding of a national character and imposes it on the restaurant and the local community it is a part of, in a bid to justify its iconoclasm. By targeting a restaurant that identifies with a specific cuisine, the protester makes that restaurant’s owner responsible for the actions of an entire group, or country. </p>
<p>In so doing, the protestor also dehumanises the “other”. These attacks preclude any attempt to engage in a nuanced conversation with those of differing opinions, a phenomenon mirrored on <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43545-021-00240-4">social media</a>.</p>
<p>This point is made clearer by the fact that protesters have also targeted <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/i-fought-off-the-golders-green-knifeman-with-only-a-broom-u9zhon1h">kosher</a> and <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/amp/ex-barack-obama-official-arrested-for-islamophobic-harassment-of-halal-food-seller-in-new-york-13014119">halal</a> outlets, that have links to neither Israel nor Palestine. </p>
<p>Research shows that the act of equating Israel with all Jews and speaking of Judaism as a homogenised entity is <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-is-criticism-of-israel-antisemitic-a-scholar-of-modern-jewish-history-explains-220995">antisemitic</a>. In the same way, attacking anyone or anything that is Muslim, in response to Hamas’s actions, is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-islamophobia-and-anti-palestinian-racism-are-manufactured-through-disinformation-216119">Islamophobic</a>.</p>
<p>Restaurants, ironically, are precisely the kind of spaces where nuanced understanding can actually be built through what is termed <a href="https://theconversation.com/family-meals-are-good-for-the-grown-ups-too-not-just-the-kids-158739">commensality</a> – the act of eating together. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N50bl-1UdWg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">For the owners of Ayat, a Palestinian restaurant in Brooklyn, food is a way to bring people together.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This has been evident both in some responses to attacks on restaurants and in actions restaurants themselves have taken. Contrary to iconoclastic or dehumanising protest, some have chosen to create opportunities for diners to find comfort in being together. </p>
<p>On the day after the rally outside <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/04/pa-gov-rebukes-protesters-for-chanting-outside-jewish-restaurant/">Goldie Falafel</a>, hundreds of customers showed up in solidarity. They bought and ate falafel. Some prayed together. </p>
<p>In January, meanwhile, a Palestinian restaurant in Brooklyn called <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/29/ayat-brooklyn-palestinian-restaurant-jewish-sabbath-shabbat-dinner">Ayat</a> rose above the threatening calls and online messages they had received since December, by hosting a meal for the Jewish Sabbath. </p>
<p>They provided meals to over 1,300 customers. People came from across all communities – Muslim, Jewish and others – looking to support the restaurant. This act of eating together was about finding hope in a hopeless situation. </p>
<p>Access to food is playing a central role in the conflict itself. In Gaza, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/16/middleeast/gaza-famine-starvation-un-israel-war-intl-hnk/index.html">Palestinians</a> are facing <a href="https://theconversation.com/israeli-siege-has-placed-gazans-at-risk-of-starvation-prewar-policies-made-them-vulnerable-in-the-first-place-222657">famine and starvation</a>. Aid has been hampered, with the World Food Programme <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68360902">citing</a> “complete chaos and violence” for its decision to halt deliveries.</p>
<p>In Israel, meanwhile, around 200,000 people <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02521-7/fulltext">have been internally displaced</a> by the war. This has led to new initiatives for <a href="https://asif.org/en/the-open-kitchen-project/">food sharing</a> and volunteering in the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/volunteers-rush-israeli-farms-stripped-workers-after-hamas-attack-2023-11-16/">agriculture sector</a>. </p>
<p>Ayat’s owners said that through their Shabbat meal, they wished to convey a message of peace and shared humanity that has largely been lacking from this conflict. Food has the incredible power to unite, to provide natural spaces for conversations and to heal, if we let it. In a time of overwhelming grief, it is worth remembering that food is charged with the power we give it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223929/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Haboucha is currently the holder of a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (2023-2026) for her project, titled 'Jewish Table Talk: Discerning Mizrahi Belonging through Foodways'.</span></em></p>By targeting a restaurant owner who identifies with a specific cuisine, the protester makes that one person responsible for the actions of an entire group or country.Rebecca Haboucha, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Anthropology, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2235192024-02-20T15:17:04Z2024-02-20T15:17:04ZReligious diversity is exploding – here’s what a faith-positive Britain might actually look like<p>The future of the UK’s Inter Faith Network (IFN), a long-standing charity that promotes dialogue and cooperation between Britain’s religious groups, is in doubt after the government announced it was <a href="https://religionmediacentre.org.uk/rmc-briefings/devastating-outrageous-impending-closure-of-the-inter-faith-network/">withdrawing funding</a> for the group. Communities secretary Michael Gove has cited concerns that a member of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), with which the government has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/mar/23/muslim-council-britain-gaza">suspended cooperation</a> since 2009, has been appointed an IFN trustee. </p>
<p>In response to Gove’s letter, the IFN <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/16/inter-faith-network-headed-for-closure-as-gove-minded-to-withdraw-funding">has said</a> it had never been advised “to expel the MCB from membership”. It also said that while the government might choose not to engage with the MCB, doing so “is not a sensible option open to the IFN if it is to achieve the purposes for which the government funds it in the first place”. </p>
<p>Founded in 1987, the IFN represents Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian faith groups. In the charity’s 37-year history, religious pluralism in the UK has grown exponentially – and is still growing despite an overall <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/11/uk-secularism-on-rise-as-more-than-half-say-they-have-no-religion">decline in religiosity</a>. </p>
<p>This underlines the importance of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/bringing-people-of-different-faiths-together-to-solve-the-worlds-problems-is-a-noble-goal-but-its-hard-to-know-what-it-achieves-170047">interfaith</a> dialogue the charity exists to promote. Indeed, the government-commissioned <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64478b4f529eda00123b0397/The_Bloom_Review.pdf">Bloom review</a> of England’s growing religious pluralism, published in 2023, made a similar point when examining how the government might best acknowledge the value different faith groups bring to society.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A crowd of women in colourful saris." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576736/original/file-20240220-20-io09l1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576736/original/file-20240220-20-io09l1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576736/original/file-20240220-20-io09l1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576736/original/file-20240220-20-io09l1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576736/original/file-20240220-20-io09l1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576736/original/file-20240220-20-io09l1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576736/original/file-20240220-20-io09l1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Performers take part in the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi in Gravesend.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/gravesend-apr-6-performers-take-part-1078636838">Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>The UK’s increasingly diverse faith landscape</h2>
<p>In 2018, the Pew Research Centre published “Being Christian in Western Europe,” a survey of religion in <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/05/29/being-christian-in-western-europe/">15 western European countries</a>. The majority of the adults surveyed in 14 of the 15 countries considered themselves “non-practicing Christians”. </p>
<p>The survey found that the UK had roughly three times as many non-practicing Christians (55%) than church-going Christians (18%). It concluded that the notion of Christian identity remains a meaningful religious, political and sociocultural marker. </p>
<p>It also noted that many people have “gradually drifted away from religion, stopped believing in religious teachings, or were alienated by scandals or church positions on social issues.”</p>
<p>The rising number of people who subscribe to no religion belies the fact that the Christian proportion of the population is changing too. In 2023, British journalist Tomiwa Owolade <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/religion/2023/03/future-christianity-britain-african-christian">reported</a> on how demographic shifts are reshaping churches across the UK. Between 1980 and 2015, churches saw a 19% rise in attendance by non-white worshippers. </p>
<p>“Without immigration,” he wrote, “the decline of Christianity would be even more profound: it is largely white British people who are abandoning their faith.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An interior shot of a modernist church in England." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576589/original/file-20240219-30-38pqkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576589/original/file-20240219-30-38pqkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576589/original/file-20240219-30-38pqkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576589/original/file-20240219-30-38pqkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576589/original/file-20240219-30-38pqkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576589/original/file-20240219-30-38pqkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576589/original/file-20240219-30-38pqkp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The St Francis of Assisi church on the Mackworth estate in Derby.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/church-altar-4COdbEnGCmA">Rachael Cox|Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recent migration from <a href="https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/27-october/news/uk/chinese-church-is-fastest-growing-in-the-uk-study-reveals">Hong Kong</a> has seen the Chinese Christian community in the UK grow substantially. As of 2023, there are about 115,000 Chinese Christians worshipping at over 200 churches across the UK. </p>
<p>Newly arrived Chinese Christians bring with them a belief in the importance of Bible reading. They are strengthening Church of England congregations in cities including Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol. </p>
<p>This highlights how migrant populations in the UK and more broadly in western Europe wield <a href="https://theconversation.com/tarry-awhile-how-the-black-spiritual-tradition-of-waiting-expectantly-could-enrich-your-approach-to-lent-222007">increasing influence</a> in terms of spirituality and belief. Between 2011 and 2021, the proportion of the population of England and Wales that identifies as Muslim has grown, from 4.8% (2.71 million people) to 6.5% <a href="https://mcb.org.uk/2021-census-as-uk-population-grows-so-do-british-muslim-communities/">(3.87 million)</a>. </p>
<p>Other fast-growing religious groups in the UK include Shamanism, whose followers have increased from 650 people in 2011 to <a href="https://www.economist.com/britain/2023/02/09/shamanism-is-britains-fastest-growing-religion">at least 8,000 in 2021</a>. Its emphasis on all things in nature – from people to the environment – being treated with dignity and respect distinctively appeals to the growing number of people in the UK who live with <a href="https://theconversation.com/religious-communities-can-make-the-difference-in-winning-the-fight-against-climate-change-172192">climate anxiety</a>. </p>
<h2>How the government engages with faith groups</h2>
<p>Until now, UK politicians have largely only engaged with local faith groups in public when it has been politically expedient to do so. A primary motivation has often been to not be criticised by detractors for excluding communities on the basis of religion. This approach is underpinned by an Enlightenment theory of secularism, which sees engaging with issues of religion as unworthy of the looming headaches such engagement might cause. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People kneel down in a carpeted space with tall windows." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576590/original/file-20240219-22-yr113h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576590/original/file-20240219-22-yr113h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576590/original/file-20240219-22-yr113h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576590/original/file-20240219-22-yr113h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576590/original/file-20240219-22-yr113h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576590/original/file-20240219-22-yr113h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576590/original/file-20240219-22-yr113h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Worshippers in prayer in the Regents Park Central Mosque, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-england-february-18th-2009-crowd-1704858379">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 2023 Bloom review, by contrast, calls for government to build constructive relationships with faith groups. “It should be the government’s responsibility,” Bloom writes, “to equip all civil and public servants with the basic factual knowledge to be able to recognise and understand the diverse religious life of the population.” </p>
<p>Appointed in 2019 by Boris Johnson, who was then prime minister, Colin Bloom was commissioned to explore what the government could do to better acknowledge and support the contribution faith groups make to society. He investigated how to better promote shared values and tackle harmful practices and how to promote both freedom of religion and freedom of speech. He also looked at how government officials might improve their faith literacy.</p>
<p>To be <a href="https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/religion-and-belief-literacy">faith literate</a> is to understand how belief systems differ and how those distinct from your own shape other people’s attitudes, values and experiences. In a bid to boost equality, Bloom recommends that government workplaces and educational settings adopt the term “faith-sensitive”. </p>
<p>As opposed to the flattening out of difference that a “faith-blind” approach can take, promoting faith-sensitivity encourages people in positions of authority to acknowledge, understand and treat with respect diverse belief systems. </p>
<p>The language the UK government uses on faith-related subjects matters. It models – for everyone living in the UK – how to best engage with <a href="https://theconversation.com/glasgows-museum-of-religion-has-been-saved-from-closure-heres-why-its-important-for-multicultural-britain-180002">diverse manifestations of belief</a>. </p>
<p>I would argue that Bloom’s emphasis on a faith-sensitive government approach does not go far enough. It implies that the government’s priority should be to not cause offense. Even better would be a “faith-positive” approach that actively ascribes value to the contributions faith communities can make to everyday British life.</p>
<p>Back in 2001, the IFN <a href="https://www.interfaith.org.uk/uploads/ar2002.pdf">said</a>, “Greater awareness about the faith of others is crucial as we enter the 21st century in the UK because ignorance is a major contributor to prejudice and even to conflict.” Two decades on, the shocking rises in incidents of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/feb/15/huge-rise-in-antisemitic-abuse-in-uk-since-hamas-attack-says-charity">antisemitism</a> and <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2023-11-09/i-was-terrified-islamophobic-incidents-up-by-600-in-uk-since-hamas-attack">Islamophobia</a>, in recent months, point to how urgently that remains true. </p>
<p>Early 20th century English writer G.K. Chesterton once affectionately wrote, “Let your religion be less a theory and more a love affair.” He was offering a framework to help British Christians better understand their faith. A similarly faith-positive approach to all of Britain’s belief systems would both recognise and value quite what people of faith can bring to wider British society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223519/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Christopher Wadibia receives funding from a postdoctoral research fellowship specialising in race, theology, and religious studies based at Pembroke College, University of Oxford.</span></em></p>The language the UK government uses on faith-related subjects matters. It models – for everyone living in the UK – how to best engage with diverse manifestations of belief.Christopher Wadibia, Junior Research Fellow in Theology, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2082772024-02-16T13:18:22Z2024-02-16T13:18:22ZAs a rabbi, philosopher and physician, Maimonides wrestled with religion and reason – the book he wrote to reconcile them, ‘Guide to the Perplexed,’ has sparked debate ever since<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574467/original/file-20240208-26-bikf0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C9%2C2041%2C2026&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A bas-relief of Maimonides, sculpted by Brenda Putnam, hangs in the U.S. House of Representatives among statues of historical lawmakers.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maimonides_bas-relief_in_the_U.S._House_of_Representatives_chamber_cropped.jpg">Architect of the Capitol/Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I teach a <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/judaic-studies/profile.html?id=friedman">philosophy of religion</a> seminar titled “Faith and Reason.” Most students who register arrive with a mistaken assumption: that the course explores the differences between the two.</p>
<p>“Faith” is often defined as belief in a supernatural God that transcends reason – and belief that science can only go so far to explain the fundamental mysteries of life. Reason, meanwhile, means inquiry that draws on <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/#Rati">logic and deductive reasoning</a>. </p>
<p>It seems like a stark choice, an either-or – until we read Maimonides. For Maimonides, a 12th century theologian, philosopher, rabbi and physician, there is no true faith without reason.</p>
<p>Maimonides’ full name was Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, and he is often referred to by the abbreviation “Rambam.” His writings spurred <a href="https://davidwacks.uoregon.edu/2019/07/10/maimo/">centuries of conflict</a> and were even <a href="https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/persecuting-ideas/">banned in some Jewish communities</a>. Yet he also penned one of the most famous guides to Jewish law and still stands as one of the most influential rabbis to have ever lived.</p>
<p>It is surprising for many students to learn that Maimonides, who lived in present-day Spain, Morocco and Egypt, embraced reason as the only way to make sense of faith. In this rabbi’s view, the idea of a battle between faith and reason sets boundaries where none need exist. </p>
<p>Faith must be grounded in reason, lest it become superstition. This synthesis is at the heart of Maimonides’ most famous philosophical work, “<a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Guide_for_the_Perplexed?tab=contents">The Guide for the Perplexed</a>.”</p>
<h2>Jerusalem and Athens</h2>
<p>Treating faith and reason <a href="https://public.wsu.edu/%7Ecampbelld/amlit/hellenism.htm">as if they are at odds</a> is nothing new. Some philosophers have described them as two different cities, as when University of Chicago professor <a href="https://leostrausscenter.uchicago.edu/biography/">Leo Strauss</a> <a href="https://www.commentary.org/articles/leo-strauss/jerusalem-and-athens-some-introductory-reflections/">wrote of “Jerusalem and Athens</a>.” </p>
<p>Both cities love wisdom, Strauss wrote, but attribute it to different things. In “Jerusalem,” where life is grounded by faith in God, “the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord,” Strauss wrote in 1967, quoting the biblical books of <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Proverbs.9.9?lang=bi">Proverbs</a> <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Job.28.28?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en">and Job</a>. In “Athens,” on the other hand, symbolized by the ancient Greek philosophers, “the beginning of wisdom is wonder” – the wonder of inquiry and reason.</p>
<p>Almost 800 years before, however, Maimonides was arguing that true religion, true wisdom, requires both. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574497/original/file-20240208-24-fjzign.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bronze-colored statue of a man in robes and golden shoes sitting with an open book in his lap, positioned in a sunny courtyard with plants growing behind it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574497/original/file-20240208-24-fjzign.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574497/original/file-20240208-24-fjzign.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574497/original/file-20240208-24-fjzign.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574497/original/file-20240208-24-fjzign.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574497/original/file-20240208-24-fjzign.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574497/original/file-20240208-24-fjzign.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574497/original/file-20240208-24-fjzign.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue of Maimonides in Cordoba, Spain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/statue-of-jewish-philosopher-maimonides-cordoba-span-news-photo/184251484?adppopup=true">Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rambam was deeply steeped in Jewish learning. As a doctor, astronomer and philosopher, however, he was just as knowledgeable about the science of his day. He ostensibly wrote “The Guide to the Perplexed” to help his student Joseph Ibn Aknin navigate between the truths of philosophy, natural science and revelation.</p>
<p>Maimonides’ understanding of God and the universe <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides/">mostly agreed with Aristotle’s </a>. In <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Guide_for_the_Perplexed%2C_Part_2.1?ven=Guide_for_the_Perplexed,_English_Translation,_Friedlander_(1903)&lang=en">Part II of his “Guide</a>,” Maimonides credits Aristotle with helping to prove three key principles about God: God is incorporeal, without a physical body; God is one; and God transcends the material world. Yet God created the world and set it in motion, Maimonides asserts, and everything in it depends on God for its existence.</p>
<h2>Science and scripture</h2>
<p>Throughout these chapters, the rabbi does not turn to scripture to prove or disprove philosophical propositions, although <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Guide_for_the_Perplexed%2C_Part_2.5.3?ven=Guide_for_the_Perplexed,_English_Translation,_Friedlander_(1903)&lang=en&with=Navigation&lang2=en">he notes</a> that Aristotle’s opinion may be “in accordance with the words of our prophets and our theologians or Sages.”</p>
<p>This does not mean that Maimonides does not care about sacred texts – far from it. Rather, he argues that the truths of science and philosophy must inform how people interpret the Bible.</p>
<p>Many people of faith have read the Book of Genesis’ <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.1.27?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en">story of creation</a> literally. For them, God’s creation of humanity “in our image and likeness” means both that God must have a body and that humanity shares much in common with God.</p>
<p>For Maimonides, however, language like these passages in Genesis was allegorical. If reason teaches that <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Guide_for_the_Perplexed%2C_Part_1.1.2?lang=bi">God is incorporeal</a>, this means that God has no body; God does not physically see, nor do people see God. God does not speak, sit on a throne, stretch out an arm, rest or become angry. Reading these passages literally misunderstands the nature of God.</p>
<p>It is hard to overstate the significance of this claim. In Maimonides’ view, saying that God has a body is not just incorrect but blasphemous and idolatrous. He sees God as unique and transcendent, irreducible to anything human or material. And if God does not literally speak, then the Bible cannot be the literal word of God.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574498/original/file-20240208-22-irfpck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white image of an old, worn parchment covered in letters in black ink." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574498/original/file-20240208-22-irfpck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574498/original/file-20240208-22-irfpck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574498/original/file-20240208-22-irfpck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574498/original/file-20240208-22-irfpck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574498/original/file-20240208-22-irfpck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574498/original/file-20240208-22-irfpck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574498/original/file-20240208-22-irfpck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A letter Maimonides wrote around 1172, discovered in the late 1800s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/moses-maimonides-handwritten-letter-c-1172-signature-news-photo/590537778?adppopup=true">Culture Club/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Maimonides insists that the Bible be appreciated as an esoteric text. Any part of the revealed text that does not fit with a true understanding of God and the universe must be read allegorically.</p>
<p>Reason does not eliminate his faith in God, or the power of scripture. Instead, reason protects people from believing something incorrect about God’s nature. Maimonides insists that we have faith in reason and that reason ground our faith.</p>
<h2>The palace of God</h2>
<p>Maimonides’ philosophical writing is filled with debate and disagreement between him, fellow rabbis, Jewish philosophers and <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-islamic-natural/">the Kalam</a>, a medieval tradition of Islamic theology. Reason was the tool needed to make sense of sacred texts, and philosophical inquiry was the process needed to get it right. The goal was truth, not mere obedience. </p>
<p>Toward the end of his “Guide for the Perplexed,” Maimonides <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Guide_for_the_Perplexed%2C_Part_3.51.1?lang=en&with=Navigation&lang2=en">lays out what he believes are different levels of enlightenment</a>. The allegory centers on a king’s palace: Only a select few, those who pursue truest wisdom grounded in philosophy and science, will reach the room where the king – God – resides. People guided by faith alone, who accept scripture literally and unquestioningly, and believe that faith transcends reason, on the other hand, “have their backs turned toward the king’s palace,” moving further and further away from God.</p>
<p>Maimonides is considered one of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides/">the greatest rabbinic authorities of all time</a>. And his resolution to the debate between faith and reason could not have been clearer: There should be no true conflict. Both reason and revelation are our guides.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Randy L. Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Faith and reason are often treated as opposites. But some philosophers believe they can only strengthen each other, including the Jewish sage Maimonides, who wrote the famous ‘Guide to the Perplexed.’Randy L. Friedman, Associate Professor of Judaic Studies, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2233232024-02-14T00:53:07Z2024-02-14T00:53:07ZDoxing or in the public interest? Free speech, ‘cancelling’ and the ethics of the Jewish creatives’ WhatsApp group leak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575250/original/file-20240213-20-7r8ddf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=69%2C23%2C5106%2C3414&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nap1/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent release of a leaked transcript of a private WhatsApp group for Jewish writers, artists, musicians and academics has stirred a controversy that has led to <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/hundreds-of-jewish-creatives-have-names-details-taken-in-leak-published-online-20240208-p5f3if.html">threats of violence</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/09/josh-burns-jewish-whatsapp-group-channel-publication-israel-palestine-clementine-ford#:%7E:text=The%20publishing%20of%20a%20Jewish,MP%20Josh%20Burns%20has%20said">a family in hiding</a>, and the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-13/federal-government-to-criminalise-doxxing/103458052">fast-tracking</a> of new federal legislation to criminalise doxing. </p>
<p>The WhatsApp group in question, administered by writer Lee Kofman, was formed to give Jewish creative people a private and supportive space to connect, in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s war in Gaza. Not all members knew they had been added to the group at first, and many didn’t participate in the conversations that resulted in the leak.</p>
<p>Last week, a transcript from the group chat was leaked and uploaded onto social media by pro-Palestinians, including the writer Clementine Ford. <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/hundreds-of-jewish-creatives-have-names-details-taken-in-leak-published-online-20240208-p5f3if.html">The leak included</a> a spreadsheet with links to social media accounts and “a separate file with a photo gallery of more than 100 Jewish people”.</p>
<p>This week, a joint statement from “First Nations, Palestinian, Lebanese and anti-Zionist Jewish activist collectives, community leaders, artists” and those who said they had been “targeted” by particular chat members <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C3MIOyySAfM/?hl=en&img_index=1">argued</a> the WhatsApp transcript</p>
<blockquote>
<p>clearly demonstrates collective actions taken by zionists to contact employers, funding bodies, publishers and journalists to censure anyone deemed to be a threat to the zionist narrative.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The leak gives rise to a complex tangle of contemporary ethical issues, including concerns with privacy, doxing, free speech and “cancelling”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575254/original/file-20240213-18-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575254/original/file-20240213-18-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575254/original/file-20240213-18-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575254/original/file-20240213-18-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575254/original/file-20240213-18-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575254/original/file-20240213-18-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575254/original/file-20240213-18-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575254/original/file-20240213-18-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Writer and feminist Clementine Ford was targeted by some group members for her pro-Palestinian views.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Allen & Unwin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-hamas-war-what-is-zionism-a-history-of-the-political-movement-that-created-israel-as-we-know-it-217788">Israel-Hamas war: What is Zionism? A history of the political movement that created Israel as we know it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Privacy and public interest</h2>
<p>The WhatsApp group was a private one, where group members would have had a reasonable expectation their conversation would not be made public.</p>
<p>Everyone needs a <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/this-isn-t-advocacy-social-posts-on-distant-conflict-tear-at-close-community-20240208-p5f3h6.html">place</a> to let off steam, to make conjectures and speculations, and to speak in an unguarded way among trusted people. <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">Violating people’s privacy</a> (especially through leaking information onto the forever-searchable internet) is always a moral cost. </p>
<p>But sometimes that cost must be paid, particularly if the exposure is in the public interest. Whistleblowers, for example, often justifiably release confidential information.</p>
<p>It could be argued that revealing the WhatsApp group’s activities <em>was</em> in the public interest. Pro-Palestinian writers and editors worried they were being targeted for their public statements in a way that imperilled their livelihoods, or were concerned about a similar risk to others. There is evidence this threat was real.</p>
<p>One of the <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/hundreds-of-jewish-creatives-have-names-details-taken-in-leak-published-online-20240208-p5f3if.html">targeted</a> pro-Palestinian figures was the broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf, who was fired, and has filed an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/dec/22/antoinette-lattouf-files-unlawful-termination-claim-over-losing-abc-radio-role-after-israel-gaza-social-media-posts">unlawful termination claim</a> against the ABC. </p>
<p>There was also <a href="https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/pro-palestinian-supporters-under-attack-in-australia,18296">a collective effort to target</a> vocally <a href="https://overland.org.au/2023/11/to-let-suffering-speak-a-response-to-our-critics/">pro-Palestinian</a> literary journal Overland, and its co-editors Jonathan Dunk and <a href="https://twitter.com/evelynaraluen/status/1753977179346776211">Evelyn Araluen</a>. Some within the Whatsapp group called for complaints to be made to Deakin University, where Araluen and Dunk are employed as academics, and also to Creative Victoria, which funds Overland.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/09/josh-burns-jewish-whatsapp-group-channel-publication-israel-palestine-clementine-ford">the Guardian reported</a> that others in the group encouraged members to contact the publisher of Ford, a vocal pro-Palestinian, and target others in the media, over their coverage of Israel and Palestine.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-what-else-should-i-lose-to-survive-the-young-writers-living-and-dying-in-gaza-219806">Friday essay: 'what else should I lose to survive?' The young writers living – and dying – in Gaza</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The ethics of doxing</h2>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-doxing-and-how-can-you-protect-yourself-223428">Doxing</a>” refers to the public release (usually onto the internet) of identifiable information about a person. It is usually done without the person’s consent, and aims to expose or punish them in some way. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C3MIOyySAfM/?hl=en&img_index=1">statement</a> from those behind the release asserted no links had been made to members’ addresses, phone numbers or emails, which were all deliberately redacted. This is important. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1007/s10676-016-9406-0.">Targeted doxing</a>” – where information on a person’s physical location or address is released – is particularly sinister. However, the release of people’s identities is still <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-016-9406-0">a form of doxing</a> and a serious moral concern. Evidence of the group’s activities that were in the public interest could arguably have been provided without naming names. The public gained little from knowing exactly who was in the almost 600-strong group. </p>
<p>Worse still, only some in the group were active in the actions against pro-Palestinians that prompted the leak, but this made no difference to whose identities were shared. This creates additional ethical concerns, with the risk innocent parties are being inappropriately punished or harassed for the actions committed by other group members. </p>
<p>Identifying individuals came at a real cost. Predictably, some parties <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/this-isn-t-advocacy-social-posts-on-distant-conflict-tear-at-close-community-20240208-p5f3h6.html">did attach</a> information about names, occupations, social media profiles, and even pictures to the leaked transcript. </p>
<p>Tragically, threats of violence were later made, even to people’s <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/this-isn-t-advocacy-social-posts-on-distant-conflict-tear-at-close-community-20240208-p5f3h6.html">children</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-doxing-and-how-can-you-protect-yourself-223428">What is doxing, and how can you protect yourself?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What was the WhatsApp group doing?</h2>
<p>The WhatsApp group conversations were wide-ranging, and some members made <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/this-isn-t-advocacy-social-posts-on-distant-conflict-tear-at-close-community-20240208-p5f3h6.html">statements</a> many might find offensive or upsetting.</p>
<p>One part of the group’s activities involved organised <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/09/josh-burns-jewish-whatsapp-group-channel-publication-israel-palestine-clementine-ford#:%7E:text=The%20publishing%20of%20a%20Jewish,MP%20Josh%20Burns%20has%20said">letter-writing</a>, including to the employers or publishers of writers or journalists they felt crossed the line into anti-Semitism.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575246/original/file-20240213-24-wlrtzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575246/original/file-20240213-24-wlrtzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575246/original/file-20240213-24-wlrtzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575246/original/file-20240213-24-wlrtzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575246/original/file-20240213-24-wlrtzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575246/original/file-20240213-24-wlrtzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575246/original/file-20240213-24-wlrtzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575246/original/file-20240213-24-wlrtzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One aspect of the WhatsApp group’s activities was letter-writing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BigTunaOnline/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On its face, such communications are clearly legitimate, and a part of democratic life. Letters can be used to raise awareness of ethical concerns, to share information and ideas, and to persuade.</p>
<p>But letters can also do other things, and an innocuous practice can sometimes gradually progress into more fraught territory. Rather than persuading, letters can pressure others, perhaps threatening their organisations with public shaming. They can also try to get people to act in ways that are morally concerning — such as having someone sacked for their political views.</p>
<p>One member <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/this-isn-t-advocacy-social-posts-on-distant-conflict-tear-at-close-community-20240208-p5f3h6.html">had offered in the group chat</a> to “do a deep dive” into the social media posts of Nadine Chemali, a freelance writer and occasional SBS contributor who describes herself as avidly pro-Jew but anti-Israel, to see if there was anything there that might breach her contract with SBS. (This deep dive wasn’t done.)</p>
<p>While certainly legal, such practices are ethically concerning because they deliberately and systematically create workplace challenges for individuals and organisations that put forward controversial views.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/10-books-to-help-you-understand-israel-and-palestine-recommended-by-experts-217783">10 books to help you understand Israel and Palestine, recommended by experts</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Should artists be protected?</h2>
<p>Before the story broke in the media, but after extracts from the group chat began circulating on social media, the Australian Society of Authors Board published a <a href="https://www.asauthors.org.au/news/asa-board-letter-to-members/">letter</a> noting its “growing concern” that artists and authors in Australia were facing repercussions for expressing their political positions publicly or in their work. </p>
<p>The society stated its commitment to freedom of speech (within the limits set by law) and its opposition to attempts to silence or intimidate authors.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575247/original/file-20240213-28-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575247/original/file-20240213-28-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575247/original/file-20240213-28-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575247/original/file-20240213-28-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575247/original/file-20240213-28-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575247/original/file-20240213-28-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575247/original/file-20240213-28-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575247/original/file-20240213-28-jhf7np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Australian Society of Authors stated its commitment to free speech.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/red-pen-taped-x-on-wooden-2274678701">Pla2na/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We might try to frame the underlying moral principle at work as a principle of political tolerance. People should not suffer workplace repercussions, discrimination or be pushed out of their livelihood on the basis of their political views (and still less on the basis of their religion or race).</p>
<p>Simple, right? Not quite.</p>
<p>The society also opposed attempts to intimidate or silence people through hate speech, explicitly noting antisemitism, and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab rhetoric. </p>
<p>This hints at a different, also relevant, moral principle – preventing harm. Hate speech, racism and bigotry, and harmful disinformation or stereotyping, should be stopped, and speakers should face the consequences of their wrongdoing.</p>
<p>There are cases where these principles of tolerance and harm-prevention can be sensibly aligned. For example, many people would agree that no one should be pushed out of their job because they support a mainstream political party — but that people should face social and professional repercussions if they hurl around racist slurs. </p>
<p>However, it’s tempting to interpret harm prevention beyond this bare minimum. After all, surely it’s a good thing to prevent the spread of misinformation, harmful stereotypes and hateful speech — and to stand up against wrongdoing more generally. </p>
<p>This is where the two principles begin to directly conflict. What we perceive as dangerous misinformation or harmful speech (like antisemitism or Islamophobia) will inevitably be coloured by our cultural, political and moral worldviews. </p>
<p>In other words, many will agree in principle that we should tolerate those who think differently. But it is precisely those who think differently who will disagree with us about what counts as harmful or wrongful speech.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-rai-gaita-and-the-moral-power-of-conversation-217670">Friday essay: Rai Gaita and the moral power of conversation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Ethical worries</h2>
<p>Punishing, undermining and silencing others on the basis of our political beliefs gives rise to two potential ethical worries (both arise with respect to the modern phenomenon of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-cancel-culture-silencing-open-debate-there-are-risks-to-shutting-down-opinions-we-disagree-with-142377">cancel culture</a>”).</p>
<p>The first is <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/this-isn-t-advocacy-social-posts-on-distant-conflict-tear-at-close-community-20240208-p5f3h6.html">hypocrisy</a>. Each side declares: “<em>We</em> are a support group nobly taking a stand against harmful bigotry and hate. <em>You</em> are a lynch mob maliciously plotting to silence others, dox them, and destroy their careers.”</p>
<p>If we think it’s okay for people like us to get others sacked for speech we find shocking and awful, we have to accept that it’s okay for <em>others</em> to get us (and those who think like us) sacked for speech they find shocking and awful. </p>
<p>But few are willing to accept that. This seems a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24220050">clear failure</a> of moral consistency.</p>
<p>The other problem is tit-for-tat conflict escalation. If you punish me (with public shaming or getting me fired) for saying something you think is harmful, (that I don’t see as harmful), I will inevitably see your act as a wrongful violation of the principle of political tolerance. Now, I have reason to push back against you – to no longer tolerate <em>your</em> speech.</p>
<p>We can see this escalation playing out in this case. One of the initial concerns behind forming the group was the worry about <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/this-isn-t-advocacy-social-posts-on-distant-conflict-tear-at-close-community-20240208-p5f3h6.html">rising intolerance</a> towards Jewish people – including unfairly having their careers jeopardised. </p>
<p>But their letter-writing campaigns made pro-Palestinian creatives fear <em>their</em> careers were unfairly jeopardised.</p>
<p>This could make some of them feel justified in revealing details of members of the WhatsApp group (not just those who participated in these conversations or activities) and sharing the group’s private messages. Tragically, some isolated individuals – not necessarily connected to the pro-Palestinians – felt justified in going further, even to threats of violence. </p>
<p>Ultimately, tolerance is not easy — especially with respect to others with different political and moral worldviews. </p>
<p>But it’s hard to see a viable solution to conflicts like these, other than all sides accepting others must be broadly entitled to speak, write and create in ways that seem right to them – without threats of cancellation, firing, privacy-breaches, or doxing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223323/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hugh Breakey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A private group chat of Jewish creatives was leaked because some were organising against pro-Palestinians. Was it ethical to do so?Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law. President, Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics., Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2213992024-02-13T13:22:45Z2024-02-13T13:22:45ZWhy having human remains land on the Moon poses difficult questions for members of several religions<p>Sending human remains to the Moon on the first commercial lunar lander, Peregrine 1, on Jan. 8, 2024, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-remains-are-headed-to-the-moon-despite-objections/">along with scientific instruments</a>, caused a controversy.</p>
<p>Buu Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, objected, saying that “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/05/world/peregrine-moon-mission-navajo-nation-objection-human-remains-scn/index.html">the moon holds a sacred place</a>” in Navajo and other tribal traditions and should not be defiled in this way. The inside of the lander was to be a kind of “<a href="https://elysiumspace.com/">space burial</a>” for remains of some 70 people. Each of the families had <a href="https://www.celestis.com/experiences-pricing/">paid over US$12,000 for a permanent memorial on the Moon</a>. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/religious-studies/faculty/joanne-pierce">professors</a> <a href="https://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/religious-studies/faculty/mathew-schmalz">of religious studies</a> who have taught courses on death rites, we know that death rituals in the world’s religions have been shaped by millennia of tradition and practice. While these ashes didn’t make it to the Moon because of a <a href="https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=PEREGRN-1">propellant leak</a>, their presence on the lander raised some important religious issues: Beliefs about the polluting nature of the corpse, the acceptability of cremation and the sacredness of the Moon vary across traditions. </p>
<h2>Jewish death rituals and purification</h2>
<p>In ancient Judaism, certain activities were believed to be polluting, rendering a person unfit to participate in prayers and animal sacrifices offered exclusively at the Temple in Jerusalem. There were many ways in which one could become ritually unclean, and each level of pollution was cleansed by an appropriate purification rite. <a href="https://www.religiousrules.com/Judaismpurity03corpse.htm">Direct contact with a human corpse</a> was believed to cause the most intense form of pollution; even touching a person or object that had been in contact with a corpse would cause a lesser level of defilement.</p>
<p>After the Romans <a href="https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/faq/destruction-second-temple-70-ce">destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E.</a>, Jewish religious practice changed dramatically, including rules about purification. These days, after a burial or visit to a cemetery, many Jewish people wash their hands to wash away negative <a href="https://outorah.org/p/64492/">spirits or energy</a>.</p>
<p>In Judaism, the bodies of the dead are to be buried or entombed in the earth. Cremation of human bodies, <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/510874/jewish/Why-Does-Judaism-Forbid-Cremation.htm">rejected for centuries</a>, has become more popular but <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/judaism-on-cremation/">still remains a controversial option</a> due to the older tradition of respect for the body as a creation of God – to be buried intact and without mutilation.</p>
<h2>Christian death rituals over the centuries</h2>
<p>Before Christianity developed in the first century C.E., <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9497-3_1">Roman civil religion</a> stressed the need to separate the living from the dead. Corpses or cremated remains were interred in burial places outside cities and town – in <a href="https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/city/necropolis">the necropolis</a>, literally a city of the dead. As in Judaism, <a href="https://doi.org/10.4314/actat.v26i2.52569">any visitor needed purification</a> afterward. </p>
<p>As monotheists, Christians rejected belief in the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, including the <a href="https://www.theoi.com/Titan/Selene.html#:%7E:text=SELE%E2%80%B2NE%20(Sel%C3%AAn%C3%AA)%2C,371%2C%20%">Moon goddess called Selene or Luna</a>. They also refused to participate in Roman state religious rituals or activities based on pagan polytheism. Decades later, after Christianity became the official imperial religion, Christians moved the <a href="http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E01019">remains of people they considered holy into towns and cities</a> to be re-entombed for easier veneration inside churches.</p>
<p>During the medieval period, ordinary Christians desired to be buried close to these saints in anticipation of the resurrection of the body at the second coming of Christ. Graveyards around the church were <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501753855/standing-on-holy-ground-in-the-middle-ages/">consecrated as “holy ground</a>.” In this way, Christians believed that the departed might continue to <a href="https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-medieval-pilgrimage/burial-ad-sanctos-SIM_00143#:%7E:text=Burial%20">benefit from the holiness of the saints</a>. Their bodies were considered sources of spiritual blessing rather than causes of spiritual pollution.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574710/original/file-20240209-26-yavs36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A relief showing a corpse being placed in a coffin as people stand around, one holding a tall crucifix." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574710/original/file-20240209-26-yavs36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574710/original/file-20240209-26-yavs36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574710/original/file-20240209-26-yavs36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574710/original/file-20240209-26-yavs36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574710/original/file-20240209-26-yavs36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574710/original/file-20240209-26-yavs36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574710/original/file-20240209-26-yavs36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fourth-century Christian burial depicted in relief at the Shrine of San Vittore in Ciel d'Oro, Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, Milan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/9691_-_Milano_-_S._Ambrogio_-_San_Vittore_in_Ciel_d%27oro_-_Foto_Giovanni_Dall%27Orto_25-Apr-2007.jpg">G.dallorto, Attribution/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Increasingly today, cremation is considered acceptable, although the Catholic Church requires that cremated remains <a href="https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/sacraments-and-sacramentals/bereavement-and-funerals/cremation-and-funerals">must not be scattered or partitioned</a> but buried or placed elsewhere in cemeteries. </p>
<p>Unlike some other religions, neither Judaism nor Christianity considers the Moon divine or sacred. As part of God’s creation, it <a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/when-easter#:%7E:text=The%20">plays a role</a> in setting the religious calendars. In both Jewish and Christian spiritual writing, the <a href="https://blog.nli.org.il/en/jewish_moon">Moon is used as a spiritual analogy</a>: in Judaism, of the majesty of God, and in Christianity, of Christ and the church.</p>
<h2>Islamic beliefs on burial</h2>
<p><a href="https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2018/11/01/respect-for-the-dead-under-islamic-law-considerations-for-humanitarian-forensics/">Cremation is strictly prohibited in Islam</a>. After death, the deceased is <a href="https://www.islamicity.org/5586/preparation-of-te-deceased-and-janazah-prayers/">ritually washed, wrapped in shrouds</a> and brought for burial in a cemetery as soon as possible.</p>
<p>After a <a href="https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/ep-1-the-janazah-prayer-for-those-left-behind">funeral prayer</a>, led by an imam or senior member of the community, the deceased is buried – usually without a coffin – with their head oriented toward the holy city of Mecca. The soul of the deceased is <a href="https://zamzam.com/blog/life-after-death-in-islam/">said to visit their loved ones</a> on the seventh and 40th days after death. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://quran.com/en/fussilat/37">Quran warns against worshiping the Moon</a>, as was done in pre-Islamic culture, because worship is due to God alone.</p>
<p>In September 2007, when the first Muslim astronaut from Malaysia got ready to go into space, the Malaysian National Space Agency <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-09-20-islamic-body-rules-on-how-to-pray-wash-die-in-space/">published religious directives</a> on burial rituals for Muslims in space. These directives said if bringing the body back wasn’t possible, then he would be “interred” in space after a brief ceremony. And if no water was available in space for the ceremonial rituals, then “holy dust” should be swept onto the face and hands “even if there is no dust” in the space station. </p>
<h2>Hindu and Buddhist funerary practices</h2>
<p>Hinduism is a diverse religion, and so funeral practices often vary according to culture and context. Most commonly, death and the period following a person’s death are associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/006996689023001007">ritual pollution</a>. Because of this, the deceased should be cremated within 24 hours after death.</p>
<p>The cremation of the corpse cuts the ties of the soul, or the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/atman">atman</a>, to the body, allowing it to move on to the next level of existence and eventually be reincarnated. The ashes are collected and placed into an urn on the third day after cremation and immersed in a body of water, ideally a sacred river such as the Ganges.</p>
<p>Within Hinduism, the Moon has played an important role in conceptualizing what happens to the dead. For example, the ancient Hindu texts describe the spirits of the virtuous dead as entering Chandraloka, or the realm of the Moon, where they experience happiness for a time before being reincarnated.</p>
<p>In the many forms of Buddhism, death provides an opportunity for mourners to reflect <a href="https://tricycle.org/magazine/buddhist-death-rites/">on the impermanence of all things</a>. While in Tibetan Buddhism there is the tradition of “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/29757283">sky burial</a>,” in which the deceased is dismembered and left to the elements, in most forms of Buddhism the dead are usually cremated and, as in Hinduism, the corpse is considered polluting beforehand. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574713/original/file-20240209-16-vrekcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person lighting a candle at an altar, painted in red color, with white flowers in two vases and incense sticks in a small pot." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574713/original/file-20240209-16-vrekcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574713/original/file-20240209-16-vrekcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574713/original/file-20240209-16-vrekcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574713/original/file-20240209-16-vrekcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574713/original/file-20240209-16-vrekcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574713/original/file-20240209-16-vrekcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574713/original/file-20240209-16-vrekcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A ritual being performed at a Thai funeral ceremony.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/funeral-watering-ceremony-thai-cultural-ritual-royalty-free-image/1831759719?phrase=buddhist+cremation&adppopup=true">Surasak Suwanmake/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In older forms of Buddhism in Nepal and Tibet, the Moon was understood to be <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/38344#:%7E:text=Worship%20of%20the%20moon%20god">identified with the god Chandra</a>, who rides on a chariot. The Moon is also one of the nine astrological deities whose movement provides insight for reckoning individual and collective futures.</p>
<h2>Difficult questions</h2>
<p>In response to the Navajo objection that landing ashes on the Moon was a defilement, the CEO of Celestis, the company that paid for capsules containing the ashes, <a href="https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/biden-administration-to-consult-with-navajo-about-human-remains-on-the-moon/">issued a statement</a> stressing that launching containers of human ashes to the Moon is “the antithesis of desecration … it’s celebration.” </p>
<p>In the end, the question was moot. Peregrine 1 <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/15/world/peregrine-moon-lander-failure-nasa-scn/index.html">never made its soft landing on the Moon</a> because of an engine malfunction, and its <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67962397">payload was destroyed</a> after entering the atmosphere. </p>
<p>As more people decide to send their ashes into space, however, religious conflicts are bound to arise. The key concern, and not just for the Navajo Nation, will be how to respect all religious traditions as humans explore and commercialize the Moon. It still remains a problem today here on Earth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221399/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two scholars who study death rituals explain that the corpse is considered spiritually polluting in many religious traditions, while the Moon holds a sacred place.Joanne M. Pierce, Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, College of the Holy CrossMathew Schmalz, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2209952024-01-29T13:34:35Z2024-01-29T13:34:35ZWhen is criticism of Israel antisemitic? A scholar of modern Jewish history explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571686/original/file-20240126-15-ohdmpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=110%2C12%2C2573%2C1797&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Antisemitic incidents have spiked in recent months.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BelgiumIsraelPalestiniansProtest/f1dde9aed49c452ebb9ecea51d4a80a8/photo?Query=protests%20against%20anti%20semitism%202023&amp;mediaType=photo&amp;sortBy=&amp;dateRange=Anytime&amp;totalCount=237&amp;digitizationType=Digitized&amp;currentItemNo=45&amp;vs=true&amp;vs=true">AP Photo/Nicolas Landemard</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There has been a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/antisemitism-rise-us-amid-ongoing-israel-hamas-war/story?id=104485604">sharp increase in antisemitism around the world</a> since the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/timeline-surprise-rocket-attack-hamas-israel/story?id=103816006">Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas</a> and Israel’s subsequent military attacks in the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>The apparent connection of this spike to many countries’ condemnation of Israel’s response has brought renewed focus on the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. When does criticism of Israel “cross the line” to antisemitism, and when is it a legitimate political expression? </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://charleston.edu/jewish/index.php">scholar of modern Jewish history</a>, antisemitism and Zionism, I suggest that the key to understanding that relationship begins with understanding antisemitism itself. </p>
<h2>History of antisemitism</h2>
<p>Anti-Jewish animosity is certainly not new — it dates to antiquity. The early Christian church attacked Jews for rejecting Christ and blamed them collectively for crucifying him. </p>
<p>The Gospel of John in the New Testament <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/r/rsv/rsv-idx?type=citation&book=John&chapno=8&startverse=44&endverse=#:%7E:text=%5B44%5D%20You%20are%20of%20your,and%20the%20father%20of%20lies">was particularly vitriolic</a>, accusing Jews of being Satan’s children. The fourth century church father John Chrysostom <a href="https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/chrysostom_adversus_judaeos_01_homily1.htm">called them demons intent on sacrificing the souls of men</a>. </p>
<p>Medieval Christians added other myths, such as the <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Blood_Libels_and_Host_Desecration_Accusations">infamous blood libel</a> – the lie that Jews ritually murdered Christian children for their blood. Other myths accused them of poisoning wells, of desecrating the consecrated host of the Eucharist to reenact the murder of Christ; some even claimed that they had <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1876-0510-518">inhuman biology such as horns or that they suckled</a> at the teats of pigs. </p>
<p>Such lies led to violent persecution of Jews over many centuries. </p>
<h2>Modern antisemitism</h2>
<p>In the 19th century, these myths were supplanted by the <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism-in-history-racial-antisemitism-18751945">additional element of race</a> — the claim that Jewishness was immutable and could not be changed via conversion. Though this idea first appeared in 15th-century Spain, it was deeply connected to the rise of modern nationalism.</p>
<p>Nineteenth century ethno-nationalists rejected the idea of a political nation united in a social contract with each other. They began imagining the nation as a biological community <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199874002/obo-9780199874002-0232.xml">linked by common descent</a> in which Jews might be tolerated but could never truly belong. </p>
<p>Finally, in 1879, the German journalist Wilhelm Marr <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/wilhelm-marr-9780195040050?cc=us&lang=en&">coined the term “antisemitism</a>” to reflect that his anti-Jewish ideology was based on race, not religion. He chose the term because he imagined the Jews as a foreign, “semitic” race, referring to the language group that includes Hebrew. The term has since persisted to mean specifically anti-Jewish hostility or prejudice.</p>
<h2>The myth of a Jewish conspiracy</h2>
<p>Modern antisemitism built on those premodern foundations, which never completely disappeared, but was fundamentally different. It emerged as part of the new politics of the democratic modern era. </p>
<p>Antisemitism became the core platform of <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674771666">new political parties</a>, which used it to unite otherwise opposing groups such as shopkeepers and farmers, anxious about the modernizing world. In other words, it was not merely prejudice – it was a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article-abstract/23/1/25/944572?redirectedFrom=fulltext">worldview</a> that explained the entire world to its believers by blaming all of its faults on this scapegoat. </p>
<p>Unlike anti-Jewish hatred in this past, this was less about religion, that Jews rejected Christ, and more about political and social issues. Antisemites believed the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230349216_5">conspiracy theory</a> that Jews all over the world controlled the levers of government, media and banking, and that defeating them would solve society’s problems. </p>
<p>Thus, one of the most important features of modern antisemitic mythology was the belief that Jews constituted a single, malevolent group, with one mind, organized for the purpose of conquering and destroying the world. </p>
<h2>Negative traits attributed to Jews</h2>
<p>Antisemitic books and cartoons often used <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/anti-jewish-propaganda">claws or tentacles</a> to symbolize the “<a href="https://perspectives.ushmm.org/item/the-international-jew-the-worlds-foremost-problem">international Jew</a>,” a shadowy figure they blamed for leading a global conspiracy, strangling and destroying society. Others depicted him as a puppet master running the world.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1710320257343119513"}"></div></p>
<p>In the late 19th century, Edmond Rothschild, head of the most famous Jewish banking family, was villainized as the <a href="https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/anti-semitism/modern-anti-semitism/">symbol of international Jewish wealth</a> and nefarious power. </p>
<p>Today, it is typically the billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros who is <a href="https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/puppet-master">often portrayed in similar ways</a>. Caricatures of Soros portray him as a puppet master <a href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/554021/donald-trump-george-soros-antisemitic-imagery-puppet-master/">secretly controlling all levers of government</a>, media, <a href="https://twitter.com/kohenari/status/1280132289004011520/photo/1">the economy</a> and even foreign migration. </p>
<p>This myth that Jews constitute an international creature plotting to harm the nation has inspired massacres of Jews since the 19th century, <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Pogroms">beginning with the Russian pogroms of 1881</a> and leading up to the Holocaust. </p>
<p>More recently, in 2018, Robert Bowers murdered 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh because he was convinced that Jews, collectively under the guidance of Soros, were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/a-conspiracy-theory-about-george-soros-and-a-migrant-caravan-inspired-horror/2018/10/28/52df587e-dae6-11e8-b732-3c72cbf131f2_story.html">working to destroy America</a> by facilitating the <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/great-replacement-explainer?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhJWQjKSAhAMVqVdHAR32MQLOEAAYAiAAEgK0Z_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds">mass migration of nonwhite people</a> into the country. </p>
<p>Modern antisemites ascribe many immutable negative traits to Jews, but two are particularly widespread. First, Jews are said to be ruthless misers who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/arts/design/jews-money-myth-antisemitism-exhibition-london.html">care more about their ill-gotten wealth</a> than the interests of their countries. Second, Jews’ loyalty to their countries is considered suspect because they are said to constitute a foreign element. </p>
<p>Since Israel’s establishment in 1948, this hatred has focused on the accusation that Jews’ primary loyalty is to Israel, not the countries they live in.</p>
<h2>Antisemitism and anti-Zionism</h2>
<p>In recent years, the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism has taken on renewed importance. <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/content/dam/cmenas-assets/cmenas-documents/unit-of-israel-palestine/Section1_Zionism.pdf">Zionism</a> has many factions but roughly refers to the modern political movement that argues Jews constitute a nation and have a right to self-determination in that land.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2023-05-02/ty-article/.premium/adl-chief-focuses-major-speech-on-anti-zionism-and-threats-to-orthodox-education/00000187-dd19-dea8-af97-dfb91cb20000">Some activists claim</a> that anti-Zionism – ideological opposition to Zionism – is inherently antisemitic because they equate it with denying Jews the right to self-determination and therefore equality.</p>
<p>Others feel that <a href="https://omny.fm/shows/knxam-on-demand/anti-semitism-and-anti-zionism-are-they-always-the?t=0s">there needs to be a clearer separation</a> between the two, that not all criticism of Israel is anti-Zionist, and not all anti-Zionism is antisemitic. </p>
<p>Zionism in practice has meant the achievement of a flourishing safe haven for Jews, but also led to dislocation or inequality for millions of Palestinians, including refugees, West Bank Palestinians who still live under military rule, and even Palestinian citizens of Israel who face legal and social discrimination. Anti-Zionism opposes this, and <a href="https://omny.fm/shows/knxam-on-demand/anti-semitism-and-anti-zionism-are-they-always-the?t=0s">critics argue</a> that it should not be labeled antisemitic unless it taps into those antisemitic myths or otherwise calls for violence or inequality for Jews.</p>
<p>This debate is clearly evident in the competing definitions of antisemitism that have recently emerged. Three have gained particular prominence. The first was the so-called “<a href="https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism">working definition</a>” of the International Holocaust Remembrance Association, or the IHRA, published in 2016. </p>
<p>In response, an academic task force <a href="https://israelandantisemitism.com/the-nexus-document/">published the Nexus definition</a> in 2021, followed by the <a href="https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/">Jerusalem Declaration</a> that same year, the latter signed by hundreds of international scholars of antisemitism. </p>
<p>Remarkably, all three definitions tend to agree on the nature of antisemitism in most areas except the relationship of anti-Israel rhetoric to antisemitism. The IHRA’s definition, which is by design <a href="https://kennethsstern.com/the-conflict-over-the-conflict/">vague and open to interpretation</a>, allows for a wider swath of anti-Israel activism to be labeled antisemitic than the others. </p>
<p>The Jerusalem Declaration, in contrast, understands rhetoric to have “crossed the line” only when it engages in antisemitic mythology, blames diaspora Jews for the actions of the Israeli state, or calls for the oppression of Jews in Israel. Thus, for example, IHRA defenders use that definition to label a <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/media-watch/dissolve-jewish-state-peter-beinart-wrong">call for binational democracy</a> – meaning citizenship for West Bank Palestinians – to be antisemitic. Likewise, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/27/antisemitism-left-rising/">they label boycotts</a> even of West Bank settlements that most of the world calls illegal to be antisemitic. The Jerusalem Declaration would not do so. </p>
<p>In other words, the key to identifying whether anti-Israel discourse has masked antisemitism is to see evidence of the antisemitic mythology. For example, if Israel is described as part of an international conspiracy or if it holds the key to solving global problems, all three definitions agree this is antisemitic. </p>
<p>Equally, if Jews or Jewish institutions are held responsible for Israeli actions or are expected to take a stand one way or another regarding them, again all three definitions agree this “crosses the line” because it is based on the myth of a global Jewish conspiracy. </p>
<p>Critically, for many Jews in the diaspora, Zionism is not primarily a political argument about the state of Israel. For many Jews, it <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/zionism/9780813576091/">constitutes a generic sense of Jewish identity and pride</a>, even a religious identity. In contrast, many protests against Israel and Zionism are focused not on ideology but on the actual state and its real or alleged actions. </p>
<p>This disconnect can lead to confusion if protests conflate Jews with Israel just because they are Zionist, which is antisemitic. On the other hand, Jews sometimes take protests against Israel in defense of Palestinian rights to be attacks on their Zionist identity and thus antisemitic, when they are not. There are certainly <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the-palestinian-slogan-really-mean">gray areas</a>, but in general calls for Palestinian equality, I believe, are legitimate even when they upset Zionist identities. </p>
<p>In my view, antisemitism must be identified and fought, but so too must efforts to squash legitimate protest of Israel by conflating it with antisemitism. By understanding the mythology underlying antisemitism, hopefully both can be accomplished.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Shanes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In recent years, the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism has taken on renewed importance and competing definitions of antisemitism have emerged. What is antisemitism?Joshua Shanes, Professor of Jewish Studies, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2212122024-01-28T17:19:37Z2024-01-28T17:19:37ZMore than religion: why some of Israel’s staunchest support comes from the Pacific Islands<p>One of the most perplexing yet poorly understood aspects of the international diplomatic response to the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/tag/israel-war-on-gaza/">ongoing Gaza conflict</a> has been the overwhelmingly pro-Israel orientation of Pacific Island states. </p>
<p>During the voting on two United Nations resolutions (<a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/%20wp-content/uploads/2023/11/N2332702.pdf">October 27th</a> and <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/protection-of-civilians-and-upholding-legal-and-humanitarian-obligations-ga-10th-emergency-special-session-draft-resolution/">December 12th</a>) calling on Israel to reduce the death and suffering of Palestinian civilians, many Pacific countries voted either <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/12/pacific-island-states-continue-disproportionate-support-of-israel-at-the-un/">against the resolution or abstained</a>. </p>
<p>Why would these small island countries, on the other side of the world and with no direct links to Israel, choose to either oppose or not support this essential humanitarian gesture?</p>
<p>Explanations of this anomaly have rightly placed emphasis upon the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/11/how-asia-pacific-states-voted-on-the-uns-israel-palestine-resolution/">intensely Christian character of Pacific societies</a>. </p>
<p>Adherence rates in most Pacific countries sit above 90%. Across the region, Israel and Judaism are exalted as the sacred foundations of their faith. Governments drawn from these societies duplicate these views, which are then borne out in international forums such as the UN. </p>
<p>Such an analysis is not wrong, but it might be obscuring other factors that contribute to staunch support for Israel. If the breadth and strength of Christian faith was the basis for supporting Israel, why then did other fervently Christian nations such as <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Brazil-President.pdf">Brazil</a> or <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/640795-gaza-nigerias-senate-calls-for-ceasefire-in-israel-palestine-war.html">Nigeria</a> support the resolutions? </p>
<h2>The role of kinship in the Pacific Islands</h2>
<p>There is one hugely important characteristic of the region’s culture that has been overlooked: <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship">kinship</a>. </p>
<p>Kinship is fundamentally about a sense of togetherness. It may be created either biologically, through processes like parenthood, inheritance and so forth, or culturally, through marriage or adoption. Ultimately what it refers to is how and why people are related to each other.</p>
<p>The centrality of family, relatedness, blood and descent for Pacific society cannot be overstated. Kinship is the machinery of the region’s societies, the gears, levers and pulleys by which all communities function.</p>
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<p>Of crucial importance in this respect is that kinship and family dictate and regulate access to all manner of material benefits, from marriage through to the benefits of <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/jso/7117?lang=en">economic development projects</a>. If you can convincingly argue that your ancestors dwelt in or were even physically a part of a given territory, then you establish access to the relevant benefits. </p>
<p>Kinship is not simply a matter of who is related to who and who came from where. It is something thoroughly pragmatic and instrumental, a social charter for who gets what. As such, it follows that these structures warp and bend to fit novel scenarios.</p>
<h2>Linking kinship and geopolitics</h2>
<p>How can this Pacific cultural strategy help us understand the region’s geopolitical leanings? </p>
<p>First, we need to return to the basics of the Christian faith. It is not an overstatement to say that the ultimate goal of all Christians is to enter heaven.</p>
<p>A second crucial point is that the Bible explicitly mentions in several places that the Jews are God’s chosen people, and that they enjoy this privileged status by virtue of their genealogical descent from the ancient Israelites. </p>
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<p>Such an arrangement makes perfect sense for Pacific peoples, whose entire ways of life are built on gaining benefits through family and kinship. </p>
<p>It should come as little surprise, then, that a common strategy adopted across the region in order to close the distance between themselves and the chosen people of God has been to accommodate them within local kinship networks. It is an ancient technique now applied on a fully global scale. </p>
<p>Just as various Pacific communities produce ancestral narratives that describe claims to different types of wealth, so too have they created family stories that position them squarely within the sphere of Christian sacredness. </p>
<h2>Belief and diplomacy</h2>
<p>In a variety of ways, people have woven Jewish people, their sacred geography, and the state of Israel, into their own kinship networks. </p>
<p>This may occur directly, as communities assert membership of the ten lost tribes of Israel. Various passages in the Bible describe the expulsion and resettlement of ancient groups by the then dominant Assyrian kingdom. </p>
<p>Jewish and Christian theologians later deduced that these exiled groups were still out in the world somewhere and had given rise to a range of populations. This theory became popular across the Euro-American Christian world in the 20th century. </p>
<p>It appears that this idea eventually found its way into the Pacific, especially Melanesia, where local people now advance the claim they have descended from these dispersed tribes, a strategy designed to ensure their salvation.</p>
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Read more:
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<p>The kinship connection may also occur indirectly, through <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ocea.5102">expressions of spiritual affinities with Jewish people</a>. In any case, it is in a truly Pacific manner that kinship networks have opened and then closed around those things they wish to extract value from.</p>
<p>Since the politicians of the Pacific are drawn from populations that created familial intimacy with Israel and the Jewish people, it is inevitable these biases unfold in their diplomatic decision making. </p>
<p>It is worth noting, too, that recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/25/biden-pacific-islands-aid-china#:%7E:text=During%20the%202022%20summit%20the,climate%20crisis%20and%20maritime%20security.">promises of substantial aid money</a> from the United States – Israel’s strongest ally – have likely strengthened this attitude. </p>
<p>But it is not clear whether this stance is permanent. We will have to wait and see whether religion continues to trump ethical considerations, as wider <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/02/politics/biden-administration-warning-israel-gaza-civilians/index.html">international support for Israel slowly erodes</a> in the face of the disaster taking place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fraser Macdonald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pacific Island support for Israel in the United Nations goes beyond a shared Judeo-Christian belief system. It involves a fundamental emphasis on community based on connection and relationships.Fraser Macdonald, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2128552024-01-04T13:45:22Z2024-01-04T13:45:22ZSeeing the human in every patient − from biblical texts to 21st century relational medicine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564308/original/file-20231207-19-2ew23e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C3%2C2108%2C1406&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Making patients feel seen and heard -- not just "treated."</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/clinical-doctor-giving-test-results-to-patients-royalty-free-image/1062186846?phrase=doctor+patient&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">Tom Werner/Digital Vision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Patients frequently describe the U.S. health care system as impersonal, corporate and fragmented. One study even called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.168.17.1843">the care delivered to many vulnerable patients</a> “inhumane.” Seismic changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic – particularly the shift to telehealth – only exacerbated that feeling.</p>
<p>In response, many health systems now emphasize “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jradnu.2023.02.005">relational medicine</a>”: care that purports to center on the patient as a human being. Physician <a href="https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/people/112358510-ronald-mark-epstein">Ronald Epstein</a> and health communication researcher <a href="https://liberalarts.tamu.edu/communication/profile/richard-l-street-jr/">Richard Street</a> describe “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.1239">patient-centered care</a>” as advocating “deep respect for patients as unique living beings, and the obligation to care for them on their terms.”</p>
<p>In 15 years as <a href="https://www.religiousstudies.pitt.edu/people/jonathan-weinkle-md-faap-facp">a primary care physician</a>, I have seen the effects of dehumanizing medical care – and the difference it makes when a patient feels they are being respected, not just “treated.” </p>
<p>Though “relational medicine” may be a relatively new phrase, the basic idea is not. Seeing each person before you as someone of infinite value is fundamental to many faiths’ beliefs about medical ethics. In my own tradition, Judaism, “person-centered care” has roots in <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.1.28?lang=bi&aliyot=0">the biblical Book of Genesis</a>, where the creation story teaches that “God created the Human in God’s own image.” As <a href="https://www.chatham.edu/academics/graduate/physician-assistant-studies/faculty/jonathan-weinkle.html">a medical educator,</a> I teach students how to turn these abstract ideas into concrete clinical skills.</p>
<h2>Divine dignity</h2>
<p>Traditional Jewish law sets rules that shape my understanding of these skills. As the influential French sage Rashi wrote in an 11th century commentary on the Bible, <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Leviticus.19.16?lang=bi&aliyot=0&p2=Rashi_on_Leviticus.19.17.1&lang2=bi&w2=all&lang3=en">it is forbidden to publicly embarrass a person</a> “so that their face turns white,” even while rebuking them. For doctors today, this might mean taking care not to <a href="https://doi.org/10.2337/diaclin.34.1.44">inflict shame on a person with a stigmatized illness</a> like substance use <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-weight-inclusive-health-care-mean-a-dietitian-explains-what-some-providers-are-doing-to-end-weight-stigma-207710">or obesity</a>.</p>
<p>The Bible <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.22.24?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en">forbids wronging</a> <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Bava_Metzia.60a.1?lang=en&with=all&lang2=en">or abusing strangers</a> not once, not twice, but 36 times – a reminder not to “other” people or obscure their basic humanity. A similar value appears in the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44449883">18th century Physician’s Prayer</a>, written by the German-Jewish physician Marcus Hertz, who states, “In the sufferer, let me see only the human being.”</p>
<p>American Rabbi <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/us/harold-m-schulweis-progressive-rabbi-is-dead-at-89.html">Harold Schulweis</a> used the concept of “covenant” – a holy, mutual agreement – as <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/1859917">a model for the bond between physician and patient</a>, working toward a common goal. This idea inspired my own book, “<a href="https://healthylearning.com/healing-people-not-patients-creating-authentic-relationships-in-modern-healthcare-1/">Healing People, Not Patients</a>.”</p>
<p>Similar connections between medicine, respect and religion are found in other traditions, as well. A 1981 <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/islamic-code-medical-ethics-kuwait-document">Islamic code of medical ethics</a>, for instance, considers the patient the leader of the medical team. The doctor exists “for the sake of the patient … not the other way round,” it reminds practitioners. “The ‘patient’ is master, and the ‘Doctor’ is at his service.” </p>
<h2>Seeing and hearing the whole patient</h2>
<p>In undergraduate classes that I teach for future health professionals at the University of Pittsburgh, we focus on communication skills to foster dignified care, such as setting a shared agenda with a patient to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2005.40266.x">align their goals and the provider’s</a>. Students <a href="https://www.matthewsbooks.com/productdetail.aspx?pid=6221TRZ8106&close=false">also read “Compassionomics</a>,” by medical researchers <a href="https://preprofessionalstudies.nd.edu/people/stephen-trzeciak/">Stephen Trzeciak</a> and <a href="https://cmsru.rowan.edu/faculty-profiles/emergency-medicine/teaching-faculty/mazzarelli-anthony.html">Anthony Mazzarelli</a>, which aggregates the data showing caring’s impact on the well-being of patients and providers alike.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564321/original/file-20231207-17-v5t2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a white medical coat leans forward, seated, as she talks seriously with a seated boy in a green t-shirt." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564321/original/file-20231207-17-v5t2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564321/original/file-20231207-17-v5t2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564321/original/file-20231207-17-v5t2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564321/original/file-20231207-17-v5t2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564321/original/file-20231207-17-v5t2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564321/original/file-20231207-17-v5t2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564321/original/file-20231207-17-v5t2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Respectful care isn’t just ‘nice’ – it’s more effective.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/smiling-doctor-talking-to-boy-in-exam-room-royalty-free-image/1293518268?phrase=doctor+patient&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">The Good Brigade/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>However, even health professionals steeped in these practices can encounter people whose humanity they struggle to see. Students wrestle with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM197804202981605">a classic article about “the hateful patient</a>” and practice an exercise called <a href="https://doi.org/10.7326/M13-0995">the “second sentence</a>.” This asks providers to look beyond their first impressions of a patient they might have trouble treating with compassion, imagining a “second sentence” that humanizes the person in front of them.</p>
<p>The course evaluation is based on a project in which students interview a friend, relative or neighbor about their experience of illness and care. Ultimately, they identify one element of the person’s care that could have been improved by attending more to the person’s individual needs and listening to their story. </p>
<p>One student recounted her brother’s experience after he suffered a serious sports injury. The trauma team followed protocol precisely, but this meant that they did not register him screaming in pain, telling them that what they were doing was making him feel worse. Only in the hospital did doctors discover that those screams were a clue to a specific injury that should have received radically different care in the field, which could have been caught earlier had the team attended more closely to his words. His sister explored the medical literature on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074019862680">when EMS needs to break its own rules</a> to care for a complex patient, and she suggested her own mnemonic – stop-ask-listen-evaluate (SALE) – for how to make “breaking protocol” one of the options in the protocol itself.</p>
<p>Another student related his father’s experience living with chronic illness. His condition frequently deteriorated because of delays in refilling medicine through his regular physician’s office. This student pointed to medical literature detailing how pharmacists can be given greater authority to refill medications for chronic diseases, preventing gaps in treatment, which would have saved his father significant hardship.</p>
<h2>Listening with both ears</h2>
<p>Down the road at Chatham University, I work with physician assistant students who are about to enter clinic for the first time. These students complete a workshop including many of the same communication exercises, including “listening with both ears”: listening not only to the patient, but also to what they themselves say to the patient, considering how it will be received. Students are encouraged to go home and practice until the words feel natural in their mouths, not scripted or mechanical – just like they drill anatomy facts and suturing skills.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564312/original/file-20231207-17-53rp14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Six young adults sit at a conference table, some of them in scrubs, as a doctor in a white coat leads a discussion." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564312/original/file-20231207-17-53rp14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564312/original/file-20231207-17-53rp14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564312/original/file-20231207-17-53rp14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564312/original/file-20231207-17-53rp14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564312/original/file-20231207-17-53rp14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564312/original/file-20231207-17-53rp14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564312/original/file-20231207-17-53rp14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Part of a doctor’s responsibility is translating respect for patients into concrete techniques.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-doctor-teaching-nursing-students-royalty-free-image/1387152896?phrase=medical+student+clinic&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>After their clinical year, the students return to reflect. Many of them report using patient-centered skills in challenging situations, such as validating patients’ concerns that had previously been dismissed.</p>
<p>Yet they also report a work culture where effective communication is often seen as taking too much time or as a low priority. Sixty years ago, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and psychiatrist William C. Menninger <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1964.03070010087041">presented on The Patient as a Person</a> to the American Medical Association. Heschel declared that the profession was suffering from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-018-9472-x">a “spiritual malaria</a>,” his term for precisely the “high-tech, low-touch” attitude that my students encounter. The emphasis on technology and a rapid pace of treatment leaves scant room for caring, whether in Heschel’s day or ours.</p>
<p>In both programs where I teach, I aim to provide new practitioners with tangible skills that their future patients will experience as real “whole-person care” and not just a slogan on a commercial. Those patients will know that the people caring for them value all of them – their livelihoods, their life stories and the worlds they inhabit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212855/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Weinkle is affiliated with American College of Physicians and American Academy of Pediatrics.</span></em></p>The COVID-19 pandemic put a spotlight on how fragmented medical care can be. Relational, or person-centered, medicine is attempting to provide solutions.Jonathan Weinkle, Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine and Part-Time Instructor of Religious Studies, University of PittsburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2177612023-12-10T14:30:46Z2023-12-10T14:30:46Z‘You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah’ speaks to the meaningful impact of religious rituals for Jewish girls<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/you-are-so-not-invited-to-my-bat-mitzvah-speaks-to-the-meaningful-impact-of-religious-rituals-for-jewish-girls" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Adam Sandler’s newest movie, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21276878/"><em>You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah</em></a>, an <a href="https://www.heyalma.com/the-author-of-you-are-so-not-invited-to-my-bat-mitzvah-has-a-secret/">adaptation of</a> Fiona Rosenbloom’s 2005 eponymous <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/You_Are_SO_Not_Invited_to_My_Bat_Mitzvah.html?id=E99g4AoHI4wC&redir_esc=y">young adult novel</a>, is out in time for winter vacation and Netflix binging. </p>
<p>It is no surprise that this teen-themed film is a comedy, alternating between cringe-y and sweet scenes. </p>
<p>Yet the film also offers opportunities to consider how different genres of Jewish-themed films explore the potential of religious ritual to empower young Jewish women. </p>
<h2>Girls’ relationships and futures</h2>
<p>In the movie, Stacy (<a href="https://people.com/parents/all-about-adam-sandler-kids">Sandler’s real-life daughter Sunny</a>) and her best friend Lydia (Samantha Lorraine) have been planning their dreamy, over-the-top, conspicuous consumption Bat Mitzvah parties — <a href="https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/you-are-so-not-invited-to-my-bat-mitzvah-movie-soundtrack">New York City</a> and Candyland themed, respectively — together since childhood. </p>
<p>Their friendship, however, is tested and, temporarily, broken by jealousy over a boy. This is followed by Stacy’s spread of untrue rumours on social media about Lydia. Most devastating of all, Stacy’s embarrassing videos of Lydia are mistakenly shown at Lydia’s Bat Mitzvah party which is consequently ruined. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<p>When Stacy finds herself standing on <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/bimah/">the bima</a> for her own Bat Mitzvah ritual, she is facing Lydia’s family’s empty seats, her own family, the congregation and the open <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-torah-scroll-judaic-treasures">Torah scroll</a>. </p>
<p>It is then and there that Stacy admits her wrongdoings, expresses her real remorse for her actions and recognizes the importance of her Jewish community. When Lydia attends Stacy’s party (under parental duress), she discovers Stacy cancelled her own party plans so that Lydia could have the party she always dreamed of. </p>
<h2>Reform-style American Judaism</h2>
<p><em>You Are So</em> presents viewers with a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/#:%7E:text=Pew%20Research%20Center%20estimates%20that,were%20Jews%20of%20no%20religion.">liberal, Reform-style congregation</a>: the Rabbi is a woman, men and women sit together, the service is mostly in English and congregants are completely and unself-consciously integrated into secular American life. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1696319251890790911"}"></div></p>
<p>A hundred and one years before <em>You Are So</em> was released, <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-first-bat-mitzvah-in-the-united-states">the first American Bat Mitzvah</a> took place. Judith Kaplan, daughter of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, read the blessings for, and a passage from, the Torah from her personal prayer book, not the Torah scroll itself. </p>
<p>This happened in Rabbi Kaplan’s sanctuary in the brownstone home of the <a href="https://saj.nyc/connect/history-of-saj/">Society for the Advancement of Judaism</a>, a synagogue which would evolve over time into <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/reconstructionist-judaism-today/">Reconstructionist Judaism</a>. Influenced by <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23605610">American second wave feminism</a>, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-jewish-denominations/">Conservative synagogues</a> widely adopted the Bat Mitzvah ritual by the 1960s. Reform synagogues did so by the 1970s. Jewish communities <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253356932/today-i-am-a-woman/">around the world now celebrate Bat Mitzvahs</a>.</p>
<h2>Women don’t traditionally read from the Torah</h2>
<p>In non-Orthodox synagogue rituals today, girls read directly and in front of the whole congregation from the Torah scrolls. Traditional Orthodox Judaism, <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-state-of-orthodox-judaism-today">however, does not allow women to read publicly from the Torah scrolls</a>. Orthodox congregations may call upon a young woman to speak about the meaning of the day’s Torah reading, or allow her to read from the Torah in a women’s-only service. </p>
<p>Today in Israel, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/reform-rabbis-assailed-as-they-try-to-bring-torah-scrolls-to-women-at-western-wall/">clashes led by</a> the ultra-Orthodox over the appropriateness of women reading from Torah scrolls at the Western Wall continue to erupt. At times, these <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-725748">have been violent</a>.</p>
<p>Women’s performances of traditionally male rituals are largely rejected in Orthodox congregations, although some <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/belief/articles/defining-open-orthodoxy">groups of Orthodox Jews</a> continue to debate and ponder various acceptable possibilities for women. </p>
<h2>‘By and for’ Orthodox women’s films</h2>
<p>I watched <em>You Are So</em> while thinking about this ongoing theological divide between Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities, as well as the growth and appeal of <a href="https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol25/iss1/58">“by and for women only” films</a> produced by Orthodox Jewish women. These films feature only modestly dressed and “appropriately behaved” Jewish girls and women, and are intended to be viewed only by girls and women. </p>
<p>Among the most well-known producers of the genre is <a href="https://www.artsandtorah.org/garbosero/">Robin Garbose</a>. In 2000, she founded <a href="https://kolneshama.wordpress.com/about/">Kol Neshama</a>, a Los Angeles-based performing arts conservatory “dedicated to providing professional artistic training and performance opportunities for girls and women in a Torah-observant setting and … the creation of distinctly Jewish film and stage productions.” </p>
<p>During Garbose’s female-only productions, unrelated men and women are not on set together. No production takes <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/what-is-shabbat-jewish-sabbath">place on Shabbat</a> or other Jewish festivals. </p>
<h2>Gender-specific lessons</h2>
<p>The films communicate gender-specific lessons for girls and women from an Orthodox point of view. <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-ed-contributors/women-only-movie-sparks-debate-understanding">Garbose, arguing for the importance of the by and for genre</a>, wrote in the <em>Jerusalem Post</em>: “Our Biblical tradition teaches that the Jewish People and all humanity were not annihilated following the sin of the <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/golden-calf">golden calf</a> in the merit of the <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hebrew-women-in-wilderness-midrash-and-aggadah">faithful women</a> who did not participate in the event.” </p>
<p>This refers to the story related in <em>Exodus</em> 32. Aaron asked for gold jewelry from men and women in order to create a golden calf to be worshipped by the Israelites who demanded a god. It was the <a href="https://www.jpost.com/jewish-world/judaism/kol-isha-when-the-women-refused-to-strip-off-their-finery">women who refused to give up their gold</a> for the creation of the idol. </p>
<h2>Interpretations of modesty</h2>
<p>For Garbose, the sin of the golden calf today includes Jewish women both acting in and viewing inappropriate films, actions in contradiction with Jewish laws of modesty. Her films, including both their production and intended female-only audiences, are appropriate for all women to take part in, without risking their fidelity to Jewish law. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j2fCxY8t1uA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Operation Candlelight.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Garbose would not portray Jewish women reading from the Torah publicly in her films, viewers of <em>You Are So</em> see Stacy do so. In fact, Stacy’s Torah reading is <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ki-tissa-a-summary-of-the-parashah/">Ki Tissa</a>, the story of the golden calf. </p>
<p>Garbose’s Kol Neshama films include <a href="https://mostlymusic.com/en-ca/products/robin-garbose-operation-candelight"><em>Operation: Candlelight</em></a> (2014), an “action adventure film for women and girls.” </p>
<p>In this film, girls at a religious Jewish school in California uncover a <a href="https://yuobserver.org/2013/10/film-talk-operation-candlelight/">local criminal plot</a>. They not only foil the plot, but also find that their truest selves are expressed when <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/festivals-and-holy-days">lighting Shabbat candles</a>, the quintessential Jewish woman’s ritual responsibility. </p>
<h2>Portraying Jewish women’s worlds</h2>
<p><em>You Are So</em> and <em>Operation</em> are seemingly worlds apart, despite being both filmed in California. </p>
<p>It seems clear that Sandler and Garbose are unlikely to agree on a variety of theological issues, including an interpretation of the golden calf. Yet they both find themselves in and portraying Jewish women’s worlds — Garbose in her work at Kol Neshama and <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-moms/pictures/meet-adam-sandlers-family-jackie-sadie-sunny-and-more/#">Sandler, at least as I imagine him, the sole man at home with his two daughters and wife</a>. </p>
<p>Garbose and Sandler share a focus on the potential of Jewish ritual, the Bat Mitzvah and Shabbat candlelighting respectively, to change and empower young Jewish women. Sandler and Garbose, remarkably, are in agreement, at least on this point.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Celia E. Rothenberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah’ may seem worlds apart from the growth and appeal of ‘by and for women only’ films produced by Orthodox Jewish women, but all these films share a focus on the potential of Jewish ritual.Celia E. Rothenberg, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2178932023-11-30T13:36:43Z2023-11-30T13:36:43ZIsrael’s mosaic of Jewish ethnic groups is key to understanding the country<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561744/original/file-20231127-21-ym0xyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C1%2C1013%2C680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People cheer as a vehicle carrying hostages released by Hamas drives toward an army base in Ofakim, southern Israel, on Nov. 26, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-cheer-as-a-vehicle-carrying-hostages-released-by-news-photo/1803642237?adppopup=true">Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some 16 million people worldwide identify as Jewish – and <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/global-jewish-population-hits-15-7-million-ahead-of-new-year-46-of-them-in-israel/">more than 7 million</a> of them live in Israel.</p>
<p>The country is home to more than 2 million people who are not Jewish, as well – primarily Arab Israelis, who make up 20% to 25% of the population, and more than 100,000 <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Israel-Hamas-war/How-Thai-workers-became-integral-to-Israel-s-economy">foreign workers</a>. Most Arab Israeli citizens are Muslim, but small minorities adhere to various Christian denominations, as well as <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/03/21/5-facts-about-israeli-druze-a-unique-religious-and-ethnic-group/">the Druze religion</a>.</p>
<p>Even within Israel’s Jewish population, however, there is dizzying diversity. As <a href="https://judaic.arizona.edu/person/david-l-graizbord">a historian of Jewish identity</a>, I believe that understanding that diversity is key to understanding Israelis’ behavior amid the current war in Gaza, as well as the country’s long-term resilience. </p>
<h2>Many cultures, one people</h2>
<p>Jews are not a “race,” but constitute <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511499067">a people or nation</a>. Traditionally, Jewish texts often refer to the Jewish people as “Israel.”</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.04.015">DNA studies</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Who_Were_the_Early_Israelites_and_Where.html?id=A_ByXkpofAgC">archaeological evidence</a> show that the Jewish people originated in the Middle East. Owing to Jews’ historical dispersion around the world however, Jews also belong to <a href="https://archive.jewishagency.org/society-and-politics/content/36171/">several Jewish ethnic groups</a>, all of which are represented in the modern state of Israel.</p>
<p>The largest Jewish ethnic group in Israel, <a href="https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic-origin-and-identity-in-Israel-JEMS-2018.pdf">about 40% to 45% of the country’s total population</a>, <a href="https://katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/blog/what-do-you-know-sephardi-vs-mizrahi">is called Mizrahi</a>, which means “Eastern” in Hebrew. Mizrahi Jews’ ancestors hailed from Jewish communities in the Middle East, including Israel itself. </p>
<p>The word Mizrahi often describes Jews from North Africa, too. However, these <a href="https://www.mahj.org/en/permanent-collection/9-jews-levant-and-maghreb">Maghrebi Jews</a> descend from different groups than other Mizrahi Jews. Some North African Jews’ ancestors came from local communities. Others migrated there from the Iberian Peninsula after Spain expelled its Jewish population in 1492.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561787/original/file-20231127-17-y5hf0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of people smile as they gather inside a building, many of them wearing white headcoverings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561787/original/file-20231127-17-y5hf0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561787/original/file-20231127-17-y5hf0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561787/original/file-20231127-17-y5hf0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561787/original/file-20231127-17-y5hf0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561787/original/file-20231127-17-y5hf0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561787/original/file-20231127-17-y5hf0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561787/original/file-20231127-17-y5hf0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pilgrims have lunch at El Ghriba Synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba, the oldest Jewish monument built in Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pilgrims-have-lunch-at-el-ghriba-synagogue-in-tunisian-news-photo/491690053?adppopup=true">Amine Landoulsi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The expulsion of these Sephardic communities, as Iberian Jews are called, <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814729113/after-expulsion/">scattered Sephardi culture</a> throughout areas such as Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, Italy and Morocco. Thus, many Jews whose families came to these regions are genealogically and culturally Sephardi. Yet, Sephardi Jews also include people whose Jewish ancestors adopted the traditions of Iberian Jews.</p>
<p>The Israeli government’s record-keeping tends to lump Sephardi Jews under the Mizrahi category as well.</p>
<p>The second-largest <a href="https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic-origin-and-identity-in-Israel-JEMS-2018.pdf">ethnic Jewish group in Israel</a>, about 32% of the population, is Ashkenazi. <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/who-are-ashkenazi-jews/">Ashkenazi Jews</a> trace their ancestry to central Europe, most often via Eastern Europe.</p>
<p>Alongside these two dominant groups – Mizrahi and Ashkenazi – are Jews from unique communities that do not fit neatly into the two major subdivisions, yet sometimes find themselves included under the Mizrahi umbrella. </p>
<p>These include <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bene-israel">the Bene Israel</a> of India; several groups of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_COM_0005160">Kavkazi, or Caucasus Jews</a>, referring to their origins in the Caucasus region of Central Asia; and <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bukharan-jews">Bukharan Jews</a> of Uzbekistan. Other <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/407472/neither-ashkenazi-nor-sephardi-italian-jews-are-a-mystery/">unique groups</a> include <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/lu/podcast/italkim-the-jews-of-italy/id450251365?i=1000095640385&l=de">Italian Jews</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xBQ2YgEACAAJ&">Ethiopian Jews</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561788/original/file-20231127-23-wlbspg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young man in a white suit dances on a red carpet as older men in ornate robes play instruments around him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561788/original/file-20231127-23-wlbspg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561788/original/file-20231127-23-wlbspg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561788/original/file-20231127-23-wlbspg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561788/original/file-20231127-23-wlbspg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561788/original/file-20231127-23-wlbspg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561788/original/file-20231127-23-wlbspg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561788/original/file-20231127-23-wlbspg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dancers perform during a celebration of the Ohr Natan congregation of Bukharan Jews in the Rego Park section of Queens in New York in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dancers-perform-during-a-celebration-of-the-ohr-natan-news-photo/123136917?adppopup=true">Tom Williams/Roll Call via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Modern migrations</h2>
<p>Modern times have witnessed sweeping migrations of Jews across the diaspora – and also migration <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403983473">to modern Israel</a>.</p>
<p>For example, many Jews migrated from Europe and the Ottoman Empire to the Americas before and after the world wars: not only to the United States, <a href="https://mjhnyc.org/blog/the-jewish-diaspora-latin-american-stories/">but Latin America</a>, especially Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.</p>
<p>Since the state of Israel’s founding in 1948, <a href="https://www.cbs.gov.il/he/publications/DocLib/2016/2.ShnatonPopulation/st02_08x.pdf">migration has flowed the other way</a> as well. Today in Israel there are approximately 200,000 Jews from English-speaking countries and some 100,000 from Latin American countries.</p>
<p>Since the final years of of the Soviet Union, about 1 million people with Jewish roots have immigrated to Israel <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-other-tribe-israels-russian-speaking-community-and-how-it-is-changing-the-country/">from Russia and the former Soviet bloc countries</a>. They and their children now make up about 15% to 18% of the Israeli population.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561794/original/file-20231127-19-ptdh63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman with yellow ribbons and red and white flowers in her hair looks solemnly at the camera amid a protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561794/original/file-20231127-19-ptdh63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561794/original/file-20231127-19-ptdh63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561794/original/file-20231127-19-ptdh63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561794/original/file-20231127-19-ptdh63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561794/original/file-20231127-19-ptdh63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561794/original/file-20231127-19-ptdh63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561794/original/file-20231127-19-ptdh63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukrainians and Israelis who support them gather during a protest against Russian attacks on Ukraine, on March 12, 2022, in Tel Aviv, Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainians-and-israelis-who-support-them-gather-during-a-news-photo/1239137503?adppopup=true">Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As regards their approach to Jewish traditions and rabbinic law, Israelis <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/08/israels-religiously-divided-society/#:%7E:text=Overwhelmingly%2C%20Haredi%20and%20Dati%20Jews,of%20religion%20from%20government%20policy.">range from the ultrasecularist to the Haredi</a>, whose name means “trembling” before God – often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. There is no hard-and-fast correspondence, though, between Israelis’ ethnic identity and their level of traditional observance.</p>
<p>Some 50% of <a href="https://ij.jppi.org.il/english/book">Israeli Jews</a> may belong to ethnically mixed families. Nevertheless, in an age of identity politics, a trend toward <a href="https://doi.org/10.2979/israelstudies.23.3.10">ethnic tribalism</a> has gripped Israel, complicating an older <a href="https://wid.world/document/inequality-identity-and-the-long-run-evolution-of-political-cleavages-in-israel-1949-2019-world-inequality-lab-wp-2020-17/">divide between left and right</a>. Although the center-right Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been led mostly by Ashkenazi Jews, it <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-ethnic-tensions-helped-fuel-netanyahus-victory/">openly appeals to Sephardi and Mizrahi pride</a>, as does <a href="https://en.idi.org.il/israeli-elections-and-parties/parties/shas/">the ultra-Orthodox Shas party</a>.</p>
<p>Appeals to Mizrahi and Sephardi voters reflect a long-standing sense of discrimination among non-Ashkenazi Israelis. In Israel’s first few decades, predominantly Ashkenazi, socialist governments channeled hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi and Sephardi immigrants toward unskilled labor <a href="https://www.972mag.com/anti-mizrahi-discrimination-was-official-israeli-policy/">and peripheral development towns</a>.</p>
<p>The phrase “<a href="https://fathomjournal.org/culture-wars-ethnicity-and-the-future-of-israels-democracy/">The Second Israel</a>” refers to the idea that non-Ashkenazi citizens <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.23.3.17">are still marginalized</a> by an Ashkenazi cultural establishment.</p>
<h2>Tensions – and unity</h2>
<p>Tribal factionalism, however, has a countervailing force: Zionism, the cultural and political ideology on which the country was founded. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/Z/bo43636872.html">an ideology of national liberation</a>, Zionism advocates Jews’ collective sovereignty and cultural renaissance in their ancestral homeland. Despite its diversity of political beliefs, ethnicities and religious observance, Jewish Israeli society ultimately holds together because of a widely shared Zionist patriotism. </p>
<p>This is expressed in what Israeli scholars <a href="https://jppi.org.il/en/staff/staff/">Shmuel Rosner</a> and <a href="http://www.math.tau.ac.il/%7Efuchs/">Camil Fuchs</a> call the civic culture of “Jewsraelis”: a largely secular yet semitraditional Jewishness <a href="https://ij.jppi.org.il/english/book">that shapes public life in Israel</a>. Jewsraelis, they argue, are proud citizens who are comfortable mixing Jewish tradition and modernity – from family meals on the Jewish Sabbath and Passover to beach barbecues and serving in the Israel Defense Forces, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-israel-army-service-is-required-for-all-that-could-now-change-2c76624d">which is mandatory for most citizens</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561797/original/file-20231127-21-1imqpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A handful of young men in t-shirts crowd around a table, unseen, to receive laminated cards." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561797/original/file-20231127-21-1imqpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561797/original/file-20231127-21-1imqpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561797/original/file-20231127-21-1imqpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561797/original/file-20231127-21-1imqpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561797/original/file-20231127-21-1imqpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561797/original/file-20231127-21-1imqpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561797/original/file-20231127-21-1imqpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An Israeli recruit gets his army identification card after reporting for the draft on July 22, 2012, near Tel Aviv, Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-israeli-army-recruit-gets-his-army-identification-card-news-photo/149047434?adppopup=true">Uriel Sinai/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Before the current war, Jewish Israelis by the hundreds of thousands had marched in the streets for nearly a year over <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-65086871">government proposals to curtail the power of Israel’s Supreme Court</a>. In the wake of Hamas’ horrific attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, however, those considerable tensions have been tabled. High numbers of Israelis have <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-says-a-huge-number-of-reservists-have-reported-for-duty-including-those-not-summoned/">volunteered to go to the front</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/world/middleeast/israel-volunteer-unity.html">assist each other</a> <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/study-nearly-50-of-israeli-citizens-volunteered-during-first-weeks-of-war/">in other ways</a>, such as donations or working on farms.</p>
<p>Notably, Jewish commandments <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691161747/rescue-the-surviving-souls">and traditions</a> put an emphasis <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ransoming-captive-jews/">on freeing Jewish captives</a>, such as the people held hostage in Gaza. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-far-right-hostage-families-cease-fire-negotiation-rcna126486">Sharp debate</a> continues among Jewish Israelis over the goals and scope of the war in Gaza. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, as has been true in other moments of national crisis, they have largely banded together for what they perceive to be the common national good. Although diverse and often divided from within, most Israeli Jews embrace the idea expressed in <a href="https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-song-that-made-a-country/">a popular song</a> penned in the 1980s: “Ein li eretz aḥeret” – “I have no other (home)land.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217893/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David L. Graizbord does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The diversity of Israel’s Jewish population has been a source of tensions, but also strength, over the decades.David L. Graizbord, Director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134592023-10-25T19:10:19Z2023-10-25T19:10:19ZUniversalism or tribalism? Michael Gawenda’s memoir considers what it means to be a Jew in contemporary Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555737/original/file-20231025-23-w729gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=172%2C19%2C2249%2C1417&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Menorah_1.JPG">Brücke-Osteuropa, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At one point in this book, journalist Michael Gawenda claims “only progressive, secular reviewers are chosen to review books about Jews.” So I need begin my review of <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/my-life-as-a-jew-9781761380471">My Life as a Jew</a> by acknowledging that I fit this description.</p>
<p>Like Gawenda, I am the son of Jewish refugees, although I grew up in a totally secular home. I think of myself as Jewish, although on the census forms I tick “no religion”. I have virtually no contact with the organised Jewish community. For much of his adult life, that might also have described Gawenda.</p>
<p>Positioning myself at the outset is important because Gawenda has written a very personal book, which in some ways is a direct challenge to Jews like me who are deeply critical of Israel. I am also friends with several of the people he criticises, particularly Louise Adler and Peter Beinart.</p>
<p>Gawenda came out of a specifically left Jewish tradition, that of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bund-political-movement">Bund</a>, which was secular, socialist and, in its origins, opposed to Zionism. Like many others who grew up in Bundist households, Gawenda has constantly struggled with his growing identification with Israel, which is simultaneously a foreign country and one that grants citizenship to all Jews. </p>
<p>“Whether I liked it or not,” he writes, “I was connected to Israel, the Jewish state.”</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: My Life as a Jew – Michael Gawenda (Scribe)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>For most of his professional life, including a period as Editor in Chief of the Melbourne Age, Gawenda did not see his Jewishness as central to his being. My Life as a Jew traces a growing sense of Jewish identity, in large part due to his sense of growing antisemitism on the left, which makes him increasingly uneasy about his former political allies. </p>
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<p>He provides copious examples both of leftist antisemitism and efforts to deny it, although the examples come largely from outside Australia. Most of his examples revolve around left hostility to Israel, which as we have seen recently can too easily turn into crude antisemitism. </p>
<p>Gawenda has fallen out with those on the left who have turned against Israel. He is particularly critical of former foreign minister Bob Carr, whom he claims exaggerates the power of the Israeli lobby. While Carr may be prone to exaggeration, my own experience suggests the most active supporters of Israel in Australia are capable of bullying and intimidation.</p>
<p>Nor is Carr the only significant Labor figure to have changed their attitudes towards Israel. Strangely, Gawenda has nothing to say about Gareth Evans, whose position on Israel is very similar to Carr’s. Gawenda writes of accompanying Bob Hawke on a visit to Israel, and acknowledges that Hawke, once an ardent defender, became increasingly critical of Israel as it increased its occupation of the West Bank. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gareth-evans-the-case-for-recognising-palestine-207624">Gareth Evans: the case for recognising Palestine</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Gawenda is aware of the dispossession of Palestinians and the increasing encroachments on Palestinian settlements on the West Bank, but he offers no real alternative to the situation in which five million Palestinians find themselves. The book was written before the current war, but the horrors unleashed by the Hamas attacks of October 7 only underline the reality that without recognition of Palestinian claims Israel cannot be simultaneously Jewish and democratic.</p>
<p>The question is not, as Gawenda suggests, whether Israel has the right to exist, but rather whether Israelis can find ways to accept the Palestinians as equally deserving of sovereignty. As New York Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-tangled-grief-of-israels-anti-occupation-activists">stated recently</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I stand with the Israeli people trying hard to create a different future. And I stand with the Palestinian people trying hard to create a different future. I don’t stand with the Israeli government. There is no future that’s not a shared future, a shared future with complete equality.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gawenda claims many on the left lack “a genuine and consequential commitment to Israel’s survival as a Jewish majority state”. What is lacking in this claim is an acknowledgement that settlements in the West Bank have made Israel itself responsible for undermining this possibility.</p>
<h2>An age of tribalism</h2>
<p>Ours is an age of tribalism and Gawenda is honest when he writes: “I know and have heard Israeli voices in a way I never have the voices of the Palestinians.” He then acknowledges this is a flaw shared by much Western media reporting, which seems strange given his earlier complaints about the Australian journalist John Lyons, whose booklet, <a href="https://publishing.monash.edu/product/dateline-jerusalem/">Dateline Jerusalem: Journalism’s Toughest Assignment</a>, makes precisely this point. </p>
<p>Gawenda taps into the underlying anxiety all Jews feel whenever debate about Israel moves into antisemitism, as happened in very ugly ways in the past few weeks. Opposition to Israel and antisemitism are logically separate, but the line is blurred both by defenders of Israel and its most vociferous opponents. Of course, Israel also has some strong defenders among people who are antisemitic, such as sections of the American Christian right.</p>
<p>In his concern with growing antisemitism, Gawenda devotes considerable attention to what he sees as the “de-Jewification” of the Holocaust, some of which he lays at the feet of Hannah Arendt, whose study of Adolf Eichmann and her phrase “the banality of evil” he sees as contributing to this. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555688/original/file-20231024-29-4i86cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555688/original/file-20231024-29-4i86cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555688/original/file-20231024-29-4i86cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555688/original/file-20231024-29-4i86cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555688/original/file-20231024-29-4i86cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555688/original/file-20231024-29-4i86cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555688/original/file-20231024-29-4i86cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555688/original/file-20231024-29-4i86cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Hannah Arendt in 1933.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hannah_Arendt_1933.jpg">Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>I think there is a stronger case to be made that there is rapidly declining knowledge of the Holocaust, and indeed of the inclusion of Roma and homosexuals as targets.</p>
<p>There is hard evidence <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/assaults-verbal-abuse-and-harassment-alarming-rise-of-antisemitism-in-australia/sm0r31rww">antisemitism is growing</a> in Australia and I wish Gawenda had spent more time analysing it, rather than relying on overseas examples. We are all aware of the rise of a small Nazi movement and fringe elements of the Palestinian movement; what is less obvious is the existence of persistent prejudices and stereotypes which too often go unchallenged. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-government-action-to-thwart-neo-nazi-groups-is-far-more-difficult-than-it-appears-205677">Why government action to thwart neo-Nazi groups is far more difficult than it appears</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In contemporary Australia, the real question of how to tackle antisemitism gets too easily misdirected into semantic wrangles. Currently, our universities are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/06/australian-universities-split-on-decision-to-adopt-controversial-definition-of-antisemitism">arguing about which definition of antisemitism to adopt</a>, rather than thinking through how best to tackle the root causes of antisemitism and racism.</p>
<p>Antisemitism feeds on many sources other than hatred of Israel, from the genteel British version, apparent in many of Agatha Christie’s writings, to the religious intolerance many migrants bring with them from ancestral feuds. My Life as a Jew is so focused on opposition to Israel it passes over the more pervasive low-level antisemitism we encounter all too often.</p>
<p>Gawenda still identifies as a “secular Jew”, but struggles to reconcile his growing sense of belonging to a Jewish world with a recognition that: “I do not believe that being a Jew will ever encompass all that I am and all that I believe.” The book fluctuates between the two poles of tribalism and universalism, which at its most eloquent echoes debates that have divided Jews over the past century. </p>
<p>My Life as a Jew is a book full of contradictions. This is not necessarily a criticism. As Freud observed: “Only in logic are contradictions unable to coexist; in feelings they quite happily continue alongside each other”. The real strength of this book comes from Gawenda’s honesty about his struggles to define exactly what it means to be a Jew in contemporary Australia.</p>
<p>The most moving part of the book comes as Gawenda talks of returning to the Yiddish he heard as a child, to which his own children have returned through song and language. At this point, My Life as a Jew speaks far beyond our tribe to the reality for millions of Australians, caught between the dominant culture and memories of the cultures they have left behind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213459/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Altman received a small ARC grant forty years ago to research the deabtes about Israel within the Australian student movement
And I have acknowledged my connections to several people criticised by Gawenda, which should also have included Bob Carr</span></em></p>My Life as a Jew is an honest and very personal book about a growing sense of Jewish identity, but it has its contradictions.Dennis Altman, VC Fellow LaTrobe University, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2115912023-10-20T12:27:13Z2023-10-20T12:27:13ZA memorial in Yiddish, Italian and English tells the stories of Triangle Shirtwaist fire victims − testament not only to tragedy but to immigrant women’s fight to remake labor laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554421/original/file-20231017-27-ejzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C5582%2C3710&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Victims' names engraved in a metal overhang, part of the Triangle Shirtwaist Memorial, are reflected in mirroring panels along the sidewalk.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Triangle%20Shirtwaist%20Memorial/d4e18df9d4384eab9925fac331f75255?Query=triangle%20shirtwaist&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=42&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 10-story Brown Building, site of one of the deadliest workplace disasters in United States history, stands one block east of Washington Square Park in New York City. Despite three bronze plaques noting its significance, it has long been easy to pass by without further thought.</p>
<p>On March 25, 1911, however, thousands of New Yorkers gathered outside what was then known as the Asch Building, home of <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/150.html#screen">the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory</a>. Drawn by <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/newspapersMagazines/nyt_032611.html">a brief but raging inferno</a>, they bore horrified witness to dozens of factory workers with no way to escape gathering on the ninth-floor window sills, desperately jumping, and smashing onto the sidewalks far below.</p>
<p>Horse-drawn fire crews <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/146.html#screen">responded within minutes</a> to reports of the fire, which broke out on a Saturday afternoon at closing time, and it took only a half-hour to douse the flames. But the fire had had its way.</p>
<p>One hundred and forty-six people lost their lives. Most of those who died worked on the ninth floor, where safety measures consisted of little more than pails of water, despite the potential fire bomb around them: overflowing bins of discarded cloth and lint, combined with tissue-paper patterns hung across the ceiling. Locked doors, an inadequate fire escape and other fire code violations meant many workers could find no way out except the windows.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of a man looking from a few feet away at dead bodies crumpled on a sidewalk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554416/original/file-20231017-27-ur12ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trapped behind locked doors, some workers saw no escape but the windows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/policeman-stands-in-the-street-observing-charred-rubble-and-news-photo/3112343?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Firemen were left to stack the lifeless bodies <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/151.html#screen">on the sidewalk</a>. The vast majority were girls or young women: meagerly paid laborers, and most of them Jewish or Italian immigrants.</p>
<p>On Oct. 11, 2023, the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition <a href="https://apnews.com/article/triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire-memorial-6696231893baecf72da373ebd3a94680">dedicated a striking memorial</a> at the site of this tragedy. The initial installation features a stainless steel ribbon extending in two parallel strands along the ground floor, displaying victims’ names and survivors’ testimony, written in their native languages: English, Yiddish and Italian. Over the next few months, another gently twisting ribbon traveling from the window sill of the ninth floor to the ground level and back up again will be added.</p>
<p>The memorial offers a bold and graceful reminder not only of the fire but of its imprint on the world we inhabit today.</p>
<p>When I asked the students in my history class at the University of Michigan if they had heard of the Triangle fire, I was shocked to see almost all raise their hands. Many were familiar with how the disaster inspired <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/04/1033177379/labor-day-history-triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire-patco-strike">the growth of labor activism</a> and worker protections. Few of them, however, had thought about the central role of American Jewish women, <a href="https://ssw.umich.edu/faculty/profiles/tenure-track/kargold">the focus of my research</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photograph of a crowd of women in long coats, holding banners that say 'We mourn our loss.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554417/original/file-20231017-23-g9inov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators from Local 25 and the United Hebrew Trades of New York mourn fire victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-mourn-for-the-deaths-of-victims-of-the-news-photo/642536674?adppopup=true">PhotoQuest/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tense 2 years</h2>
<p>Only two years before the fire, a walkout over working conditions at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory had sparked a series of labor actions that culminated in the <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909">Uprising of the 20,000</a>, the largest <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/275.html#screen">American women’s strike</a> ever. </p>
<p>That disciplined activism was led by a small cadre of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography-clara-lemlich">young Jewish immigrant working-class women</a>. Years earlier, they had essentially created a branch of their own – Local 25 – within the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Their example led to a surge of strikes nationwide and forced the labor movement to finally take the needs of unskilled workers and women workers seriously.</p>
<p><a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/142.html#screen">The Triangle bosses</a> and other owners hired thugs to assault strike leaders and picketers. The police likewise felt free <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469635910/common-sense-and-a-little-fire-second-edition/">to beat the picketers</a>, which only abated when upper-class partners in the <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/286.html#screen">Women’s Trade Union League joined the picket lines</a> – raising fear among the police that they might be striking society matrons. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of formally dressed women around a dining table decorated with plants and candles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554418/original/file-20231017-23-v5l3s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Suffragettes and socialites attend a dinner held by Mrs. Martin Littleton in support of the striking workers, circa 1910.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-physician-anna-howard-shaw-leader-of-the-womens-news-photo/1393779912?adppopup=true">Paul Thompson/FPG/Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Triangle Factory was among the 339 shops that “<a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909">settled” with the union</a> in February 1910, with concessions that included higher wages, a 52-hour week, four paid holidays per year and a promise to no longer discriminate against union members. </p>
<p>The strikers’ <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">call for better safety standards</a>, however, <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">had been ignored</a> by the male union representatives and owners who had worked out the settlement. </p>
<h2>Moral force</h2>
<p>Local 25 grew from a few hundred to 10,000 members over the course <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/uprising-of-20000-1909#pid-18206">of the 1909-10 strike</a>. That organizing prowess would be seen again in the wave of protest and indignation that followed the 1911 fire.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">unions’ strength</a> could be seen in the <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/184.html#screen">funeral march</a> that accompanied the fire’s seven unidentified victims to a municipal burying ground, as a crowd of 400,000 assembled to march or <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/187.html#screen">watch the procession</a>.</p>
<p>The power of the <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801477072/the-triangle-fire/#bookTabs=1">activists’ moral indignation</a> emerged in full force
at a memorial meeting held a few days later. Workers grew restive as wealthy philanthropists, city officials and liberal reformers promised investigatory commissions – which they feared would mean little real change.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A close-up formal portrait of a woman with dark hair in a black and white photograph." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554415/original/file-20231017-23-fagv3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feminist and union labor activist Rose Schneiderman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-feminist-and-labor-union-leader-rose-news-photo/461192915?adppopup=true">Interim Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schneiderman-rose">Rose Schneiderman</a>, one of the working-class <a href="http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/slides/221.html">immigrant labor activists</a> who had helped organize the 1909 strike, was also on the platform. <a href="https://francesperkinscenter.org/learn/her-life/">Reformer Frances Perkins</a>, who would soon become a close ally, noted Schneiderman trembling over <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801477072/the-triangle-fire/#bookTabs=1">the loss of comrades, friends and co-workers</a>.</p>
<p>Schneiderman took the podium, excoriating the industry’s brutality and focusing on the unrealized power of the workers themselves. “I would be a traitor to those poor burned bodies,” <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/115844?lang=bi">she declared</a>, “if I were to come here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public – and we have found you wanting.”</p>
<p>“I know from experience it is up to the working class to save themselves,” Schneiderman told the audience.</p>
<h2>Birth of the New Deal</h2>
<p>Yet the working class ended up needing allies like Perkins, who was instrumental in establishing a citizens’ Committee on Safety, and then <a href="https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/mono-regsafepart07">a legislative Factory Investigating Commission</a> as well.</p>
<p>On the day of the fire, Perkins had been enjoying tea at a friend’s house on Washington Square and rushed toward the commotion across the park, arriving on the scene to see bodies falling from the sky. That scene and Schneiderman’s speech <a href="https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/lectures/FrancesPerkinsLecture.html">left an indelible impression on her</a> – as they did on many New Yorkers. </p>
<p>For several reasons, including public outcry about the fire, this was the moment when New York City’s political machine began to shift its focus and <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/triangle/">address workers’ needs</a>. Schneiderman and other activists worked with Perkins on investigations that led to the overhaul of <a href="https://www.nysarchivestrust.org/exhibits/industrialization">New York’s safety and labor laws</a>, such as <a href="https://bklyn.newspapers.com/article/the-brooklyn-daily-eagle-hearing-about-t/91238764/?locale=en-US">a 54-hour maximum work week</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young men hold posters printed with black and white photographs of women as they stand on a city street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554420/original/file-20231017-15-vy8u4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York City commemorated the 108th anniversary of the fire in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/holding-flowers-pictures-and-traditional-dresses-people-news-photo/1138302794?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The young women whose pain had galvanized public response continued their union work, traveling around the country to help organize many of the strikes their activism inspired. Some also made an impact at the governmental level. Schneiderman became a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schneiderman-rose">influenced her views on workers’ needs</a>, as well as those of her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt.</p>
<p>Perkins became President Roosevelt’s secretary of labor in 1933 and was the first woman to serve in a U.S. cabinet position. She brought the New York reforms born in the wake of the fire into <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/franklin-delano-roosevelt-and-the-new-deal/">the New Deal</a>, the slew of social programs the Roosevelt administration introduced to help Americans struggling through the Great Depression. </p>
<p>Schneiderman, too, had a role: the only woman to serve on the New Deal’s Labor Advisory Board. As Perkins later recalled, the day of the Triangle fire was “<a href="https://francesperkinscenter.org/learn/her-life/">the day the New Deal was born</a>.”</p>
<p>For 112 years, the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory have called out silently from the sidewalks and window frames of the Brown Building, which is now part of New York University’s campus. The new memorial calls on the passersby to stop, note and honor that one horrific half-hour, etched indelibly into the story of the city and the nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karla Goldman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A memorial at the site of the 1911 fire remembers those who died; a cadre of young Jewish women helped push for change in the wake of the tragedy.Karla Goldman, Professor of Social Work and Judaic Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138342023-10-17T12:19:52Z2023-10-17T12:19:52Z#UsToo: How antisemitism and Islamophobia make reporting sexual misconduct and abuse of power harder for Jewish and Muslim women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553742/original/file-20231013-15-4fnj3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C2585%2C1779&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Six years after the #MeToo hashtag went viral, women in minority communities still face extra challenges addressing harassment and abuse.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressSexualHarassment/a42b9d74f7c841c9a068c04d5e3e14ab/photo?Query=metoo&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=846&currentItemNo=40">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>October 2023 marks the anniversary of #MeToo: six years since <a href="https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/919659438700670976">actor Alyssa Milano’s tweet</a> calling for women to speak out about experiences of abuse went viral and helped launch a global movement. Ever since, #MeToo has been shorthand for people’s experiences with sexual harassment and assault, from <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/metoo-five-years-later-hollywoods-crafts-community-1235228124/">film sets</a> and office buildings to college campuses and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/silence-is-not-spiritual-the-evangelical-metoo-movement">religious communities</a>.</p>
<p>Many articles about #MeToo and religion focus on large churches, such as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/sexual-misconduct/metoo-goes-church-southern-baptists-face-reckoning-over-treatment-women-n880216">the Southern Baptist Convention</a> – spaces that are mostly white and Christian. Yet the phrase “Me Too” was first coined as a rallying cry against abuse by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/books/tarana-burke-unbound-metoo.html">a Black Christian activist, Tarana Burke</a>, back in 2006. Meanwhile, the perspectives of women in minority racial, ethnic and religious groups were often overshadowed – a focus of <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/hbi/research-projects/research.html">my research on Jewish studies and gender</a>.</p>
<p>These women face added challenges when they break the silence around sexual misconduct and abuse of power, as I document in <a href="https://www.routledge.com/UsToo-How-Jewish-Muslim-and-Christian-Women-Changed-Our-Communities/McGinity/p/book/9781032430355">my book “#UsToo</a>.” Many Jewish and Muslim women of color navigate three kinds of oppression simultaneously: sexism, racism and antisemitism or Islamophobia. </p>
<p>My interviews with dozens of women illustrate how race and religion affected their experiences of sexism, underscoring the need to normalize speaking out.</p>
<h2>’Dirty laundry’</h2>
<p>Jews and Muslims both experience prejudice, making them hesitant to <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/we-too/">draw attention to something negative</a> that others could weaponize. It is often harder for minority victims to speak out about abuse because they <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/07/it-s-time-for-muslims-to-talk-about-sexual-misconduct-among-our-islamic-preachers/">do not want to disparage their own faith communities</a>, for fear of fueling hated.</p>
<p>This problem is not exclusive to Jewish or Muslim communities but rather a general problem for all subcultures. Publicly airing communal “dirty laundry” is seen as precarious, both for the individual and for the ethnoreligious group. </p>
<p>Jewish and Muslim women in the United States are diverse, from <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">different levels of religious observance</a> to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/07/26/demographic-portrait-of-muslim-americans/">ethnic identity</a>. For many, though, cultural taboos make it harder to speak out, compounding concerns about antisemitism and Islamophobia.</p>
<p>The Jewish concept of “lashon hora,” for example – Hebrew for “idle gossip” – sometimes deters women from <a href="https://jewishlink.news/lashon-hara-and-abuse-cover-ups/">calling out bad behavior</a>. Likewise, text in the Quran refers to talking about someone else’s actions <a href="https://zakirnaikqa.wordpress.com/tag/eating-the-flesh-of-your-own-brother/">as “backbiting</a>” – literally, “eating the flesh off your brother.” </p>
<p>The #MeToo movement has lessened the likelihood that, going forward, women will be shamed for speaking out. Women I spoke with recalled being warned previously against raising concerns within their communities and being told it would ruin the career or even the life of the abuser. However, these concepts continue to cause concern among those who do.</p>
<h2>Risks of silence and interdependence</h2>
<p>The insularity, sense of connection and interdependence within some minority communities can be conducive to abuses of power. Jewish philanthropy leader Maxyne Finkelstein <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/we-must-own-our-responsibility-as-women/">has referred to the sense of familiarity in some Jewish organizations as “living room syndrome</a>”: the tendency to act more casually than in a community or organization where people do not share as much cultural background.</p>
<p>In a poll of 2,376 people <a href="https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2019-predicting-and-preventing-islamophobia/">from many different faith groups</a>, Jews were the second-least likely to report unwanted sexual advances from a faith leader to law enforcement: just 12% of victims told police, according to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/08/17/disobedient-women-and-churchtoo-stand-up-to-sexual-abuse-in-evangelicalism/">As in other religions</a>, however, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2019/08/14/ny/study-communal-orgs-prone-to-abuses-of-power">sexual misconduct and abuse of power</a> exist in many kinds of Jewish spaces, from <a href="https://www.jta.org/2019/03/18/lifestyle/how-jewish-summer-camps-are-talking-about-consent-in-the-age-of-metoo">summer camps</a> and foundations to synagogues and academia.</p>
<p>In June 2018, I publicly shared my experience of a prominent sociologist using the pretense of professional advice to sexually harass and assault me. Given his status, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2018/06/21/ny/american-jewrys-metoo-problem-a-first-person-encounter">my op-ed</a> was shared widely. Word spread quickly in the Jewish community, and other women came out of the woodwork about his behavior.</p>
<p>Initiatives around #MeToo in the Jewish community have taken off in the past few years. One of the most visible was the 2018 founding of the <a href="https://srenetwork.org/">SafetyRespectEquity Network</a>, which brought Jewish organizations together under one umbrella to strive toward eliminating sexual harassment and misconduct, as well as discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation. <a href="https://www.jewishsacredspaces.org/">Sacred Spaces</a>, incorporated in 2016, is another organization that brings Jewish values to its work addressing and preventing abuse.</p>
<h2>Walking a tightrope</h2>
<p>Like Jewish women of color, many Muslim American women are triple minorities: female in a society where women are still “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/10379/the-second-sex-by-simone-de-beauvoir-newly-translated-by-constance-borde-and-sheila-malovany/">the second sex</a>”; a religious minority in a predominantly Christian country; and often judged by the color of their skin. Being <a href="https://philarchive.org/archive/FATNTMv2">a triple minority</a> exacerbates the challenges of speaking out about sexual harassment and assault.</p>
<p>In many ways, Muslim women of color had a steeper hill to climb than Jewish women, given the xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-muslims-are-portrayed-negatively-in-american-media-2-political-scientists-reviewed-over-250-000-articles-to-find-conclusive-evidence-183327">that have been prevalent in the U.S.</a> since the terrorist attacks of 9/11.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/86UXC_NgWMg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Breaking Silence’ (2017)</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nevertheless, some Muslim women affected by sexual misconduct have been working for years to bring it out of the communal closet and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/02/26/588855132/-mosquemetoo-gives-muslim-women-a-voice-about-sexual-misconduct-at-mecca">into the public eye</a>. In 2004, for example – two years before the phrase “Me too” was coined – a Muslim woman named Robina Niaz started <a href="https://www.tpny.org/services/">Turning Point</a>, an organization that offers counseling, advocacy and youth programs to help women and families understand that sexual abuse and violence are not their fault. </p>
<p>In 2017, Nadya Ali – a Ph.D. student in biology at the time – directed <a href="http://www.breakingsilencethefilm.com/">the film “Breaking Silence</a>,” which aimed to raise awareness of abuse in Muslim communities. Voted <a href="https://m.imdb.com/event/ev0003612/2017/1">best short documentary</a> at the Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival, the film underscores that taboos around discussing sex did not prevent abuse; instead, they protected sexual predators and silenced women whom they abused. </p>
<p>Researchers found that although unwanted sexual advances from faith leaders were no more prevalent among Muslims than other faith groups, Muslims were slightly more likely than other victims to report the incident to law enforcement: 54% compared with 44%, according to <a href="https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2019-predicting-and-preventing-islamophobia/">the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding</a>. In almost all other religious groups, women are more likely to report sexual violence to another member of their faith community than to law enforcement – whereas many Muslim women are more comfortable telling strangers about being sexually abused than telling their own community.</p>
<p>Many of the women I interviewed live on a tightrope: calling out the patriarchy and sexual misconduct they experienced, while defending their community against anti-Muslim stereotypes. </p>
<p>The Muslim communal response to #MeToo includes organizations to combat gender-based violence. <a href="https://hearttogrow.org/">HEART</a>, a sexual health and reproductive justice organization founded in 2009, offers education and resources to discuss sexual relationships and violence. More recently, FACE, which stands for <a href="https://facetogether.org/">Facing Abuse in Community Environments</a>, has investigated sexual, physical, financial and spiritual abuses. <a href="https://inshaykhsclothing.com/">In Shaykh’s Clothing</a>, founded in 2017, works with individuals and institutions to prevent abuse, hold abusers accountable and educate Muslims about recognizing abuse and standing up to it.</p>
<p>Despite this progress, many Jewish and Muslim women are still apprehensive about reporting coreligionists, as are women in larger Christian communities. The United States has not yet normalized reporting, and neither have our faith communities. Sharing women’s stories and organizing for change – while battling antisemitism and Islamophobia – will keep the #MeToo movement moving, which I believe will create a better world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213834/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keren McGinity does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In minority faith groups that already face hate, women who have experienced harassment sometimes fear bringing negative attention to their community.Keren McGinity, Research Associate, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2132012023-09-26T13:40:46Z2023-09-26T13:40:46ZOn Sukkot, the Jewish ‘Festival of Booths,’ each sukkah is as unique as the person who builds it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548598/original/file-20230916-19-3pa5qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C1%2C1020%2C680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Natural materials like palm fronds, tree branches or reeds typically create the top of the sukkah.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/close-up-of-top-of-a-sukkah-a-temporary-outdoor-hut-news-photo/1182941152?adppopup=true">Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sukkot is a Jewish festival that follows right on the heels of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Judaism’s High Holy Days. The harvest holiday, which begins on Sept. 29, 2023, lasts for seven days when celebrated in Israel and eight days when celebrated elsewhere.</p>
<p>Like many Jewish rituals and traditions, from lighting Friday night candles to hosting Passover seders, Sukkot is primarily celebrated in the home – or rather, in the yard. Translated as the “Festival of Booths,” Sukkot is celebrated in an outdoor structure called a sukkah, which is carefully built and rebuilt each year.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies/samira-mehta-0">a Jewish Studies scholar</a>, much of my work looks at how diverse Jewish American identities are today. From <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469636368/beyond-chrismukkah/">intermarried families</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfab058">to Jews of color</a>, to Jewish communities from all over the world, there have always been a <a href="https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/43934/external_content.pdf?sequence=1#page=38">myriad of ways to be Jewish</a> – and home-based holidays like Sukkot help people honor all these parts of their identities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548603/original/file-20230916-15-zgaqyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in casual clothing construct a wooden fort in a city plaza." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548603/original/file-20230916-15-zgaqyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548603/original/file-20230916-15-zgaqyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548603/original/file-20230916-15-zgaqyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548603/original/file-20230916-15-zgaqyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548603/original/file-20230916-15-zgaqyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548603/original/file-20230916-15-zgaqyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548603/original/file-20230916-15-zgaqyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michal Sumdon, left, of Poland, and Taul Juin, of France, build a sukkah in the heart of a historic Jewish neighborhood in Warsaw.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PolandJewishHoliday/f383bc47f61a47d791dd8809a0bd8cfb/photo?Query=sukkah&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=87&currentItemNo=54">AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Harvest holiday</h2>
<p>Held during <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/sukkot-history">the autumn harvest</a>, Sukkot likely has origins in huts that ancient farmers erected so they could sleep in the fields. Yet tradition also says that these booths represent <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Leviticus.23.43?lang=bi&aliyot=0">the tents that the Israelites lived in</a> while they wandered the desert for 40 years following the Exodus, their escape from slavery in Egypt.</p>
<p>Some aspects of Sukkot happen in the synagogue, including special prayers and readings from the Bible. Yet the main action takes place at home, <a href="https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/story/building-sukkah-laws-and-customs">in the backyard sukkah</a> – the singular form of the word “sukkot” in Hebrew. For Jews who observe the holiday, tradition says to start building the sukkah as soon as possible after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; some people even start building the structure are soon as they have broken <a href="https://theconversation.com/yom-kippur-a-time-for-feasting-as-well-as-fasting-102320">their 25-hour fast</a>.</p>
<p>The makeshift walls, of which there must be at least three, can be made out of anything one wants, from pre-made walls printed with blessings said during the holiday to tablecloths or rugs. People often decorate to say something about who they are: photos of Jerusalem, quilts made by relatives. I have always imagined that, if I had a sukkah, I would use Indian tablecloths for walls, merging that piece of my heritage with my religion.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548599/original/file-20230916-29-w1emer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in black clothes holds up a tall palm branch he has selected from a large pile of them on the street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548599/original/file-20230916-29-w1emer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548599/original/file-20230916-29-w1emer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548599/original/file-20230916-29-w1emer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548599/original/file-20230916-29-w1emer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548599/original/file-20230916-29-w1emer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548599/original/file-20230916-29-w1emer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548599/original/file-20230916-29-w1emer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People in Jerusalem pick out palm branches for the roofs of their sukkot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-pick-palm-branches-to-build-a-sukkah-for-the-news-photo/1243784906?adppopup=true">Muammar Awad/Xinhua via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The roof, however, is supposed to be made out of natural materials like palms or branches; one friend of mine likes to use cornstalks. The roof should provide shade but must allow gaps to see the stars. Those of us who do not have yards can get creative with our balconies or, like me, drop hints that they would welcome invitations to other people’s sukkot. One New Yorker friend turns her living room into a faux sukkah – you cannot see the stars, but it is filled with nature and decorations.</p>
<p>In the United States, many families decorate their sukkot with classic elements of the American harvest season: corn husks, colorful dried ears of corn, harvest gourds and even the occasional bale of hay. In New Mexico, you sometimes see “ristras,” <a href="https://www.nps.gov/petr/learn/historyculture/chile.htm">the decorative red strings of chiles</a> that hang from porches.</p>
<p>The traditional plants of Sukkot, however, are four distinct species: a citrus fruit called an etrog, and fronds of palm, myrtle and willow, which are bound together and referred to as the “lulav.” The lulav and etrog are blessed and shaken together on a daily basis throughout the festival. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548600/original/file-20230916-25-zf0vjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young girl looks up toward the roof of a hut, smiling, as she holds a branch and a yellow fruit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548600/original/file-20230916-25-zf0vjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548600/original/file-20230916-25-zf0vjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548600/original/file-20230916-25-zf0vjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548600/original/file-20230916-25-zf0vjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548600/original/file-20230916-25-zf0vjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548600/original/file-20230916-25-zf0vjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548600/original/file-20230916-25-zf0vjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shaking the lulav after a blessing for a snack.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sukkah-gwen-kornblum-a-second-grader-at-talmud-torah-of-st-news-photo/1154246371?adppopup=true">Joey McLeister/Star Tribune via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Our yard, our holiday</h2>
<p>Beyond this, Jews are supposed to live in the sukkah for the festival, which technically means eating and sleeping there. But as with all religious holidays, individuals celebrate Sukkot in a wide variety of ways. </p>
<p>Many Jews do not construct sukkot at all, let alone sleep in them for a week. Of those who do, some sleep every night in the sukkah; some have one night of family “camping”; others do not sleep in it at all. Many people entertain guests there: I have been to many a meal – and one graduate seminar – in sukkot all over the country.</p>
<p>It is the fact that so much of Sukkot is held at home that accounts for the holiday’s immense flexibility. Like at Passover, most Jews who celebrate Sukkot encounter it in spaces where people can honor their values, cultures or histories. </p>
<p>What this looks like is as diverse as the world of American Jews.</p>
<p>For instance, for the years that I taught outside of Philadelphia, I attended a multinight open house, called “Whiskey in the Sukkot,” hosted by an interfaith couple. The Jewish wife explains that when she and her husband – a whiskey aficionado from Appalachia – got married, his thought process went: “harvest festival, grain, whiskey.”</p>
<p>Each year, he curates a selection to share with his guests, with new offerings for each night. Accompanied by pungent cheeses and other nibbles, this festival of whiskey offered him a way to make the holiday his own. In the process, the couple created an event that welcomes their Jewish – and non-Jewish – communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548602/original/file-20230916-23-k6b4o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in black arranges items in a hut with large, colorful abstract designs on the sides." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548602/original/file-20230916-23-k6b4o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548602/original/file-20230916-23-k6b4o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548602/original/file-20230916-23-k6b4o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548602/original/file-20230916-23-k6b4o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548602/original/file-20230916-23-k6b4o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548602/original/file-20230916-23-k6b4o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548602/original/file-20230916-23-k6b4o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ruth Sohn decorates her family’s sukkah with Egyptian designs in Los Angeles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ruth-sohn-decorates-the-sukkah-egyptian-flavor-to-it-the-news-photo/566048313?adppopup=true">Stephen Osman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On <a href="https://afroculinaria.com/">his Afroculinaria blog</a>, the chef, culinary historian and author <a href="https://koshersoulbook.com/">Michael Twitty</a> created a <a href="https://afroculinaria.com/2012/10/03/southern-harvest-soup-for-sukkot-vegetarian-with-trayf-alternative-notes-at-the-bottom/">Southern harvest soup</a> for Sukkot, which he notes uses “traditional Southern ingredients and flavors.” His soup is vegetarian, but he also offers a “trayf alternative,” meaning a version that is not kosher – a recipe that swaps out olive oil for bacon grease. Even in the most liberal Jewish settings, one cannot usually serve pork in a synagogue setting, but this is your Sukkot table. If you, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-practices-and-customs/">like most American Jews, do not keep kosher</a>, why not go full-on Southern in your flavors? </p>
<p>Not everyone sees their full identity reflected on Sukkot. <a href="https://www.emilybowencohen.com/">Emily Bowen Cowen</a>, a cartoonist who is Jewish and Muscogee (Creek), has written a comic called “<a href="https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/my-sioux-kot-part-i">My Sioux-kot</a>,” imagining what Sukkot could look like if, like many contemporary Passover celebrations, it emphasized social justice. Cohen muses on the parallels she saw between Sukkot celebrations and 2016 protests to block an oil pipeline at <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-standing-rock-became-a-site-of-pilgrimage-70016">the Standing Rock reservation</a> in North Dakota. At the time, both were events where people talked about valuing nature as sacred. Yet no one mentioned the protests in the sukkot she visited that week.</p>
<p>Indeed, some Jews are finding ways to realize the social justice potential in the holiday. Fiber artist <a href="https://www.sewingstories.com/">Heather Stoltz</a> used a sukkah as the basis for an art exhibition called “<a href="https://www.sewingstories.com/gallery/p/ei1l38htvnjger8l8ory60lm07r1jv">Temporary Shelter</a>,” decorating its walls with stories of unhoused New Yorkers and with art made by children staying in the city’s shelters. </p>
<p>Perhaps the time will come when Sukkot, too, becomes infused with possibilities for a more just future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samira Mehta receives funding from the Henry Luce Foundation. </span></em></p>Like many Jewish practices, the harvest festival of Sukkot largely takes place at home − meaning families can incorporate many meaningful traditions.Samira Mehta, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies & Jewish Studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2125192023-09-13T13:17:36Z2023-09-13T13:17:36ZRosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are times for soul-searching, but not on your own – community has always been at the heart of the Jewish High Holidays<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547619/original/file-20230911-25-1no1ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C1022%2C679&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the congregation sing during a Rosh Hashana service at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles in 2013.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-congregation-sing-during-the-close-of-the-news-photo/566012153?adppopup=true">Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Starting the evening of Sept. 15, 2023, and again the evening of Sept. 24, Jews around the world will be filing into synagogues to mark their “Days of Awe” – the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. </p>
<p>For many who observe these holidays in the United States, the Days of Awe will be the only time that they visit a synagogue this year. Only <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-practices-and-customs/">1 in 5 American Jews</a> attend services once a month or more. </p>
<p>What is more, Yom Kippur is among the most somber and punishing holidays of the Jewish calendar. Why, then, do so many individuals who rarely pray in a synagogue choose to do it during the dour Days of Awe, rather than on many of the joyful, celebratory feasts that the Jewish calendar has to offer? </p>
<p>The answer lies partly in <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/community-focused/">the nature of Jewish civilization itself</a>. While today observers perceive Judaism as a religion, Jewish culture is not focused on individual belief and worship so much as on <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jsj/38/4-5/article-p457_1.xml">an entire community</a> and its collective relationship with God and its history.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://religion.arizona.edu/people/dlgraizb">a scholar of Judaic studies</a>, I believe these are core, galvanizing elements of <a href="https://sunypress.edu/Books/J/Jewish-Civilization2">Jewish civilization</a> that the Days of Awe bring into relief, making the High Holy Days a focus of congregants’ cultural lives as Jews. While the High Holidays may seem like days of individual soul-searching and repentance alone, their focus is actually communal, taking stock of an entire people’s identity and traditions.</p>
<h2>Rosh Hashana: The Jewish New Year</h2>
<p>According to rabbinic interpretations, Rosh Hashana <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/562052/jewish/Why-is-Rosh-Hashanah-considered-the-Jewish-New-Year.htm">commemorates God’s creation of humanity</a>. Tradition has it that Rosh Hashana is a time when God judges humans, and especially “his people,” Israel. Meanwhile, they affirm their acceptance of God’s sovereignty over everything and everybody. </p>
<p>That is largely why Jews exchange New Year’s greetings along the lines of, “May you be inscribed [in the Book of Life]” – folkloric shorthand for <a href="https://forward.com/culture/183461/may-you-be-inscribed-in-the-book-of-life-for-5774/">wishing someone a good fate</a> for the year ahead.</p>
<p>Whether they occur in traditionalist or modernist settings, <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/guide-to-the-rosh-hashanah-morning-service">Jewish New Year ceremonies</a> are mostly held in synagogues. The services begin with attendees’ recitation of <a href="https://jps.org/books/jewish-liturgy/">an ancient liturgy</a> that underscores God’s kingship over the universe. Yet the centerpiece is the loud blowing of a shofar, a ram’s horn, whose powerful blasts <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Joshua.6?lang=bi">the biblical book of Joshua</a> describes as bringing down the walls of the city of Jericho. During the High Holidays, the sound “opens the gates of heaven” so that congregants’ acknowledgment of divine sovereignty can enter God’s abode and inform his judgment.</p>
<p>Notably, Jewish law has it that individuals should not mark the High Holidays alone. Ideally, the services require <a href="https://www.jpost.com/judaism/torah-portion/article-725584">a “minyan,” or quorum of 10 adults</a> – as do many Jewish rituals. </p>
<p>Before 70 C.E., when Roman legions <a href="https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/faq/destruction-second-temple-70-ce">destroyed the Jerusalem Temple</a>, sacrifices at its altar were an important component of Jewish social, political and ritual life. Afterward, rabbinic law radically democratized the Israelites’ rituals, mostly as liturgical services. <a href="https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814764916.003.0004">These took the place</a> of activities that the priests of the temple had performed. Thus the people, along with their history as a political community, remained the protagonists of a comprehensive cultural system – not the relatively narrow, private sense of “faith” that the word “religion” can suggest.</p>
<h2>Confession – as a community – on Yom Kippur</h2>
<p>After Rosh Hashana, the mood darkens as Yom Kippur approaches: the Day of Atonement.</p>
<p>On the eve of Yom Kippur, before its onset at sundown, Jews return to their synagogues. As a prelude to the first Yom Kippur service, a cantor or another skilled congregant sings the famed <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kol-nidrei">Kol Nidre</a>: the Renunciation of All Vows. This poem asks God to preemptively annul any oaths Jews will make to God unknowingly or involuntarily, or ones they cannot fulfill. Notably, Kol Nidre plaintively asks, “May all the people of Israel be forgiven, including all the strangers who live in their midst, for all the people are at fault.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Cantor Azi Schwartz performs the Kol Nidre at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York.</span></figcaption>
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<p>One of the Yom Kippur liturgy’s distinctive elements is a section called <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/text-of-yom-kippur-viddui/">the Viddui – the “confession</a>.” That word may summon images of a one-on-one encounter with a priest in the privacy of a small, partitioned booth. “Confession” may also suggest a creed: “I believe in X, Y, Z – and that my belief will save my soul.” </p>
<p>Yet Jewish “confession” is neither an affirmation of faith nor a purely individual mea culpa. Instead, the Viddui affirms a long list of wrongdoings for which all congregants repent: Among other things, “We and our fathers have sinned. We have trespassed. We have betrayed; We have stolen. We have slandered.” </p>
<p>The focus of the services, in other words, is not exclusively on personal sin and salvation. The language of the liturgy uses “we,” not just “I.” It does not matter whether individuals reciting the liturgy have erred in the specific ways the confession mentions. What matters is that they take responsibility for the entire Jewish people – past, present and future – in relation to their fellow humans, and in relation to the God of Israel: One for all, and all for one. </p>
<p>As the Talmud puts it, “All Israel [is] mutually responsible.” The <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.4.41?lang=bi&aliyot=0">biblical Book of Deuteronomy</a>, too, is packed with laws for the entire people of Israel as they are about to enter their promised land, so that they “may prolong your days upon the land.” Commandments about theft, mercy and caring for the stranger and the orphan, for example, are <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/all/deuteronomy-the-essential-guide-to-a-good-society-1.487335">explicit blueprints</a> for a functioning, socially just state – not just guides to individual or universal morality. </p>
<p>The books of the Hebrew Bible enshrine a story of the Jewish people, a collective story at the root of these awe-filled days. Indeed, the High Holidays affirm a sense of belonging that keeps even some of the least traditional Jews returning to ceremonies every year, affirming the ideal of a kinship-based society rooted in collective justice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212519/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David L. Graizbord does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Community is vital in Jewish ritual and tradition, and the High Holidays are no exception, a Judaic studies scholar writes.David L. Graizbord, Director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2068272023-07-07T12:26:14Z2023-07-07T12:26:14ZNonbinary genders beyond ‘male’ and ‘female’ would have been no surprise to ancient rabbis, who acknowledged tumtums, androgynos and aylonot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535875/original/file-20230705-9120-t3bjm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=65%2C0%2C921%2C659&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jewish law includes acknowledgment that not everyone fits neatly into the categories 'male' and 'female.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A0%D7%94_%D7%A1%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94_-_%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%9D_%D7%94%D7%92%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%90_-_%D7%97%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%90.jpg">Mishna/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Genderqueer” and “nonbinary” are contemporary terms for people who <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/glossary-of-terms">don’t fit neatly into male or female categories</a>. But acknowledging that not everyone fits neatly into those two groups has a much longer history than you might suspect.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://religiousstudies.indiana.edu/about/faculty/imhoff-sarah.html">a scholar of Judaism and gender</a>, I find that people across the political spectrum often assume religion must be inherently conservative and unchanging when it comes to sex and gender. They imagine that religions have always embraced a world in which there are only men and women.</p>
<p>But for Judaism – and <a href="https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300157468-007">for many</a> <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-shape-of-sex/9780231551366">other religious traditions</a>, too – history shows that’s just not true.</p>
<h2>More than two terms</h2>
<p>Traditional Jewish sources discuss the categories “man” and “woman,” but these aren’t the only designations rabbinic texts use for sex and gender. </p>
<p>Rabbinic literature, the body of texts written by Jewish leaders in antiquity, includes several other categories. In these texts, a person with both sets of external genitalia is called an “androgynos,” a term borrowed from Greek. A person with neither is called a “tumtum,” and a person who loses his male sexual organs <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20798278">is called a “saris</a>.” There is also a term for someone whose sex assigned at birth is female but does not develop to female sexual maturity – in some cases, because they develop “male” traits: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0364009407000542">an “aylonit</a>.”</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Bereishit_Rabbah.8.1?lang=bi">Genesis Rabbah</a>, a collection of creative Biblical interpretation from late antiquity, records an interpretation of a creation story in <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.1.29?lang=bi&aliyot=0">the biblical book of Genesis</a> in which God forms the first humans. Genesis 1 includes the phrase, “Male and female He created them,” which many readers interpret to mean that God created a man and a woman.</p>
<p>But some of the rabbis quoted in Genesis Rabbah believed that God had made an androgynos. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Bereishit_Rabbah.8.1?lang=bi">One rabbi explained</a>: “In the hour when the Holy One Blessed Be He created the first human, He created an androgynos, as it is written, ‘male and female He created them.’”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Bereishit_Rabbah.8.1?lang=bi">Genesis Rabbah</a> continues with another rabbi’s argument that God made the first human with two fronts: a female face and body facing one way, and a male face and body facing the opposite direction. Only later did God split the two, in this rabbi’s reading. </p>
<p>Though the specifics of their interpretations differ, both put an androgynos at the center of God’s creation.</p>
<h2>Applying the law</h2>
<p>Jewish law, or halakhah, <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gender-identity-in-halakhic-discourse">is based on a gender binary</a>. For example, some commandments, such as studying Torah or <a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-prohibition-of-shaving-in-the-torah-and-halacha">not shaving sidelocks</a>, apply only to men; others, such as Sabbath candle lighting, apply only to women. </p>
<p>However, some halakhic traditions also recognize that not every person’s body fits that binary. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535873/original/file-20230705-15-4uiocp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women ride up one escalator while men in black suits and hats ride up a second escalator next to it, viewed from above." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535873/original/file-20230705-15-4uiocp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535873/original/file-20230705-15-4uiocp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535873/original/file-20230705-15-4uiocp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535873/original/file-20230705-15-4uiocp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535873/original/file-20230705-15-4uiocp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535873/original/file-20230705-15-4uiocp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535873/original/file-20230705-15-4uiocp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men and women ride separate escalators to their designated seating sections as Orthodox Jews gather during a 2012 event to celebrate religious study in New Jersey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/men-and-women-ride-separate-escalators-to-their-designated-news-photo/149661933?adppopup=true">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The Mishnah, a text compiled in the third century C.E. which includes halakhic material, roots its interpretations in the categories men and women, yet also affirms the idea that sex and gender go beyond those terms.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Bikkurim.4?lang=bi">a section called Mishnah Bikkurim</a> explains: “There are some ways the androgynos is like men, and some ways he is like women, and some ways he is like men and women, and some ways he is like neither men nor women.” Another section of the Mishnah explains that, like women, neither a tumtum nor an androgynos <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Chagigah.1.1?lang=bi">is obligated to go to the Temple</a> in Jerusalem as part of certain religious festivals. Meanwhile, an androgynos must <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Bikkurim.4.2?lang=bi">dress like a man</a>, and a priest cannot <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Yevamot.61a.12?lang=bi">marry an aylonit</a> unless he already has children. </p>
<p>As these examples suggest, gender diversity is woven throughout rabbinic traditions. Yet there is still a hierarchy, with men holding positions of the highest religious obligation.</p>
<p>It is also important to note how these categories differ from the ways people understand gender today. A nonbinary person <a href="https://theconversation.com/trans-youth-are-coming-out-and-living-in-their-gender-much-earlier-than-older-generations-156829">in the 21st century</a> does not have the same experience as a tumtum in late antiquity. The idea of “aylonit” does not map clearly onto any common gender identity today. Even the term “androgynos” is not quite the same as intersex. And none of the rabbinic categories match current ideas about trans identity. </p>
<h2>Forging a future</h2>
<p>In spite of this textual tradition, many observant Jewish communities today still tend toward a gender binary. In most Orthodox synagogues, for example, a physical partition divides the worship space into two sections: one for men and one for women. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/sho.2012.0083">Halakhic rulings</a> about whether and how parents should support medical interventions on intersex children suggest they should be raised as male or female, not as an androgynos or tumtum.</p>
<p>In other Jewish communal spaces, however, traditional texts have become a resource for contemporary LGBTQ+ Jews. Some look to these texts to affirm their beliefs that Judaism has always <a href="https://rac.org/blog/what-torah-teaches-us-about-gender-fluidity-and-transgender-justice">seen gender diversity as a spectrum</a>. Others use these texts to <a href="http://www.transtorah.org/PDFs/How_I_Met_the_Tumtum.pdf">see themselves</a> <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jjl/10/1/article-p120_5.xml">within Jewish tradition</a>. Still others use these examples to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/opinion/trans-teen-suicide-judaism.html">call for change</a> in the present, countering anti-LGBTQ+ positions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535877/original/file-20230705-21-uvqkob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People in t-shirts that include the phrase 'queer pride' walk in a parade, with one holding a sign that says 'Trans Jews belong here.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535877/original/file-20230705-21-uvqkob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535877/original/file-20230705-21-uvqkob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535877/original/file-20230705-21-uvqkob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535877/original/file-20230705-21-uvqkob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535877/original/file-20230705-21-uvqkob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535877/original/file-20230705-21-uvqkob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535877/original/file-20230705-21-uvqkob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Participants from Jewish Queer Youth walk in the New York City Pride March on June 25, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/2023NYCPrideMarch/a7f1d3c0e9fc4ac683ac061978c40ddd/photo?Query=trans%20jewish&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=18&currentItemNo=0&vs=true">Charles Sykes/Invision/AP</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Many of these Jews recognize that the <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520397392/trans-talmud">diversity of sex and gender</a> in these ancient texts is different from gender identity today, but they believe the past can still serve as <a href="https://therevealer.org/turning-to-the-talmud-to-find-gender-diversity-that-speaks-to-today/">an important tool</a> in the present.</p>
<p>Rabbinic texts illustrate that there is no magical time in the past when every person fit easily and naturally into gender categories.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206827/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Imhoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People sometimes assume religious traditions’ ideas about gender have always been conservative and unchanging.Sarah Imhoff, Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2077202023-06-20T12:27:59Z2023-06-20T12:27:59ZThe tree of life has been a powerful image in Jewish tradition for thousands of years – signifying much more than immortality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532441/original/file-20230616-29-13d56x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C0%2C2101%2C1412&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tree of life imagery appears in several sections of the Bible.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/tree-hugging-royalty-free-image/141377343?phrase=large+tree&adppopup=true">Catherine MacBride/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After two months of trial, jurors unanimously <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/jury-recommends-sentence-death-pennsylvania-man-convicted-tree-life-synagogue-shooting">recommended the death sentence</a> for Robert Bowers, the gunman who killed 11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 – the deadliest <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/29/18037580/pittsburgh-shooter-anti-semitism-racist-jewish-caravan">antisemitic attack</a> in U.S. history. A federal judge <a href="https://apnews.com/article/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-death-penalty-ccb447356b2cfe855875c329fb00f505">formally imposed the sentence</a> on Aug. 3, 2023.</p>
<p>The name of the synagogue, Tree of Life, has almost become shorthand for the tragedy. Yet it highlights a symbol from the Bible that has transformed over time, coming to represent how the human and the divine relate through revelation. In Jewish Scripture and Jewish thought, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-the-tree-of-life-etz-chaim/">the tree of life</a> speaks to fundamental aspects of what it means to be human in the world.</p>
<p>In my research as <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies/samuel-boyd">a scholar of the Bible and ancient Judaism</a>, I have been amazed at the potency of the symbol of the tree of life. Not only has the symbol itself transformed over time, but it has the power to transform communities along with it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532099/original/file-20230615-18-ixz5ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An orange, autumn-foliage tree with long branches extending over an open grave." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532099/original/file-20230615-18-ixz5ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532099/original/file-20230615-18-ixz5ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532099/original/file-20230615-18-ixz5ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532099/original/file-20230615-18-ixz5ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532099/original/file-20230615-18-ixz5ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532099/original/file-20230615-18-ixz5ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532099/original/file-20230615-18-ixz5ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The final resting place of Rose Mallinger, 97, who was among the 11 victims of the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue, lies ready for her casket.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-final-resting-place-of-rose-mallinger-lays-ready-for-news-photo/1055780540?adppopup=true">Jeff Swensen/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>In the beginning</h2>
<p>The tree of life appears in <a href="https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/8704">the Book of Genesis</a>, at the very beginning of the Hebrew Bible – what many Christians call the Old Testament. </p>
<p>In the creation story of <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.2.10?lang=bi&aliyot=0">chapters 2</a> and 3, God places man in the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300178692/what-really-happened-in-the-garden-of-eden/">Garden of Eden</a>, then creates woman, Eve, from his rib. Eden is filled with “every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food,” as well as the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – but God commands the man not to eat this last tree’s fruit. </p>
<p>Before long, however, a <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/from-creation-to-babel-studies-in-genesis-111-9780567370303/">serpent tempts Eve and Adam</a> to do just that. When the serpent speaks, it addresses Eve directly – and for centuries, art and stories about the Garden of Eden <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/stories/from-the-garden-of-eden-to-killing-eve-deconstructing-the-first-woman-in-art">have portrayed her as “responsible</a>” for succumbing to temptation. </p>
<p>Yet in the Hebrew text, the snake often uses verbs for the second person plural, suggesting that it is addressing Adam as well – or at least implying the benefits of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will apply to him, too.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/from-creation-to-abraham-9780567703118/">Biblical scholars debate</a> the meaning of the tree’s name: what exactly do “knowledge” or “good and evil” entail? Persuaded that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will make them like God, however, Adam and Eve consume the fruit. Worried that the couple might eat from the tree of life as well, making them immortal, God <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.3.23?lang=bi&aliyot=0">expels Adam and Eve from the garden</a> and places a flaming sword and angelic beings at the entrance to prevent reentry.</p>
<p>This transgression of the boundary between divinity and humanity begins <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.6.2?lang=bi&aliyot=0">a recurring theme</a> in the Bible, one that famously appears in the story of <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506480671/Babel">the Tower of Babel</a> in Genesis 11. In this latter passage, humans build a tower and a city without conferring with God at all – both acts that, in the ancient world, defied divine prerogative. </p>
<h2>Two trees</h2>
<p>These two trees, especially the tree of life, have long raised questions for scholars. Though the tree of life <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.2.10?lang=bi&aliyot=0">is introduced at the same time</a> as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the rest of Genesis’ creation story focuses on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life does not reappear until <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.3.22?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en">the end of the Eden story</a>, when God expels Adam and Eve to prevent them from eating it.</p>
<p>Some scholars have argued that the two trees in Genesis emerged from two <a href="https://www.mupress.org/Genesis-P1083.aspx">distinct traditions</a> in the ancient Near East. The tree of life symbolism had a <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004423756/BP000002.xml">long history</a> in the region. Kings from <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004423756/BP000003.xml">Assyria in ancient Mesopotamia and elsewhere</a> would use a verdant tree in imagery to evoke the wonders and fertility of their domain. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532097/original/file-20230615-18-krqfj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A worn stone carving of winged figures on either side of a tree." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532097/original/file-20230615-18-krqfj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532097/original/file-20230615-18-krqfj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532097/original/file-20230615-18-krqfj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532097/original/file-20230615-18-krqfj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532097/original/file-20230615-18-krqfj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532097/original/file-20230615-18-krqfj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532097/original/file-20230615-18-krqfj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A relief from ancient Assyria with two winged mythological beings and the god Ashur before the tree of life. From the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/relief-with-two-figures-of-ashurnasirpal-winged-news-photo/464450757?adppopup=true">Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The two themes associated with each tree, however – wisdom and immortality – are connected in other <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/from-creation-to-abraham-9780567703118/">ancient myths</a>. In <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/myths-from-mesopotamia-9780199538362?cc=us&lang=en&">one legend from Mesopotamia</a>, for example, in modern-day Iraq, the first human is named Adapa.</p>
<p>Ea, the god who created Adapa, gives him wisdom from the start. Ea then offers the man food that would lead to immortality but tricks Adapa into refusing it. The result is that humans have some wisdom, like the gods, but are not immortal and cannot challenge the divine.</p>
<p>Similarly, the two trees in Genesis display how humanity is both like and unlike God. According to other texts in the Bible, <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Psalms.82?lang=bi">such as Psalm 82</a>, divinity is characterized by immortality and a concern for justice. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, giving humanity some sense of self-awareness, justice and, ideally, care for the poor and oppressed. Humans did not consume the tree of life, however, creating a distinction between them and the divine.</p>
<h2>Living wisdom</h2>
<p>In Genesis, readers are introduced to “the” tree of life, with the definite article – implying there is only one such tree.</p>
<p>Later in the Bible, however, “a” tree of life appears four times in <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Proverbs.1?lang=bi">the Book of Proverbs</a>, a complex anthology that collects many sayings and gems of wisdom from the ancient world. A possible, though by no means certain, allusion also appears in <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Ezekiel.47.12?lang=bi">the Book of Ezekiel</a>.</p>
<p>Some of these passages in Proverbs use the imagery of a tree of life as a positive contrast to sickness, <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Proverbs.13.13?lang=bi">languishing</a> or <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Proverbs.15.4?lang=bi">broken spirits</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Proverbs.11.30?lang=bi">Other verses</a> connect knowledge and a tree of life. <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Proverbs.3.18?lang=bi">Proverbs 3:18</a>, for example, instructs that wisdom “is a tree of life to those who grasp her, and whoever holds on to her is happy.”</p>
<p>Jewish tradition frequently pictures God’s teachings and scripture, <a href="https://www.reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/torah-tree-life">the Torah</a>, as the tree of life – deepening this connection between life and wisdom.</p>
<h2>Reaching up to God</h2>
<p>In Genesis, the tree of life is a symbol of the divide between humanity and divinity. In the Bible’s wisdom literature, however, it comes to represent how knowledge, wisdom and Torah connect God and Israel. Both meanings continued to evolve in a strain of Jewish mysticism <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/662">known as Kabbalah</a>, which <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300140910/nahmanides/">has roots in the 13th century</a></p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532096/original/file-20230615-17-48uxzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A faded manuscript page with intricate illustrations of plants." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532096/original/file-20230615-17-48uxzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532096/original/file-20230615-17-48uxzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532096/original/file-20230615-17-48uxzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532096/original/file-20230615-17-48uxzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532096/original/file-20230615-17-48uxzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532096/original/file-20230615-17-48uxzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532096/original/file-20230615-17-48uxzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A Kabbalistic tree in an illustration from around 1625.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/arbor-cabalistica-ca-1625-private-collection-artist-news-photo/600047287?adppopup=true">Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=30152">most famous texts</a> of Kabbalah discuss the relationship between humanity and divinity in terms of <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300046991/kabbalah/">God’s attributes</a>, such as righteousness, justice and beauty. These attributes, called “sefirot,” are often drawn as spheres, linked with branchlike lines as though they form a “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/reading-the-zohar-9780195118490?cc=us&lang=en&">tree of life</a>” – a tree that connects human experience on Earth to an infinite God above.</p>
<p>Mystical tradition sees these pathways through the “sefirot” not only as a means of connecting divinity and humanity, but also as a means of repairing our broken world, where believers may feel that the divine is often absent.</p>
<p>According to these teachings, when people access spheres on the tree of life through mystical reflection and study, they aid in “<a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=1174">tikkun olam</a>,” the repair of the world. </p>
<p>It is no wonder, then, that the tree of life holds so much significance for Jewish communities. Like the synagogue in Pittsburgh, they can experience tragedy, even as they continue seeking ways to heal a broken world. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story was updated on Aug. 3, 2023 to include the gunman’s sentencing.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207720/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel L. Boyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the beginning of the Bible, the tree of life represents what sets humans apart from divinity – but other texts use the symbol to depict mankind’s relationship with God.Samuel L. Boyd, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2072972023-06-15T12:49:27Z2023-06-15T12:49:27ZJewish denominations: A brief guide for the perplexed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531466/original/file-20230612-248839-aos7wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C0%2C3024%2C2005&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From Reconstructionism to ultra-Orthodoxy, Judaism is richly diverse.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/torah-ark-royalty-free-image/160368465?phrase=torah&adppopup=true">MendyHechtman/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As <a href="https://jewish.cofc.edu/documents/jewish-studies-faculty-and-staff-bios/joshua-shanes,-associate-director.php">a scholar of modern Jewish history</a>, religion and politics, I am often asked to explain the differences between Judaism’s major denominations. Here is a very brief overview:</p>
<h2>Rabbinic roots</h2>
<p>Two thousand years ago, Jews were divided between <a href="https://www.wjkbooks.com/Products/0664239048/from-the-maccabees-to-the-mishnah-third-edition.aspx">competing sects</a> all based on the Jewish scriptures, but with different interpretations. After the Romans <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-2-500-year-old-hebrew-poem-still-matters-81442">destroyed the Jerusalem Temple</a> in 70 C.E., one main group, who called themselves “rabbis” – sages or teachers – began to dominate. What we now know as “Judaism” grew out of this group, technically called “Rabbinic Judaism.”</p>
<p>Rabbinic Judaism believed that God gave Jewish teachings and scriptures to Moses at Mt. Sinai, but that they came in two parts: the “written law” or “written Torah” and the “oral law” or “oral Torah.” The oral Torah is a vast body of interpretations that expands upon the written Torah and is the source for most of <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/making-gods-word-work-9780826415578/">the rules and theology</a> of Rabbinic Judaism.</p>
<p>Fearful that these traditions might be lost, the early rabbis began the process of writing them down, culminating in two texts called <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/texts/Mishnah">the Mishna</a> and <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/texts/Talmud">the Talmud</a>. This corpus became the foundation of rabbinic literature.</p>
<p>The rabbis assured the Jews that although the temple’s destruction was devastating, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/judaism-after-the-temple/">Jews could continue to serve God</a> through study, prayer and observing God’s commandments, called “mitzvot.” Someday, they promised, God would send the Messiah, a descendant of King David who would rebuild the temple and return the exiled Jews to the land of Israel. </p>
<h2>Historic turning point</h2>
<p>There were tensions in Rabbinic Judaism from the outset. For example, starting in the Middle Ages, a Jewish group called the Karaites <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199840731/obo-9780199840731-0090.xml">challenged the rabbis’ authority</a> by rejecting the oral Torah. </p>
<p>Even within the rabbinic tradition, there were regular disagreements: <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=6634">between mystics</a> <a href="https://store.behrmanhouse.com/index.php/maimonides-guide-for-today-s-perplexed.html">and rationalists</a>, for example; debates over people <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Messianism">claiming to be the messiah</a>; and differences in customs between regions, from medieval Spain to Poland to Yemen.</p>
<p>Still, Rabbinic Judaism remained a more or less united religious community for some 1,500 years – until the 19th century.</p>
<p>Around that time, Jews began <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691164946/jewish-emancipation">to experience emancipation</a> in many parts of Europe, acquiring equal citizenship where they had previously constituted a separate, legal community. Meanwhile, thousands – eventually millions – of Jews <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-century.html">moved to the United States</a>, which likewise offered equal citizenship.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531756/original/file-20230613-19-52vpff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of long lines of people with luggage in an old-fashioned arrival hall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531756/original/file-20230613-19-52vpff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531756/original/file-20230613-19-52vpff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531756/original/file-20230613-19-52vpff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531756/original/file-20230613-19-52vpff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531756/original/file-20230613-19-52vpff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531756/original/file-20230613-19-52vpff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531756/original/file-20230613-19-52vpff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Jewish immigrants arriving at the immigration office on Ellis Island in New York City, around 1910.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jewish-immigrants-arriving-at-immigration-office-in-ellis-news-photo/89857923?adppopup=true">Apic/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>These freedoms brought opportunity, but also new challenges. Traditionally, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691160139/how-judaism-became-a-religion">Judaism</a> was based on Jewish autonomy – communities governed by rabbinic law – and taking the truth of its beliefs for granted. Political emancipation challenged the first, while Enlightenment ideas <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Heretical_Imperative.html?id=wgk9AAAAIAAJ">challenged the second</a>. Jews were now free to choose what to believe and how to practice Judaism, if at all, at a time when they were experiencing widespread exposure to competing ideas.</p>
<h2>Three major groups</h2>
<p>Competing Jewish denominations emerged, each one attempting to negotiate the relationship between Jewishness and modernity in its own way. Each group claimed that they followed the best or most authentic traditions of Judaism. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/response-modernity">first modern denomination</a> to organize was Reform – first in Germany in the early 19th century, but soon in America as well. Reform Judaism is based on the idea that both the Bible and the laws of the oral Torah are divinely inspired, but humanly constructed, meaning they should be adapted based on contemporary moral ideals. Reform congregations tend to emphasize prophetic themes such as social justice more than Talmudic law, though in recent years many <a href="https://urj.org/press-room/survey-confirms-trend-toward-reform-embrace-ritual">have reclaimed some rituals</a>, such as Hebrew liturgy and stricter observance of Shabbat.</p>
<p>Orthodox Judaism soon organized in reaction to Reform, rallying to defend the strict observance of Jewish customs and law. Orthodox leaders often blurred the distinction between these categories and put particular emphasis on the 16th-century legal code called <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Shulhan_arukh">the Shulchan Aruch</a>. Orthodoxy insists that both the written and oral Torah have divine origins. Contrary views in pre-modern sources are often <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/changing-the-immutable-9781904113607?q=changing%20the&lang=en&cc=us">censored</a>.</p>
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<span class="caption">Members of a Reform congregation in Pennsylvania gather for a menorah-lighting ceremony during Hanukkah.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/wyomissing-pamembers-of-the-congregation-during-the-menorah-news-photo/1315680463?adppopup=true">Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://masortiolami.org/resource/emet-vemunah-statement-of-principles-of-conservative">Conservative Judaism</a>, which did not arrive in the U.S. until the mid-1900s, shares many of Reform Judaism’s views, such as equal religious roles for men and women. However, Conservative Jews argue that the Reform movement pulled too far away from Jewish tradition. They insist that Jewish law remains obligatory, but that the Orthodox interpretation is too rigid. In practice, most Conservative Jews tend not to be strict about even major rituals, like observing Sabbath restrictions or kosher food practices.</p>
<p>There are also smaller but still influential Jewish movements. For example, <a href="https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/article/who-reconstructionist-jew/">Reconstructionism</a>, created by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan in the 1930s and 1940s, emphasizes community over ritual obligations. And the <a href="https://aleph.org/what-is-jewish-renewal/">Jewish Renewal</a> movement, born out of the late 1960s counterculture, seeks to incorporate insights from Jewish mysticism with an egalitarian perspective, and without necessarily following the minutiae of Jewish law.</p>
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<p>What makes Jewish identities even more complex is that for many Jewish people, being “Jewish” is more of a cultural or ethnic identity than a religious one. Over <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">a quarter of Americans who describe themselves as Jewish</a> say they do not identify with the Jewish religion at all, though Jewish culture or their family’s Jewish background may be very important to them.</p>
<p>It’s also important to keep in mind that Jewish groups evolved in different ways <a href="https://katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/blog/what-do-you-know-sephardi-vs-mizrahi">in the Middle East and Northern Africa</a>. Jews from the Muslim world, <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814797051/sephardic-and-mizrahi-jewry/">often called Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews</a> – a minority of American Jews, but over half of Israeli Jews – did not experience the kind of abrupt emancipation that they did in much of Europe. Different Sephardic traditions developed, which are often described as “Masorti” or “traditional” <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/08/israels-religiously-divided-society/">Judaism in Israel</a>, although many of their adherents have become Orthodox in recent years.</p>
<h2>From Orthodox to ultra-Orthodox</h2>
<p>Of all the Jewish denominations, the Orthodox groups are perhaps most misunderstood. They all share a commitment to Jewish law – especially regarding gender roles and sexuality, food consumption and Sabbath restrictions – but there are many divisions, generally categorized on a spectrum from “modern” to “ultra” Orthodox.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781618117502-010/html?lang=en">Modern Orthodoxy</a> celebrates secular education and integration into the modern world, yet insists on a relatively strict approach to ritual observance and traditional tenets of belief. They also tend to see Zionism – the modern movement calling for Jewish national rights, today connected to support for Israel – as part of their religious worldview, rather than just <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-its-75th-birthday-israel-still-cant-agree-on-what-it-means-to-be-a-jewish-state-and-a-democracy-204770">a political belief</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.harediresearchgroup.org/report/">ultra-Orthodox</a>, on the other hand – sometimes <a href="https://www.harediresearchgroup.org/report/">called “Haredim</a>” or Haredi Jews – advocate segregation from the outside world. Many continue to speak Yiddish, the traditional language of Jews in Eastern Europe, or to dress as traditional Jews did in Europe before the Holocaust.</p>
<p>This is especially true of Hasidic Jews, who make up about half of the ultra-Orthodox population worldwide. Hasidism is a mystical movement <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Hasidism">born in 18th-century Ukraine</a>, but today mostly concentrated in New York and Israel. Hasidic Jews are known for being particularly strict about shunning secular culture and education, but they remain also a mystical movement focused on God’s close presence. They are divided into subgroups named after cities in Eastern Europe, and they follow leaders known as “Rebbes,” who wield enormous power in their communities. </p>
<p>Haredim are particularly committed to gender segregation, separating men and women beyond what previous Jewish traditions called for, and tend toward the strictest interpretation of Jewish law, even when traditional understanding of a rule has been more lenient.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531762/original/file-20230613-26-bmom89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four teenage boys in black coats and black, broad-brimmed hats study a book while standing outside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531762/original/file-20230613-26-bmom89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531762/original/file-20230613-26-bmom89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531762/original/file-20230613-26-bmom89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531762/original/file-20230613-26-bmom89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531762/original/file-20230613-26-bmom89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531762/original/file-20230613-26-bmom89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531762/original/file-20230613-26-bmom89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ultra-Orthodox boys prepare for Yom Kippur, the most important day in the Jewish calendar, in the Israeli city of Netanya.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ultra-orthodox-jewish-men-and-children-perform-the-tashlich-news-photo/1243700909?adppopup=true">Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Whether modern or Haredi, Orthodox Judaism sees itself as “traditional.” However, it is more accurate to say <a href="https://www.academia.edu/43682607/Jacob_Katz_Orthodoxy_in_Historical_Perspective_in_Peter_Y_Medding_ed_Studies_in_Contemporary_Jewry_vol_2_The_Challenge_of_Modernity_and_Jewish_Orthodoxy_Bloomington_Indiana_University_Press_1986_3_17">it is “traditionalist</a>.” By this I mean that Orthodoxy is attempting to recreate a pre-modern religion in a modern era. Not only has Orthodox Judaism innovated many rituals and teachings, but people today have greater awareness that other types of life are available – creating a firm break with the traditional world Orthodoxy claims to perpetuate.</p>
<h2>Becoming a nation</h2>
<p>Jewish groups are often described as “Zionist.” What is Zionism, and where does it fit in to all these terms?</p>
<p><a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/Z/bo43636872.html">The first Zionists</a> were mostly secular Jews from Eastern Europe. Inspired by nationalist movements around them, they claimed that Jews constituted a modern nation, rather than just a religion. Traditions and prayers connected to the land – often reinterpreted through a secular, nationalist lens – became all-important for Zionists, while many other rituals and traditions were abandoned.</p>
<p>Most Jews <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3627929.html">opposed Zionism for decades</a>. Reform Jews and even some early Orthodox Jews worried that defining Jews as a “nation” would undermine their claim to equal citizenship in other countries. Orthodox Jews, meanwhile, opposed Zionists’ staunch secularism and emphasized that Jews must wait for the Messiah to lead them back to the land of Israel.</p>
<p>Within a decade or two of Israel’s establishment as a modern state, however, most Jewish denominations integrated Zionism into their worldview. Still, most ultra-Orthodox Jews today continue to oppose Zionist ideology, even as they hold right-wing political views on Israel. <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168999/trouble-in-the-tribe">Young liberal Jews</a>, too, are increasingly emphasizing the distinction between Zionism and their own Jewish identity.</p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">most U.S. Jews</a> are either unaffiliated with any particular denomination or Reform. However, the percentage of Jews who are Orthodox – especially ultra-Orthodox, whose members tend to have very large families – is growing rapidly. Almost 10% of American Jews and nearly 25% of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/08/israels-religiously-divided-society/">Israeli Jews</a> are Orthodox today, although attrition from these communities is also rising.</p>
<p>This trend may continue, or that sector may see mass defections, as it did a century ago. Either way, Orthodoxy is going to continue to play a very important role in Jewish life for many years to come.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct a chart caption and include information about Masorti Judaism.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207297/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Shanes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jewish communities have always followed some different customs in different parts of the world, but the 19th and 20th centuries brought much more dramatic divisions.Joshua Shanes, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2059152023-06-01T12:29:34Z2023-06-01T12:29:34ZIsraeli protesters fear for the future of their country’s precarious LGBTQ rights revolution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528676/original/file-20230527-15-3k7zwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C4%2C1017%2C676&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators lift Israeli flags and LGBTQ pride flags during a protest against the proposed judicial overhaul in Tel Aviv in May 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-lift-flags-and-banners-during-a-protest-news-photo/1256499783?adppopup=true">Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Demonstrations against the Israeli government’s efforts to <a href="https://theconversation.com/israels-judicial-reform-efforts-could-complicate-its-relationship-with-us-but-the-countries-have-faced-other-bumps-along-the-road-203104">radically overhaul the country’s judicial system</a> have become a weekly occurrence. Often rainbow pride banners pop with color amid the sea of blue and white national flags.</p>
<p>LGBTQ allies are hardly the only groups protesting the new government: Secular Jews, liberals and people concerned that the plan will erode democracy have come out to the streets in droves since early 2023. But among other concerns, many Israelis fear that hard-line conservative ministers will <a href="https://www.jta.org/2023/01/17/politics/israel-has-been-an-lgbtq-haven-in-the-middle-east-its-new-government-could-change-that">roll back LGBTQ rights</a>. And LGBTQ issues are a potent symbol of a chasm fueling debate over the judicial overhaul: <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-07-26/ty-article-opinion/.premium/the-secret-of-the-lgbt-protests-success/0000017f-dc5c-d856-a37f-fddc43a30000">secular and religious Israeli Jews’</a> very different visions of the Jewish state.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition is the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/netanyahus-government-takes-a-turn-toward-theocracy">most religious</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2023/1/20/23561464/israel-new-right-wing-government-extreme-protests-netanyahu-biden-ben-gvir">nationalist</a> in the country’s history. His supporters claim that Israel’s Supreme Court, whose rulings guaranteed many of the rights LGBTQ people have today, is interventionist and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-732567">needs to be reined in</a>. Opponents, however, fear that Israel’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-its-75th-birthday-israel-still-cant-agree-on-what-it-means-to-be-a-jewish-state-and-a-democracy-204770">balance of being a democratic state and a Jewish one</a> is tipping away from democracy.</p>
<p>But how did Israel become relatively accepting of LGBTQ people in the first place – especially given the ways religion and state are <a href="https://main.knesset.gov.il/en/activity/pages/basiclaws.aspx">entangled in its laws</a>? The answer does not rest solely with the Supreme Court. The legislature, popular culture and activist organizations were key – <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479810031/queer-judaism/">including Orthodox groups known as the Proud Religious Community</a>, a focus of <a href="https://www.fordham.edu/info/20855/faculty/4979/orit_avishai">my ethnographic research</a>. I believe the lack of separation between law and religion has at times actually helped advance LGBTQ Jews’ rights. Activists’ carefully picked agenda and its convergence with national interests have also aided the movement.</p>
<h2>The ‘gay decade’</h2>
<p>Chronicles of Israel’s LGBTQ rights often focus on changes that occurred during the so-called “gay decade” that began in 1988, when the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/03/23/Parliament-legalizes-homosexuality-in-Israel/1523575096400/">repealed sodomy laws</a>. The groundwork for that, however, began decades earlier.</p>
<p>Israel’s first LGBTQ organization, <a href="https://www.lgbt.org.il/english-new">The Aguda</a>, was founded in 1975 as a grassroots, volunteer-based human rights nonprofit. In its early years, many members were closeted, but by the early 1980s some LGBTQ activists were willing to put a public face on the movement by sharing their stories in interviews, public hearings and lobbying efforts. A groundbreaking 1983 Aguda pamphlet appealed to scientific evidence and international legal precedents to make the case for <a href="https://www.mako.co.il/pride-news/local/Article-16dfa68babbbf71027.htm">ending prejudice and discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>A dizzying array of rights were achieved during the gay decade and beyond. Sexual orientation was declared a protected employment category in 1992, and openly gay women and men were <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127131403">allowed to serve in the military</a> in 1993. Same-sex partners were recognized for welfare in 1994, national insurance benefits in 1999 and pension benefits in 2000. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529132/original/file-20230530-21-opja7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in sunglasses and a tan military uniform smiles and holds a rainbow-striped flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529132/original/file-20230530-21-opja7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529132/original/file-20230530-21-opja7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529132/original/file-20230530-21-opja7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529132/original/file-20230530-21-opja7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529132/original/file-20230530-21-opja7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529132/original/file-20230530-21-opja7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529132/original/file-20230530-21-opja7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Israeli soldier during the 2007 Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem, with heavy police presence to prevent clashes with protesters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-israeli-female-soldier-holds-the-multi-colored-gay-pride-news-photo/74847632?adppopup=true">Gali Tibbon/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Because religious authorities have monopoly over marriage and divorce in Israel, <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/11/israel-wont-legalize-gay-marriage-heres-why.html">same-sex marriage is not legalized</a>. Nevertheless, over the past 20 years, same-sex couples and their families have won many other legal protections, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/committee-okays-inheritance-between-same-sex-partners/">including inheritance</a>, stepchild adoption, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israeli-court-grants-gay-divorce-even-though-same-sex-marriage-flna1c7425785">divorce</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/israel-lifts-restrictions-sex-surrogacy-rcna10859">surrogacy rights</a>.</p>
<h2>Uneven gains</h2>
<p>Beyond the law, LGBTQ Israelis have also benefited from increasing cultural visibility and public acceptance. Municipal and state investments have made the Tel Aviv Pride Parade a <a href="https://www.afar.com/magazine/the-worlds-biggest-lgbtq-pride-celebrations">top destination</a> for Pride month travelers around the world. Israeli <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/10/viva-la-diva-how-eurovisions-dana-international-made-trans-identity-mainstream">transgender singer Dana International</a> won the Eurovision contest in 1998, and gay characters began to appear in <a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/soldiers-rebels-and-drifters">mainstream movies</a> and popular TV by the turn of the millennium. The late 1990s and the aughts also saw a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1295">significant expansion</a> of organizations to support LGBTQ people and their families.</p>
<p>Still, access to protections has always been uneven. The early gay “revolution” was predominantly secular, and remains so. It is mostly an urban, Jewish, Ashkenazi affair – referring to <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/who-are-ashkenazi-jews/">Jews whose families were from Europe</a>. Transgender people won <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-lgbt-victory-court-bans-transgender-workplace-prejudice/">employment protections</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/israel-s-first-openly-transgender-soldier-paves-way-others-n742876">the right to serve in the military</a> more than a decade after gays and lesbians won the same rights.</p>
<p>Attitudes toward LGBTQ Israelis have been slower to change in conservative religious communities, and same-sex relationships remain taboo in ultra-Orthodox circles. Since the turn of the 21st century, however, Orthodox activists have begun to organize, as I document in my recent book “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479810031/queer-judaism/">Queer Judaism</a>.”</p>
<h2>Path to acceptance</h2>
<p>Although a minority, religious conservatives have been power brokers and members of government coalitions for most of the state of Israel’s history. Yet certain aspects of the country’s political landscape help explain the LGBTQ movement’s successes – as do activists’ strategic choices.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529135/original/file-20230530-21-j68l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men embrace as they stomp drinking glasses on the ground. One wears a black suit and one wears a white suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529135/original/file-20230530-21-j68l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529135/original/file-20230530-21-j68l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529135/original/file-20230530-21-j68l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529135/original/file-20230530-21-j68l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529135/original/file-20230530-21-j68l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529135/original/file-20230530-21-j68l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529135/original/file-20230530-21-j68l6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yohay Verman and Yotam Ha'Cohen smash glasses during their marriage during the 2016 Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/israeli-gay-couple-yohay-verman-and-yotam-hacohen-smash-news-photo/578336518?adppopup=true">Gali Tibbon/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>First, the lack of separation of state and religion means that Israel does not offer a civil marriage option, even for opposite-sex couples. The legal system developed alternatives for heterosexual Jewish couples who did not want to or could not marry through the Jewish rabbinate, such as extending many of marriage’s civil benefits to cohabitating couples. These alternatives were relatively <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3065040#">easy to extend</a> to same-sex couples.</p>
<p>Second, the goals that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2717-0_101-1">the Israeli LGBTQ movement</a> has prioritized – equal rights to parenthood, family and military service – aligned well with Jewish Israeli common values and national priorities. They often <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3065040#">avoided alliances</a> with other causes that were considered controversial, especially Palestinian rights.</p>
<p>Third, Tel Aviv’s fun façade as a thriving gay scene served national interests. Politicians from across the political spectrum have used Israel’s liberal record on LGBTQ rights to bolster its democratic credentials while ignoring criticism over systemic human rights violations toward Arab citizens of the state and Palestinians in the occupied territories – <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/israelsolpalestine-and-the-queer-international">a phenomenon sometimes called “pinkwashing</a>.”</p>
<h2>Pivotal moment?</h2>
<p>The same forces that facilitated Israel’s LGBTQ rights revolution, however, may now undo hard-won gains.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529134/original/file-20230530-19-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Angry-looking men holding signs in Hebrew shout during a protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529134/original/file-20230530-19-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529134/original/file-20230530-19-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529134/original/file-20230530-19-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529134/original/file-20230530-19-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529134/original/file-20230530-19-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529134/original/file-20230530-19-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529134/original/file-20230530-19-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israelis take part in a protest against the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem on July 21, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/israeli-right-wing-religious-jews-take-part-in-a-protest-news-photo/578328184?adppopup=true">Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Jewish religious conservatives have long viewed acceptance of LGBTQ people’s rights <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-israel-middle-east-jerusalem-religion-260e59484c89b5f19cee67a5ca0ceb50">as an affront to the state’s Jewish character</a>. In the past, ruling coalitions with both political moderates and Orthodox parties guaranteed some modicum of compromise, including on LGBTQ rights. But the current ruling coalition rests on the support of religious ultranationalists, including ministers who have <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-my-voters-dont-care-im-a-homophobic-fascist-but-my-word-is-my-word/">openly opposed LGBTQ rights</a>. </p>
<p>Another factor is the current right-wing government’s unambiguous territorial ambitions. <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/judicial-reform-boosting-jewish-identity-the-new-coalitions-policy-guidelines/">Its guiding document</a> declares that “The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” and one senior minister has even <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-appears-to-post-support-for-expulsion-of-arab-israelis/">hinted at his support for Arab expulsion</a>. With such <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-05-20/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/israel-is-hurtling-toward-a-new-kind-of-illiberal-regime/00000188-35a8-d7fd-adec-ffebca370000">nationalistic aims</a> out in the open, the state may no longer feel as much of a need to use LGBTQ rights to defend its human rights record.</p>
<p>During research for my book about Orthodox LGBTQ activism in Israel, I noticed how efforts to change conservative communities’ ideas about equality and acceptance were grounded in claims of a shared Jewish experience. However, LGBTQ activists I talked to did not challenge other aspects of far-right politics.</p>
<p>Critics of LGBTQ activists’ approach warn that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1295">prioritizing narrower interests</a>, rather than a broader social justice platform, fails to rein in <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/middle-east-briefs/pdfs/101-200/meb150.pdf">Israel’s broader shift</a> away from liberal democratic norms – which could jeopardize their own hard-won gains as well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Orit Avishai receives funding from the Association for the Sociology of Religion, The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, The Global Religion Research Initiative (Notre Dame and Templeton Trust), Fordham University</span></em></p>LGBTQ rights are not the main issue bringing Israeli protesters to the streets, but they do symbolize the country’s stark divide.Orit Avishai, Professor of Sociology, Fordham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973852023-05-22T12:26:08Z2023-05-22T12:26:08ZShavuot: The Jewish holiday that became all about children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526632/original/file-20230516-34490-yfyflx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C392%2C313&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A confirmation class in 1924 in St. Paul, Minnesota. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Temple_of_Aaron_confirmation_class,_St._Paul_(4418752781).jpg">Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For most American Jews today, Shavuot is not exactly a big-ticket holiday. Observance lags behind <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-passover-different-from-all-other-nights-3-essential-reads-on-the-jewish-holiday-202678">springtime Passover</a>, and it pales in comparison to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-jewish-high-holy-days-a-look-at-rosh-hashanah-yom-kippur-and-a-month-of-celebrating-renewal-and-moral-responsibility-166079">the fall “high holidays</a>.”</p>
<p>But 150 years ago, Shavuot was the one day when everybody wanted to be in synagogue: It was a day to celebrate children.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://people.cal.msu.edu/yareslau/">a scholar of American religion and Judaism</a>, I have written about how <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9781479822300/html?lang=en">the history of religious education</a> reveals the changing ways that American Jews have imagined Judaism itself. The history of Shavuot, which begins at sundown on May 25 in 2023, offers a fascinating illustration of these dynamics. </p>
<h2>The ‘milk’ of Torah</h2>
<p>In ancient times, Shavuot was an agricultural pilgrimage festival, a time to <a href="https://theconversation.com/shavuot-a-jewish-holiday-of-renewing-commitment-to-god-182717">bring offerings of first grains</a> and fruits to the temple in Jerusalem. </p>
<p>After the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 C.E., Jewish leaders redesignated Shavuot as a holiday that would primarily <a href="https://theconversation.com/shavuot-a-jewish-holiday-of-renewing-commitment-to-god-182717">commemorate the revelation of the Torah</a>. According to Jewish tradition, God gave these teachings to Moses on Mt. Sinai as he led the Israelites through the desert.</p>
<p>Jews have traditionally described the Torah as the word of God – a text potent with significance. Shavuot became a time to celebrate the study of the Torah and its many rabbinic commentaries, including <a href="https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/sotj14.socst.world.mishnahtalmud/the-mishnah-and-the-talmud/">the Mishnah and the Talmud</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526629/original/file-20230516-24-ofmndq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dimly colored painting of a man holding a large scroll aloft as he stands on a flight of steps inside a synagogue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526629/original/file-20230516-24-ofmndq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526629/original/file-20230516-24-ofmndq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526629/original/file-20230516-24-ofmndq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526629/original/file-20230516-24-ofmndq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526629/original/file-20230516-24-ofmndq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526629/original/file-20230516-24-ofmndq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526629/original/file-20230516-24-ofmndq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Shavuot (Pentecost),’ painted around 1880 by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moritz_Daniel_Oppenheim_-_Shavuot_(Pentecost)_(Das_Wochen-_oder_Pfingst-Fest)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Jewish Museum/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Shavuot has long been marked by customs that include “<a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/3093?lang=bi">Tikkun Leil Shavuot</a>,” gathering with others to study Torah late into the night. And it has been celebrated with <a href="https://www.jccdenver.org/2017/05/29/why-is-cheesecake-such-a-popular-treat-on-shavuot/#:%7E:text=There%20are%20a%20number%20of,Torah%20provides%20our%20spiritual%20nourishment.">dairy-based foods</a> like blintzes and cheesecakes – treats that signify, among other ideas, that the Torah is the “milk” that nourishes the Jewish people.</p>
<h2>Old holiday, new world</h2>
<p>Jews began <a href="https://pluralism.org/colonial-synagogue-community">to establish communities in North America</a> beginning in the 17th century. On Shavuot, they continued the long-standing custom of celebrating the revelation of the Torah with synagogue services and late-night study.</p>
<p>By the mid-late 19th century, however, many American Jews had begun to neglect these traditional observances. Some felt increasingly uneasy with a holiday that rested on the premise of biblical revelation. At the time, <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0066.xml#:%7E:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Cbiblical%20criticism%E2%80%9D%20refers,of%20assessing%20their%20historical%20accuracy">an academic field called biblical criticism</a> was growing and gaining influence. These academics analyzed the Bible’s development as a historical text, identifying it as an anthology of human writers. This left many religious people wrestling with the traditional idea of scripture as the divine word of God.</p>
<p>What, then, to do with Shavuot? A new ceremony introduced by Jews in Europe in the early 1800s offered a promising alternative: confirmation.</p>
<p>Beginning in the mid-19th century, American Jews began to reimagine Shavuot as the time for grandiose celebrations of children’s graduation from Jewish Sunday Schools. On the morning of Shavuot or the closest weekend to it, the students being confirmed, usually 12 or 13 years old, would dress up in fine clothes and parade to the front of their synagogue sanctuaries. </p>
<p>Each child would typically carry <a href="https://doi.org/10.5703/shofar.35.4.0001">elaborate bouquets of flowers</a>, which were essential to the pageantry. Different blooms symbolized religious virtues of the children. White lilies, for example, symbolized innocence and purity, and were often incorporated into the children’s bouquets, as well as into elaborate floral decorations that bedecked the synagogue interior. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526634/original/file-20230516-21-bahqs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A yellowed invitation with a photo of a young boy and brightly colored American flags on top." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526634/original/file-20230516-21-bahqs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526634/original/file-20230516-21-bahqs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526634/original/file-20230516-21-bahqs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526634/original/file-20230516-21-bahqs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526634/original/file-20230516-21-bahqs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526634/original/file-20230516-21-bahqs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526634/original/file-20230516-21-bahqs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A confirmation announcement from 1922.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Confirmation_(Bar_Mitzvah)_invitation_(3718071006).jpg">Center for Jewish History, NYC/Yeshiva University Museum/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Participants would recite declarations of their belief in the one God of the Jewish people and give speeches that confirmed their commitments to Judaism. They would be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/ajh.2022.0035">tested on their “catechisms</a>,” short books that recorded questions and answers about religion that children were expected to memorize. To mark the children’s coming of age, rabbis would confer a blessing, welcoming them as adult members of the congregation. </p>
<p>The ceremony would conclude with parties and celebrations and elaborate gifts, particularly for the offspring of wealthier families.</p>
<h2>‘Fitting in’ with Christianity</h2>
<p>For many American Jews, confirmation was appealing as a gender-inclusive coming-of-age ritual. In some congregations, it replaced the bar mitzvah, a ceremony that was traditionally restricted to boys when they reached age 13. In other synagogues, confirmation was introduced as a supplemental ceremony held at the end of the school year. </p>
<p>Confirmation was not, however, a traditionally Jewish practice. It was <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jyt/aop/article-10.1163-24055093-bja10036/article-10.1163-24055093-bja10036.xml">a Christian ceremony</a> for coming of age that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/mj/kjr005">Jews adopted</a> in the 19th century – first in Europe and then across the Atlantic.</p>
<p>In the U.S., confirmation ceremonies appealed to Jews because they offered a prime moment to show outsiders that Judaism could “fit in” to an American culture dominated by Protestant Christianity. The American <a href="https://religyinz.pitt.edu/pittsburgh-platform/">Jewish Reform movement</a>, which in the 19th century became the largest American Jewish denomination, believed that Judaism should be adapted so that it was more relevant to contemporary life.</p>
<p>Reform Jews celebrated confirmation with spectacular floral displays, musical accompaniments and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/sho.2017.0022">extravagant decorations</a>. These grand spectacles were designed to draw huge crowds to the synagogue – not only Jews, but non-Jewish visitors as well. Jews were sensitive to how Christian outsiders perceived their religion, and Shavuot became a day to show that Jewish ceremonies could rival the grandest holiday celebrations put on by Christian churches.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526628/original/file-20230516-21-wdhfzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An older woman and a young boy balancing on a railing arrange greenery inside a Jewish synagogue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526628/original/file-20230516-21-wdhfzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526628/original/file-20230516-21-wdhfzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526628/original/file-20230516-21-wdhfzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526628/original/file-20230516-21-wdhfzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526628/original/file-20230516-21-wdhfzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526628/original/file-20230516-21-wdhfzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526628/original/file-20230516-21-wdhfzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Esther Zolkowitz, 90, passes green branches imported from Israel to 7-year-old Allen Mayer as they decorate for Shavuot in 1952.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tomorrow-at-sundown-begins-the-traditional-holiday-of-news-photo/516560616?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not only that, but confirmation also quelled American Jewish anxieties about the future. By putting children promising their commitments to the Jewish people at the center of the stage, confirmation ceremonies reassured American Jews that the next generation was committed to Jewish life. </p>
<h2>Confirmation today</h2>
<p>As the 20th century dawned, the concerns of American Jewish educators began to shift. Over 2.5 million Jewish immigrants <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-century.html">arrived in the U.S.</a> between 1881 and 1924, including many who were committed to traditional Jewish practice. The demographics of American Judaism were changing, and American Jewish education began to change, too.</p>
<p>In the Reform movement, educators re-embraced aspects of Jewish tradition that they had previously rejected. They put down their English-language catechisms and returned to teaching Hebrew. They returned to the bar mitzvah too, expanding the ceremony so that girls too could have <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-bat-mitzvah-was-100-years-ago-and-has-been-opening-doors-for-jewish-women-ever-since-178946">their own special Jewish day</a>. </p>
<p>Confirmation <a href="https://www.jewishtimes.com/what-are-confirmation-ceremonies-a-reform-tradition-explained/">didn’t go away</a>, but it was reorganized as a ceremony for older children. By deferring confirmation so that it aligned more with graduation from high school, Jewish educators sought to incentivize children to remain in Jewish education throughout their teenage years.</p>
<p>Today, many American synagogues still celebrate confirmations around Shavuot, though they are no longer billed as the highlight of the Jewish year. The echoes of the 19th century still linger, however, in every American synagogue where Shavuot is a time for young people to don white robes and confirm their commitments to Judaism – and not only a holiday to study Torah and enjoy a cheesecake buffet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Yares has received funding for her research from The American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio</span></em></p>Shavuot, which was originally an ancient pilgrimage festival, has gone through many changes over the years – as has Judaism itself.Laura Yares, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2010782023-05-22T04:46:08Z2023-05-22T04:46:08Z‘You can’t not bring your whole self to something’: how Jewish Indigenous women are navigating their dual identities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514613/original/file-20230310-26-jug5os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C6%2C4208%2C2373&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1965, James Spigelman joined Charlie Perkins and 30 other students on a bus ride around New South Wales to bring attention to the extent of racial discrimination in Australia. This would go on to be known as the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/1965-freedom-ride">Freedom Ride</a>. </p>
<p>Spigelman, who later became the Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court, was an arts student at the time. He later stated his “involvement was obviously determined by personal background as the child of Holocaust survivors”.</p>
<p>Spigelman’s involvement in the Freedom Ride is captured in the 2010 book <a href="https://www.nswjbd.org/indigenous-and-jewish-australians-working-together/">Hand in Hand</a>. Alongside Spigelman and the Freedom Ride, Hand in Hand covers dozens of other stories of Jews and Indigenous people coming together in good relations and solidarity.</p>
<p>Missing from these stories are the experiences of people who are both Indigenous and Jewish. My <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443058.2023.2175018">newly published</a> research set out to explore some of these stories.</p>
<h2>Negotiating identity</h2>
<p>When asked about how she fits into the story of Indigenous and Jewish relations, Leah*, a Wiradjuri woman, told me “I don’t know if I fit into the story”.</p>
<p>Leah was raised in a nonreligious household, and was disconnected from her Indigenous community.</p>
<p>After leaving home as a teenager, she found comfort in religious rituals.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As a runaway kid, the people who showed a lot of kindness to me were either the Catholic nuns or Jews. And I always felt […] very fondly towards these weird people who did weird rituals. And I love the rituals of the Catholic Church and I love the rituals of the Jewish cultural and religious people, and … I went on a search for God, you know?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Leah converted to Judaism after meeting her husband, a non-practising cultural Jew. Her conversion was motivated by both a desire to marry and by a deep connection to the cultural and religious aspects of Judaism. </p>
<p>The shared experiences of “connection and heritage and history and spirit” were seen as being very appealing to someone who grew up disconnected from community and culture. Judaism is now an important aspect of her life and identity. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514614/original/file-20230310-22-qu9hty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A synagogue" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514614/original/file-20230310-22-qu9hty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514614/original/file-20230310-22-qu9hty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514614/original/file-20230310-22-qu9hty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514614/original/file-20230310-22-qu9hty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514614/original/file-20230310-22-qu9hty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514614/original/file-20230310-22-qu9hty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514614/original/file-20230310-22-qu9hty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leah connected with the cultural and religious aspects of Judaism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It wasn’t always easy going. </p>
<p>After her synagogue had a change of leadership, Leah experienced a breakdown in community acceptance and belonging and ended up leaving that community.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the next rabbi came along, he had removed the plate at the front of the door that said, ‘This synagogue stands proudly on the land of Gadigal’. Removed because we’re Jews and we only recognise, really, our land Israel […] I fought and fought and fought and eventually just got so harassed and harangued.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Leah has now found a new synagogue with “a nice big plaque on their door” acknowledging traditional owners , but her experiences demonstrate the complexities of being both Aboriginal and Jewish. </p>
<p>There are a lot of similarities in Jewish and Indigenous experiences and values, but there are just as many differences. </p>
<h2>‘How can you be Aboriginal and Jewish?’</h2>
<p>Rebecca* is a Koori woman who converted to Judaism 12 years ago. While she is a regular at temple services, she says doesn’t share her Jewish identity with many of her Aboriginal family and community. Her Jewishness and Aboriginality “don’t always act in conversation with each other”. </p>
<p>While her overall experience with both her mob and her Jewish community have been positive, she says people would still ask questions.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People would sort of question me and kind of go, how can you be Aboriginal and Jewish? I’ll be like, ‘Well, why can’t I? How can you be <a href="https://theconversation.com/long-history-with-islam-gives-indigenous-australians-pride-3521">Aboriginal and Muslim</a>? Like, there’s a lot of them too.’ But it’s funny that this is sort of the automatic thing […] people find it hard to digest. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Judaism’s positioning as a world religion as well as a cultural – and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/12/19/is-judaism-an-ethnicity-race-nationality-trump-signs-an-order-provokes-an-identity-crisis/">sometimes racial</a> – identity poses as a barrier for some people who are both Indigenous and Jewish. </p>
<p>The boundaries between these categories are sometimes blurred. Not all Jews <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/we-can-no-longer-ignore-anti-zionist-jews-opinion-676881">consider themselves Zionist</a>, the nationalist movement in favour of upholding a Jewish state in Palestine. However, there is a <a href="https://jewishcurrents.org/are-95-of-jews-really-zionists">dominant belief</a> globally among both Jews and non-Jews alike that all Jewish people are Zionist – or <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110618594-033/html?lang=de">should be</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1463018233733152768"}"></div></p>
<p>This belief that all Jews associate themselves with a separate Jewish people causes conflict with some Indigenous communities. In some cases there is an interpretation of this sense of belonging as a rejection of Country and community.</p>
<hr>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/long-history-with-islam-gives-indigenous-australians-pride-3521">Long history with Islam gives Indigenous Australians pride</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Zionism and Palestinian solidarity</h2>
<p>The relationship between Zionism and settler colonialism in Palestine is a point of increasing tension between Jewish and Indigenous people. </p>
<p>There is a long history of solidarity between <a href="https://indigenousx.com.au/black-australia-to-palestine-solidarity-in-decolonial-struggle/">Indigenous people and Palestinians</a>. In many cases, this has led to <a href="https://www.australianjewishnews.com/macquarie-university-wipes-israel-off-map/">accusations</a> of <a href="https://twitter.com/Israellycool/status/1602915784505933824">antisemitism</a> and racist statements directed at Indigenous people. </p>
<p>These tensions are an added layer of complexity for those who are both Indigenous and Jewish. </p>
<p>Caitlin* is Aboriginal on her fathers side; her mother’s family are Holocaust survivors. She says she can see shared values between her Jewish and Aboriginal families, particularly around family and community: a “blood is thicker than water value”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527457/original/file-20230522-27-jxc8gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Necklace with the Star of David on a girl's hand" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527457/original/file-20230522-27-jxc8gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527457/original/file-20230522-27-jxc8gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527457/original/file-20230522-27-jxc8gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527457/original/file-20230522-27-jxc8gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527457/original/file-20230522-27-jxc8gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527457/original/file-20230522-27-jxc8gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527457/original/file-20230522-27-jxc8gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Caitlin* is can see shared values between her Jewish and Aboriginal families.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>When I asked Caitlin where she would like to see inter-community relations develop in the future, she seemed conflicted. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>From a personal perspective […] it would be nice to see that sort of compassion and acceptance. I’m not super educated in like I’m by no means an expert on what’s going on in like Palestine and Israel and stuff but like, it would be nice to see I guess […] empathy and compassion</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The challenges presented in relation to Indigeneity, Jewishness and Zionism are considerable. Relations are complex across and between minority groups. </p>
<p>How individuals navigate these complexities vary but, as Leah reminds me, “you can’t not bring your whole self to something”. </p>
<p><em>*Names have been changed.</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stan-grant-stands-up-to-racist-abuse-our-research-shows-many-diverse-journalists-have-copped-it-too-206063">Stan Grant stands up to racist abuse. Our research shows many diverse journalists have copped it too</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zac Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are a lot of similarities in Jewish and Indigenous experiences and values, but there are just as many differences.Zac Roberts, Associate lecturer, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2013362023-05-10T12:29:19Z2023-05-10T12:29:19ZJudaism’s rituals to honor new mothers are ever-rooted, ever-changing – from medieval embroidery and prayer to new traditions today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523694/original/file-20230501-1446-1rui3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1024%2C672&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jewish mothers have created ways to celebrate childbirth with rituals old and new.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/young-indian-jewish-child-naomi-is-carried-by-her-mother-as-news-photo/76710231?adppopup=true">Pal Pillai/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Reading the Torah, there is no doubt about motherhood’s important role in Jewish literature and life.</p>
<p>The Hebrew Bible is replete with stories of women who feel incomplete without children, although Orthodox interpretation holds that <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1005203/jewish/Be-Fruitful-and-Multiply.htm">only men</a> are commanded to “<a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.1.29?lang=bi&aliyot=0">be fruitful and multiply</a>.” Unable to bear children, Sarah <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.16?lang=bi&aliyot=0">offers her handmaid Hagar</a> to her husband, Abraham, so he can father a child. Rachel <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.30.2?lang=bi&aliyot=0">longs for deliverance from infertility</a>, saying “Give me children or I shall die,” and Hannah provides a model for Jewish personal prayer when she <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/I_Samuel.1.13?lang=bi">fervently prays for a child</a> on the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem. </p>
<p>Women are not, however, expected to place motherhood ahead of their own well-being. For example, Jewish law not only permits but requires that <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/jewish-experience/social-justice/2022/june/abortion-judaism-joffe.html">a pregnancy be terminated</a> when it jeopardizes the life of the mother. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523696/original/file-20230501-757-a8daie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A colored illustration of two women in robes, one of whom holds a child, while the other looks downcast." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523696/original/file-20230501-757-a8daie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523696/original/file-20230501-757-a8daie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523696/original/file-20230501-757-a8daie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523696/original/file-20230501-757-a8daie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523696/original/file-20230501-757-a8daie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523696/original/file-20230501-757-a8daie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523696/original/file-20230501-757-a8daie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration of Rachel, right, next to her sister Leah and one of Leah’s children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/biblical-illustration-news-photo/90008983?adppopup=true">Buyenlarge/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, many stories in Jewish sacred texts celebrate women for reasons that have nothing to do with parenting – from Queen Esther’s bravery in <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Esther.1?lang=bi">the Book of Esther</a> to <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/deborah-bible#:%7E:text=Deborah%20is%20one%20of%20the,as%20performing%20a%20judicial%20function.">the powerful judge Deborah</a> in the Book of Judges and <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/269955?lang=bi">wise women like Beruriah</a>, who is quoted in the Talmud. Yet the value placed on motherhood is clear – not only in Jewish texts, but also in Jewish traditions. For centuries, ritual practices have celebrated the birth of children. Yet they have not always given new mothers an opportunity to celebrate on their own terms or share their own feelings. As <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=5582082465f93a9a0dfd4438912f554a0f5856bc">a scholar of Judaism and gender</a>, though, I have seen how this is changing, as Jewish women reinvent meaningful traditions or develop new ones.</p>
<h2>Medieval mothers</h2>
<p>According to <a href="https://en.jewish-history.huji.ac.il/people/elisheva%C2%A0-baumgarten">historian Elisheva Baumgarten</a>, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691130293/mothers-and-children">medieval Jewish women in northern and eastern Europe</a> observed a monthlong period of lying-in after the birth, where they were cared for at home by friends. </p>
<p>Upon its conclusion, the new mother would then go to synagogue on the Sabbath to say prayers of thanks and have special tunes sung in her honor. If she had borne a boy, she might <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691130293/mothers-and-children">craft an embroidered wimpel</a> – a band used to bind a Torah scroll closed when it is not being read – made from a strip of the cloth used to swaddle her son during his circumcision ceremony, often called a bris or brit milah.</p>
<p>In her book “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469660639/painted-pomegranates-and-needlepoint-rabbis/">Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis</a>,” <a href="https://religion.cas.lehigh.edu/content/dr-jodi-eichler-levine">religion scholar Jodi Eichler-Levine</a> analyzes this practice as a way for new mothers, confined to the women’s section of the synagogue, to insert themselves into what is otherwise an all-male ritual space. </p>
<p>Describing the emergence of a modern <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469660639/painted-pomegranates-and-needlepoint-rabbis/">Jewish crafting movement</a>, Eichler-Levine also notes that “in recent years, the wimpel has made a comeback,” created by mothers and grandmothers <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/new-life-for-wimpels">to honor the birth of children</a> regardless of their sex. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524684/original/file-20230505-25-ai89q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women arrange a baby on a white pillow one of them is holding, amid a crowd in a large tent." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524684/original/file-20230505-25-ai89q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524684/original/file-20230505-25-ai89q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524684/original/file-20230505-25-ai89q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524684/original/file-20230505-25-ai89q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524684/original/file-20230505-25-ai89q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524684/original/file-20230505-25-ai89q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524684/original/file-20230505-25-ai89q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman places her newborn son on a pillow held by her mother during a brit milah, a Jewish circumcision ceremony, in Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IsraelMixedCityViolence/de321d0e9906401281ee6a9125b0a537/photo?Query=jewish%20son&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=459&currentItemNo=49">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Behind the mehitza</h2>
<p>When my oldest child was born 26 years ago, options for celebrating her birth in the Jewish community in Johannesburg, South Africa, were limited. After we brought her home from the hospital, my husband and I attended Shabbat services at the Orthodox synagogue he had grown up in. </p>
<p>As I looked on from behind the mehitza, the screen that separates men’s and women’s areas in Orthodox congregations, he was honored by being called up to the Torah during the service, and our daughter’s name was announced to the community. </p>
<p>I, on the other hand, was encouraged to privately “<a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/115308/jewish/Birkat-Hagomel.htm">bentsch gommel</a>”: recite the prayer for having survived an illness or a perilous journey. </p>
<p>Then we went home. And that was it. This seemed an underwhelming way to acknowledge her arrival and my having given birth to her. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, Jewish feminists had begun creating new rituals to mark moments in women’s and girls’ lives – but in the late 1990s, that innovation was not yet felt in Johannesburg.</p>
<p>I located a copy of “<a href="https://anitadiamant.com/books/the-new-jewish-baby-book/">The New Jewish Baby Book</a>,” imported from the United States. Written by essayist and novelist Anita Diamant, the guide included sample rituals for welcoming the birth of a girl. </p>
<p>Together with my mother-in-law, a psychoanalyst who loved to cater a stylish celebration, and my sister-in-law, a journalist with a gift for powerful public speech, we crafted a ritual to take place in my in-law’s home that announced our daughter’s name and offered the women in our family a more significant role. It was an opportunity for me, as her mother, to acknowledge the beloved grandmothers and biblical figures for whom she was named and to express my hopes that a life of meaning, connection and community lay ahead of her.</p>
<h2>Tradition for the 21st century</h2>
<p>Though we didn’t realize it at the time, the ritual we created reflected many themes of contemporary Jewish feminist innovation. </p>
<p>In the book “<a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/jps/9780827608344/">Inventing Jewish Ritual</a>,” anthropologist <a href="https://jewishstudies.as.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/vanessa">Vanessa Ochs</a> describes how a movement among liberal Jews to engage in ritual innovation began in the 1970s.</p>
<p>Alongside secular do-it-yourself texts like “<a href="https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/about-us/our-history/">Our Bodies, Ourselves</a>,” which urged women to take ownership over their sexual and reproductive health, Jewish women began to design novel rituals that marked <a href="https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/ceremonies/">transformative moments in women’s lives</a>. These included moments that had long gone unremarked in Jewish public life, including the onset of menstruation, pregnancy, birth, miscarriage, infertility, abortion and menopause.</p>
<p>Our family ritual shared many features with those being developed by other Jewish parents around the world. My daughter’s naming ceremony was created from a template that allowed for improvisation and personalization. It enabled a new shared experience, and it took place outside the synagogue, in the less regulated space of a private home. </p>
<p>Rituals to mark the birth of girls are now widely accepted across all Jewish denominations. Templates and sample prayers are available in books like Israeli professor and politician Aliza Lavie’s anthology, “<a href="https://www.jta.org/2008/12/08/lifestyle/new-prayer-books-revive-forgotten-womens-liturgy">A Jewish Woman’s Prayer Book</a>,” and websites like <a href="https://ritualwell.org/">ritualwell.org</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523664/original/file-20230501-1435-frdgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Stone steps in a high, vaulted, narrow passageway lead to arched windows with sunlight streaming in." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523664/original/file-20230501-1435-frdgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523664/original/file-20230501-1435-frdgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523664/original/file-20230501-1435-frdgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523664/original/file-20230501-1435-frdgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523664/original/file-20230501-1435-frdgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523664/original/file-20230501-1435-frdgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523664/original/file-20230501-1435-frdgx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A medieval mikveh, a bath used for ritual immersion in Judaism, in Speyer, Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/ancient-mikvah-a-jewish-ritual-bath-in-speyer-royalty-free-image/1283727309?phrase=mikvah&adppopup=true">Rudolf Ernst/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>More recently, new rituals have been created to allow a woman to reflect upon the impact that becoming a mother has on her life. The mikveh, or ritual bath, plays a central role in <a href="https://www.benyehudapress.com/books/chanahs-voice/">observance of Jewish laws relating to family purity</a>, which may involve women immersing after menstruation and after giving birth.</p>
<p>Jewish feminists have sought to reclaim the practice of ritual immersion to mark other developments in women’s lives, including becoming a mother, and to shift the focus of ritual from the moment of transition in status to the shift in perspective brought by occupying a new role. </p>
<p>The poet Hila Ratzabi, for example, created “<a href="https://ritualwell.org/ritual/rebirth-mikveh-ritual-mothers/">A Rebirth Ritual for Mothers</a>” to be used at any time after a birth, providing an opportunity to reflect on how becoming a mother has transformed one’s life. The ritual includes sharing reflections on the challenging and empowering moments in the birth, the experience of motherhood and the experience of immersion, and includes these touching words:</p>
<p><em>As I step toward these healing waters, I acknowledge the great transitions I underwent in becoming a mother.</em></p>
<p><em>I come to the mikveh to acknowledge that these powerful birth experiences made me a mother, and I choose to step into my power.</em></p>
<p><em>I come to the mikveh to remind myself that I am always loved, always held, always growing, always whole.</em></p>
<p>Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the name of the author of “Inventing Jewish Ritual.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201336/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Fishbayn Joffe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent generations of Jewish women have looked to reinvent rituals marking the most meaningful moments in their lives, especially childbirth and motherhood.Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2019202023-04-19T12:44:57Z2023-04-19T12:44:57ZUS giving to Israeli nonprofits – how much Jews and Christians donate and where the money goes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521062/original/file-20230414-22-tyvncl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C284%2C4827%2C2687&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Israeli political conflicts could change the giving patterns of U.S. Jews. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/anti-reform-protesters-wave-israeli-flags-chant-slogans-and-news-photo/1251806244">Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been protesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-is-facing-twin-existential-crises-what-is-benjamin-netanyahu-doing-to-solve-them-200820">proposed judiciary overhauls</a> and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23629744/why-israelis-protesting-netanyahu-far-right-government-judiciary-overhaul">continued erosion</a> of Palestinian human rights for months. </p>
<p>It’s possible that what’s happening loudly and without precedent on the streets of Israel is having a quieter but significant effect in the United States – which has the <a href="https://www.jewishagency.org/jewish-population-5782/">largest Jewish community outside Israel</a>.</p>
<p>American Jews may have concerns about the reforms themselves. In addition, the current Israeli administration counts among its supporters politicians who want to <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/01/11/why-israels-orthodox-jewish-parties-want-to-narrow-the-countrys-law-of-return/">tighten restrictions on whom Israel considers to be Jewish</a> in ways that would exclude some U.S. Jews. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63780509">Many of Netanyahu’s allies are also anti-LGBTQ</a>. While some American Jews might share these views, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-israel-government-united-states-judaism-benjamin-netanyahu-c19f1de03e19428958181ebd2dcb1461">they are not representative</a>.</p>
<h2>Billions donated a year</h2>
<p>Israeli nonprofits amassed <a href="https://www.cbs.gov.il/he/mediarelease/DocLib/2022/253/08_22_253e.pdf">US$35.3 billion in total income in 2015</a>, roughly $45 billion in 2023 dollars, from all sources. That total included revenue like university tuition and concert ticket sales, as well as $4.4 billion – roughly $5.6 billion in 2023 dollars – in donations from all sources, foreign and domestic.</p>
<p>Donations from <a href="https://www.ilp.sites.tau.ac.il/_files/ugd/0e9d9e_f2c0ec8d1a06476e9192b8e62605dddc.pdf">outside Israel accounted for $2.8 billion</a> of those gifts, about two-thirds of this kind of funding. We analyzed <a href="https://www.guidestar.org/">Guidestar’s database of nonprofit tax records</a> to identify U.S. organizations sending money to Israel.</p>
<p>Israeli nonprofits, such as <a href="https://afmda.org/">Magen David Adom</a>, or Red Shield – Israel’s equivalent to the Red Cross and Red Crescent – and the <a href="https://www.k-shoa.org/index.php?language=eng">Foundation for the Welfare of Holocaust Victims</a>, rely on foreign donors for more than half of their philanthropic funding.</p>
<p>Much of this money, but not all of it, comes from <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-jewish-giving-to-israel-is-losing-ground-100946">American Jews and Jewish organizations</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7rkRD3AAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=a">I am a researcher</a> who focuses on how nonprofits get the resources they need to deliver their programs and services. I worked with <a href="https://en-law.tau.ac.il/profile/gfeit_74">Galia Feit</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=GRVc-3gAAAAJ">Osnat Hazan</a>, scholars based at <a href="https://english.tau.ac.il/">Tel Aviv University’s</a> <a href="https://www.ilp.sites.tau.ac.il/">Institute for Law and Philanthropy</a>, to get <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/who-gives-and-who-gets-the-challenges-of-following-the-money-from-the-u-s-to-israel/">a clearer picture of this funding</a> – which we studied because it was from the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available. </p>
<h2>Many different interests</h2>
<p>We’ve found that the donations that Israeli nonprofits get from the U.S. are notable in part for the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-021-00433-8">variety of donors</a>.</p>
<p>Israelis who now live outside of Israel, non-Israeli Jews who consider Israel a Jewish homeland, and people who are neither Israeli nor Jewish alike help fund these organizations.</p>
<p>For non-Jews, Israel represents what is known as a <a href="https://scalar.usc.edu/works/boundary-objects-guide/boundary-objects">boundary object</a> – different groups assign different meanings to the same thing. Depending on their <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">particular religious and cultural identities</a>, American Jews have many different ideas of what Israel represents. But nearly all of these ideas differ from the idea of Israel held by, for example, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/05/26/as-israel-increasingly-relies-on-us-evangelicals-for-support-younger-ones-are-walking-away-what-polls-show/">evangelical Christians</a>. </p>
<p>No matter the motivation or rationale, the end result is that funds supporting Israel go to a wide array of nonprofits in the same country. </p>
<h2>Collecting and parsing data</h2>
<p>The first <a href="https://bir.brandeis.edu/bitstream/handle/10192/39/TheNewPhilanthropy.pdf">comprehensive study</a> assessing giving to Israel focused on Jewish philanthropy. Published in 2012, using 2007 data, the authors estimated that 774 organizations raised $2.1 billion, which would be about $3.06 billion in 2023 dollars.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-12-09/ty-article-magazine/.premium/inside-the-evangelical-money-flowing-into-the-west-bank/0000017f-f4b0-d460-afff-fff6add90000">study of evangelical Christian giving</a> to Israeli nonprofits covering a longer time period – from 2008 through 2016 – identified <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M-ItrvTeoqTb4qyqL-EFTcw9MYvsPt29sWIIp26z3ng/edit">11 organizations</a> donating an estimated total of $50 million to $65 million over the entire period – less than $82 million in 2023 dollars. While this is less than 3% of all of the funds Israeli nonprofits obtained in foreign donations, we believe it’s worth watching this trend in part because the amounts grew in the period we reviewed.</p>
<p>From this study we were able to identify 1,179 funding organizations granting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-021-00433-8">a total of $1.8 billion</a> to Israeli organizations.</p>
<p><iframe id="rtd8P" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rtd8P/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>3 main kinds of funders</h2>
<p>We sorted funding organizations that support Israel into three main categories and one catchall.</p>
<p><strong>Centralized organizations</strong></p>
<p>These are major funders located outside Israel that distribute funds aggregated from multiple individuals and Jewish organizations. These include national organizations like the <a href="https://www.jnf.org/">Jewish National Fund</a> and the <a href="https://www.jewishfederations.org/federation-finder">146 local Jewish federations</a> located in such places as Cleveland, New York City and Los Angeles that fund local causes such as Jewish summer camps and education about Israel and the Holocaust, and also send money abroad.</p>
<p>Other examples include <a href="https://bbyo.org/">BBYO</a>, a national pluralistic movement for Jewish teens where I used to work; <a href="https://www.hillel.org/">Hillel International</a>, through which Jews on college campuses worship, connect and do service projects; and <a href="https://www.birthrightisrael.com/">Birthright Israel</a>, which provides free trips to young Jews to help them forge connections with Israel.</p>
<p>Centralized organizations have <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691170732/the-american-jewish-philanthropic-complex">historically channeled most of the funds</a> donated to Israeli organizations from abroad. </p>
<p>The 43 funders in this category represented only 4% of all funders but gave $707 million to Israeli nonprofits – 39% of the total donations.</p>
<p><strong>‘Friends of’ organizations</strong></p>
<p>These groups are smaller than centralized organizations. They mainly collect funds to support a single Israeli nonprofit, such as the <a href="https://afipo.org/">American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra</a>, the <a href="https://www.afhu.org/">American Friends of Hebrew University</a> and the <a href="http://www.naf-iolr.org/?page_id=18">North American Friends of Israel Oceanographic Research</a>.</p>
<p>The 349 friends of funders we identified accounted for 30% of all funders and $752 million, or 41%, of donations.</p>
<p><strong>Family foundations</strong></p>
<p>These charities are typically founded, funded and governed by members of a single family. Examples here include the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the Bloomberg Family Foundation. Family foundations represent 25% of all funders and donated $87 million in 2015 – but only 5% of all the funds we assessed. </p>
<p>About 15% of the giving to Israeli nonprofits from the U.S. organizations we studied didn’t appear to originate in any of these three main categories.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Well-dressed older people gather for a festive meal in a pretty venue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521065/original/file-20230414-22-g3ace1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra held a 2019 gala at a private home in California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/richard-ziman-speaks-at-the-american-friends-of-the-israel-news-photo/1151090111?adppopup=true">Tasia Wells/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4 categories of Israeli nonprofits</h2>
<p>There is less data on the Israeli groups getting this funding as opposed to the foreign groups making the donations, but we found enough information to identify <a href="https://www.ilp.sites.tau.ac.il/_files/ugd/0e9d9e_fda254b52723480da7669c35b86ee1dd.pdf">four main causes</a> based on either the identity of the funders themselves or the groups they fund.</p>
<p><strong>Jewish religious institutions</strong>
Israeli synagogues and yeshivas – Orthodox rabbinical seminaries – received $266 million, around 15% of all funds.</p>
<p><strong>Higher education</strong>
Donations to Israeli colleges and universities totaled $206 million, about 11% of the total.</p>
<p><strong>Health</strong>
Hospitals and medical research centers such as the <a href="https://www.hadassah.org.il/en/">Hadassah Medical Center</a> and the <a href="https://jewishmedicalassociationuk.org/medicine-in-israel/hospitals/western-galilee-hospital/">Western Galilee Hospital</a> obtained $81 million in donations, about 4% of all foreign philanthropic funds. </p>
<p><strong>Christian causes</strong>
Christian-focused organizations, such as <a href="https://fconline.foundationcenter.org/fdo-grantmaker-profile/">Outreach Foundation of the Presbyterian Church</a> and the <a href="https://www.ifcj.org/">International Fellowship of Christians and Jews</a>, donated $56.4 million.</p>
<h2>Changes ahead?</h2>
<p>This picture has no doubt changed. For example, the <a href="https://www.centralfundofisrael.org/">Central Fund of Israel</a> is reportedly a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/business/israel-judges-kohelet.html">major backer of the Kohelet Policy Forum</a> that is pushing many of the judicial reforms. However, that charity did not provide this detail in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-a-990-form-a-charity-accounting-expert-explains-175019">mandatory 990 form it filed with the Internal Revenue Service</a> for 2015. </p>
<p>We are beginning to study data from 2017 and 2019, which is only now becoming available. A group called the <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/475405929">American Friends of Kohelet Policy Forum</a> does show up in the newer data. Its connection to the Central Fund of Israel is unknown, but its inclusion is notable for illustrating the influence that U.S. organizational donors may have in Israel.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A gray-haired man stands next to the U.S. and Israeli flags while speaking at an event." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521069/original/file-20230414-16-vg0f8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the Kohelet Policy Forum conference in Jerusalem in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/isreali-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-speaks-at-the-news-photo/1192534346?adppopup=true">Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are signs that <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-jewish-giving-to-israel-is-losing-ground-100946">giving from Jewish organizations to causes in Israel is decreasing</a> even as giving to Jewish causes outside of Israel increases. The <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/exclusive-jfnas-long-term-plan-for-aid-to-ukraine/">Jewish Federation of North America’s shifting view on Ukraine</a> is one example of this. Rather than viewing the war as a short-term emergency, the organization is planning for long-term, ongoing support. </p>
<p>And many of the nonprofits in our study were subject to the <a href="https://nff.org/learn/survey">same pressures and problems</a> many nonprofits experienced around the world at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic: an increased demand for services at odds with a reduction in donations, the loss of volunteers and a scramble for new ways to work when in-person operations became restricted or impossible.</p>
<p>Between <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-israel-government-united-states-judaism-benjamin-netanyahu-c19f1de03e19428958181ebd2dcb1461">heightened concerns over Israel’s policies</a>, <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/jewish-experience/alumni-friends/2022/september/alumni-roundtable-judaism.html">growing numbers of antisemitic incidents</a> and increasingly pressing social justice issues at home, we believe that Jewish federations and other local funding groups that historically made fundraising for Israeli causes a high priority may experience more pressure from their donors to instead support groups doing work closer to home.</p>
<p>We have no doubt that the <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2023-03-16/ty-article/.premium/top-democrats-call-to-make-u-s-aid-to-israel-conditional-on-two-state-solution/00000186-eba4-d048-adc6-ffbe82cf0000">political situations in both Israel and the U.S.</a> will only exacerbate these trends. Support from local communities and centralized organizations may <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/472070/democrats-sympathies-middle-east-shift-palestinians.aspx">shift along with changing political winds</a> as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-protests.html">American Jews face calls</a> to <a href="https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2023/2/8/with-the-right-wing-in-charge-in-israel-jewish-donors-cant-afford-to-turn-away">take sides in Israeli current events</a>.</p>
<p>Ultimately, what it means to support Israel, who gives, and what they are giving may be changing as <a href="https://cdn.fedweb.org/fed-42/2/JoinStatementFederations.pdf">American Jews grapple with what is happening in Israel</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Levine Daniel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Political situations in both Israel and the US could be changing prior patterns with these donations, which fund hospitals, museums and a wide array of organizations.Jamie Levine Daniel, Associate Professor, Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.