Embodying Renewal: A Folkloric Exploration of Jewish Renewal Experiences of the Feminist Body

• In Event: Reshaping American Jewish Womanhood: How #MeToo, Renewal, and LILITH Inform Gender, Identity, and the Body

Abstract

One of the ways Jewish women have navigated a patriarchal religious system is through their engagement with what folklorists identify as “symbol sets.” Within Judaism, there exist a number of significant symbols, which are utilized within religious life and practice. These significant symbols are steeped in maleness, particularly when the symbols are utilized on the physical body (for example, yarmulkes, tallisim, tefillin, beards). Despite having ethnic and ritual usage, religious bodylore has been understudied by folklorists and scholars of religions, often being relegated to studies of religious psychological impulses (for example, ritual hand washing), rather than being centralized as a conduit for involvement in religious life. This lack of analysis is undergirded by the decentralization of the voices of women in traditional Jewish ritual, which even further marginalizes the voices of women who do not identify as cisgender and/or heterosexual. Likewise, women’s voices in Jewish Renewal movements have also been undertheorized, as the movements are generally marginalized or ignored in studies of American Judaism.

In this study, I consider the role Jewish feminist reclamation of the literal physical body in Jewish ritual life, with particular attention to the innovations of the Renewal Movement. I contend that Jewish Renewal feminists, existing on the fringes of both secular and religious culture, articulate their intersecting identities through the literal embodiment of their Yiddishkeit (Jewishness). By engaging symbol sets that had previously been denied to women, they use their bodies as a place of political subversion. In doing so, they not only claim space for themselves in ritual and religious life, but they also pave the way for the next generation of Jewish women. This study considers the use of yarmulkes, tallisim, tefillin, upsherin, literal physical presence at the bimah and in holding the Torah scrolls, as well as other deliberate religious subversions like tattoos, protest clothing, and jewelry. Through these actions and choices, these women demonstrate a nuanced understanding of their public identities and a commitment to working towards increased inclusivity within the larger Jewish community.

Author

• Amy K. Milligan, Old Dominion University