Women Pilgrims And Woman Saints: Gendered Icons and the Iconization of Gender at Israeli Shrines

Abstract

The three most widespread cults of women saints in Israel revolve around figures named Rachel. Although each of these Rachels originated in a different historical period (one is Biblical, one is Talmudic, and one is modern), all three cults attract women pilgrims who come looking for understanding. This paper suggests that women saints tend to fill very particular and narrow niches in patriarchal cultures, irrespective of the origin myths associated with the specific saint. Through emotionallystirring visits to the saints' tombs, women pilgrims may identify with the reified Woman symbols that epitomize subordinate status. The cultural soil of contemporary Israel has been conducive to the development of cults of saints. North African Jews brought with them to Israel a strong tradition of belief in the powers of holy men, Hasidic Jews from Eastern Europe brought their traditional reverence for their Rebbes, the Land of Israel had already been a focus of both Jewish and Christian pilgrimage to holy tombs and other holy sites for two thousand years, and the dramatic development of the modern State created its own pantheon of heroes and champions (Ben-Ari and Bilu 1987; Weingrod 1990; Sasson 1997). One of the few traits shared by most contemporary Israeli saints is their gender-like mortal Israeli religious leaders, almost all saints are men. Men's near-monopoly on sainthood highlights the curious fact that the only three women saints who are foci of broad-based Jewish cults in Israel today are named Rachel: ' the Biblical Matriarch Rachel, Rachel the Wife of the Talmudic Rabbi Akiva, and Rachel the modern Israeli poet. In this essay saint translates two overlapping and somewhat interchangeable Hebrew words: tsaddik, righteous or pious person; and kadosh, holy person. (Hebrew grammar marks masculine and feminine forms of both words.) Jewish culture does not include a formal process for declaring an individual to be a saint, nor are there explicit criteria for what constitutes sainthood. Rather, these terms are popularly used to describe individuals distinguished for their piety or good deeds. The contemporary Israeli Jewish understanding seems to be that pious people are somehow closer to God and so receiving their blessing or coming into contact with something that they have touched may, in a not clearly articulated way, elicit divine concessions. I use the term cult somewhat more narrowly to refer to situations of mutual engagement of myth and ritual. A subset of people referred to as