Jewish Orthodox Community Research Articles

“Not Being Counted”: Women's Place and Religious Space in Jewish Orthodox Communities During the COVID‐19 Crisis

AbstractThis article draws on the anthropology of crisis to analyze ways in which communal‐religious responses to crisis situations can reveal engrained social and cultural structures, and especially their gendered aspects. We focus on two alternative forms of Jewish communal prayer service that emerged in Orthodox communities in Israel during the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic: street and balcony minyans. Based on interviews and texts, we explore Orthodox women's experiences of these new religious spaces that entailed the rearrangement of traditional gender and spatial boundaries. We show that while these spaces opened room for new religious experiences for women, they ultimately accentuated their experiences of exclusion. We argue that the destabilization of the physical religious space in these alternative communal prayers reinforced symbolic gender boundaries. Thus, our study not only demonstrates how crises can uncover the deep social grammar of a community, but also how they unearth processes that defy and challenge that grammar.

"I Never Said Anything. I Didn't Tell Anyone. What Would I Tell?" Adults' Perspectives on Disclosing Childhood Sibling Sexual Behavior and Abuse in the Orthodox Jewish Communities.

Sibling sexual harmful dynamics (SSHD) is a term used, in this study, to refer to childhood sexual behaviors that are inconsistent with age-appropriate curiosity, including sibling sexual abuse (SSA). Although SSA is a prevalent and long-lasting form of intrafamilial sexual abuse, it is the least reported, studied, and treated. This study aims to deepen the understanding of the disclosure process of this phenomenon in the Israeli Orthodox Jewish society, as perceived by those involved. Participants were adults from the Orthodox communities in Israel who experienced sexual interactions/abuse with one or more of their siblings. This qualitative constructivist-grounded theory study was based on semi-structured interviews with 24 adults from the Israeli Orthodox Jewish communities. Seven barriers to disclosure were identified and organized into three main categories: intrapersonal, including denial of the acts, guilt, and shame; interpersonal, including the sibling relationship and perceiving the sexual acts as routine; and cultural, including lack of sexual knowledge, the concept of modesty, and marriage prospects. In addition, we highlight the intersectionality between the different contexts of the SSHD. This study explored the barriers to disclosing SSHD in the siblings' context and the context of the Jewish Orthodox communities. The findings contribute to understanding the unique aspects of the disclosure, as expressed in religious and cultural contexts, the sibling context, and their intersectionality. Cultural and religious sensitivity is crucial for practitioners, especially as issues of sexuality and sexual understanding stem from the related norms and values.

Who has the right to the city? Reform Jewish rituals of gender-religious resistance in Tel Aviv-Jaffa

Reform Judaism is one of the dominant religious movements in the contemporary Jewish world and is known primarily for its liberal approach, such as advocating for gender equality in Jewish religious practices. In Israel, however, the Reform community has been excluded by the hegemonic Jewish Orthodox community and is seen as an outsider that threatens the very continuation of the Jewish people. This article examines Reform rituals that are conducted in the urban space of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area and posits that the execution of the rituals outside the congregation’s permanent houses of prayer manifests gender-religious resistance against the Jewish Orthodox hegemony, as well as against patriarchal traditions and heterosexual constructions. It is further claimed that the Reform community has positioned itself as an alternative, more egalitarian religious agent in the Israeli public space, which positively impacts the goal of the feminist and the LGBTQ+ movements to gain gender recognition.

Cultural adaptations of CBT for the British Jewish Orthodox community

AbstractThere is a national drive to increase access to psychological therapies across England, with a specific focus on under-represented groups such as Black, Asian Minority and Ethnic (BAME) groups. Although prevalence rates for common mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety in Orthodox British Jews are less than those of the generic population in the United Kingdom, accessing services to help treat these conditions within this group are considerably less than other groups. This paper seeks to consider reasons for this, as well as what adaptations, both from a therapist and service perspective, can be made to increase access within the Orthodox Jewish community with lessons to be made to other BAME groups.

Military Service as Bargaining: The Case of Religious Women Soldiers in Israel

ABSTRACTWhile religious women have always served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as part of universal conscription, the Chief Rabbinate still opposes military service for women in general, and religious women in particular. In the twenty-first century, approximately 20% of religious women graduates of the religious high school system in Israel enlist. They remain a part of their social group despite social disapproval. Interestingly, after many years of ignoring the subject almost completely within the majority of Israel’s Jewish orthodox community, recently, there is a palatable change. Rabbis and public figures within the religious community have spoken more clearly about women’s conscription and are no longer pretending that the issue does not exist. While religious women soldiers are still far from the norm, they are no longer the anathema they once were. The present paper will discuss this change and try to examine it as a process of bargaining, with religious women employing bargaining in non-traditional ways. In its conclusion, the article will suggest broader contexts within which these ideas can be viewed.

The association between religiosity and alcohol use: the mediating role of meaning in life and media exposure

ABSTRACTWe examined whether meaning in life and exposure to media mediate the association between religiosity and alcohol use among members of the Jewish-orthodox community in Israel. One hundred and ten young adult men self-identified as orthodox (n = 57) or secular (n = 53) participated in the study. Participants completed self-report measures designed to assess meaning in life, media exposure, alcohol use, and craving. Our findings show that orthodox participants consumed less alcohol and reported less alcohol craving compared to their secular counterparts. Importantly, search for meaning in life and media exposure mediated the relationship between religiosity and alcohol craving. Our findings suggest that religion provides a sense of meaning that serves as a protective factor against alcohol craving, supporting existential theories. Furthermore, our studies show that practices that are associated with a religious lifestyle such as low exposure to mass media also serve as protective factors for alcohol use and craving.

Experiences of the Orthodox Community Among Orthodox Jewish Gay Men

Sense of community includes elements such as sense of belonging, mutual interdependence, trust, shared goals and values, and shared history. It is associated with benefits for both the members and the community and is believed to be stronger in religious minority groups. This qualitative study describes the experiences of the Jewish Orthodox community among Orthodox Jewish gay men. In-depth interviews were conducted with 22 men about their experiences of being gay in their Orthodox communities. A content analysis revealed four themes: community as a home, community as a comprehensive provider, community as a strict behavior regulator, and community as punitive toward gay men. Findings suggest that Orthodox Jewish gay men have mixed feelings about their community; being satisfied with a community that provides for all their needs, but also living in constant fear of the negative consequences they and their families may endure if their homosexuality will be revealed. Recommendations for social work practice are provided.

“It’s a Horrible Sin. If They Find Out, I Will Not be Able to Stay”: Orthodox Jewish Gay Men’s Experiences Living in Secrecy

This qualitative study examined the intersection of sexual orientation and religion in the Jewish Orthodox community by exploring 22 Orthodox Jewish gay men’s experiences living in secrecy. Analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with these men revealed four primary themes: emotional turmoil, ways of coping, impact on family relationships, and importance of the context. Findings from this study describe the daily struggles these men experienced keeping their homosexuality a secret. The findings suggest that in order to design effective interventions with this population, it is crucial to consider the larger community and religious context.

On <em>Shtisel</em> (or the Haredi as Bourgeois)

On Shtisel (or the Haredi as Bourgeois) Yaron Peleg (bio) Shtisel. 2013. Created by Uri Alon and Yehonatan Indursky. Produced by Dikla Barakai and Yonatan Aroch. Israel: Yes TV. The proliferation of shows about Israel’s various religious communities has been one of the most notable changes in television programming in Israel recently. In the last decade such shows have been crowding Israeli TV screens, exposing viewers in increasingly more nuanced ways to parts of society that were until fairly recently uncharted TV lands. The tipping point was probably the hit series Srugim, which ran for three seasons between 2008 and 2012 (Yes TV). Focusing on the love lives of religious singles in contemporary Jerusalem, the show was a sexless version of the popular American TV series from the late 1990s and early 2000s Sex and the City, an innovation that speaks for itself, as I discuss in my article included in this issue. Indeed, the marriage of religion and love—pun intended—seems to be one of the most successful recipes for updating the otherwise “unsexy” image of religious people in Israel, and probably elsewhere. It has also proved to be a commercially viable way to make politically problematic communities popular, at least in some ways. The popular television show Shtisel, the latest evolution in religious television programming in Israel, is a good case in point, because it deals with Israel’s most strictly religious group, the Haredi or Orthodox community, and exemplifies the dramatic changes in the perception of Jewish religiosity in the Jewish state. [End Page 113] The winner of the Israeli Academy Awards for Television best TV drama series in 2013, Shtisel focuses on the personal lives of members of an ultra-Orthodox family in the religious neighborhood of Me’ah She’arim in Jerusalem. The innovation of the show comes from the fact that it is a usual show about fairly unusual people, the Jewish Orthodox community in Israel. In other words, the drama series takes religious characters, omits most of the controversial issues associated with them, and presents them as so-called regular people. Moreover, the show focuses on the love lives of its characters, which include a widowed father, Sholem Shtisel (Dov Glickman); his young and good-looking bachelor son, Akiva (Michael Aloni), who is in love with the slightly older and twice-widowed Elisheva Rotstein (Ayelet Zorer); Sholem’s married daughter, Giti Weiss (Neta Riskin); and Sholem’s old mother, Bube Malke (Hanna Rieber, who died after the first season was completed). The fact that love preoccupies Shtisel’s cast of Orthodox characters is obviously aimed at the show’s secular viewers. Similarly, the presentation of the religious world on the show as restrictive seems like another reflection of secular rather than Orthodox sensibilities. Although the show is named after the widowed patriarch and follows his relationships with members of his family, the main focus of the show is on the youngest son, Akiva, and his tortuous love life. When Akiva falls in love with the twice-widowed older woman Elisheva, he pursues her despite pressures from his family and community to marry a virgin his own age, and even despite being rebuffed by Elisheva herself. Having been married twice before and having had a son with one of her previous husbands, Elisheva is reluctant to get involved again. Although the show is not focused exclusively on their relationship, its ups and downs comprise the series’ dramatic core. It is here, at this romantic juncture, that the show engages in the kind of cultural exchange I mentioned earlier. Matrimony in the Orthodox world is a practical arrangement that has little to do with romance. It is preferable, of course, that the couple like one another, but it is by no means a requirement. Eligible young singles are expected to make their decision after meeting once or twice, which allows them little time to develop any meaningful feelings. Akiva goes on an awkward date with an “appropriate” single woman in the show’s very first episode. The meeting is off to a bad start when he realizes the woman he meets is humorless. But the date fails completely when he learns that she...

Seeking Help for Postpartum Depression in the Israeli Jewish Orthodox Community: Factors Associated with Use of Professional and Informal Help

Postpartum depression (PPD) has potentially devastating personal and familial consequences. However, very few women receive treatment, either professional or informal. Use patterns and factors associated with both professional and informal help for PPD have not yet been investigated. This study examined factors associated with use of professional and informal help for PPD in an Israeli sample that included women from secular, traditional, orthodox, and ultra-orthodox Jewish religious groups. One to two days postpartum, 1,059 women were recruited from a large hospital in Jerusalem, Israel, and completed an initial survey; 805 women (76%) participated at the 6-week follow-up; 94 women (12%) screened positive for PPD symptoms at the 6-week follow-up and were referred for help; and 88 women completed the 6-month postpartum follow-up interview. Of the women referred for help, 69% used some sort of help, with 24% using professional help and 45% using informal help. Confidence in mental health professionals and higher levels of PPD symptomatology were associated with use of professional help. Recognition of personal need for professional psychological help was negatively associated with use of informal help. Findings from this study highlight the importance of routine screening for PPD and culturally sensitive referrals using informal sources of help.

The Private Life of Public Ritual: Interaction, Sociality and Codification in a Jewish Orthodox Congregation

This article develops an account of the relationship between codification, interactional achievements and forms of sociality in the context of religious worship. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Jewish Orthodox community in Los Angeles, I argue that an important part of what makes public worship situations compelling is how they interactionally highlight individual participants’ lives, creating pressures to engage in predictable forms of sociality. This argument is then developed in two contexts: (a) “information gaps” encoded in the structure of daily Orthodox prayer, and; (b) the religious requirement to pray with a quorum of ten adult men. Through these examples I argue that codified aspects of public ritual give rise to variations that participants may understand to highlight individual lives. In many situations, public worship is compelling precisely because it actually individualizes participation. As these interactions are predicated on a codified structure, they provide “institutional fingerprints” for the construction of specific patterns of sociality. An appreciation of this aspect of public worship provides grounds for a broad comparative agenda, focusing on the relationship between codification, interactional patterns and forms of sociality within, and beyond, religious contexts.

O processo de transnacionalização do judaísmo ortodoxo: um olhar antropológico sobre a expansão do movimento Chabad-Lubavitch

The paper focuses in different phenomena which have produced relevant transformations in Orthodox Judaism, especially in the Chabad Movement. The main topics analyzed are the transnationalization process of Chabad in particular, and of Judaism in general, the exponential increase of Jewish Orthodox communities, and the attempts of re-territorialization of the Jewish Diaspora as a result of the displacement of Jerusalem as an axis mundi.

Análisis del crecimiento de las comunidades judías ortodoxas en Chile

This article analyzes the increased growth of orthodox communities among Chilean Jews. These communities have risen dramatically in the past decade, due to the emergence of several orthodox institutions that promote the study of the Torah among young people; a growing demand for spirituality and a certain decline of the traditional institutions of Chile’s secular Jews. This article is based on interviews with orthodox rabbis and members of Santiago’s orthodox community and aims to reconstruct the history of Chile’s Jewish orthodox communities, of which there are no bibliographical records in existence.

GAY MARTYRS, JEWISH SAINTS AND INFATUATED YESHIVA BOYS IN THE NEW ISRAELI RELIGIOUS QUEER CINEMA

Popular mainstream cinema often sensationalizes, stigmatizes, and even ridicules religions, faiths, congregations, and the religiously observant. The (mis)representation of religious communities is sometimes even more negative in films that centre on religious gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, and their presumably homophobic congregations. This article offers an initial exploration of a new kind of Israeli film at the beginning of the third millennium, defined here as the New Israeli Religious Queer Cinema. These films, mostly created by religious filmmakers who are members of sexual minorities, are intended to promote tolerance and greater acceptance of homosexuality by the Jewish Orthodox communities in Israel. This research, particularly focused on Chaim Elbaum's acclaimed short film And Thou Shalt Love (2008) [Ve'ahavta], examines the cinematic attempts to reduce hostility towards sexual minorities among religious believers, and problematizes the portrayal of the young protagonist's angst and this new cinema's politics of martyrdom and victimhood. The article also analyses the creation of a sort of Jewish version of Saint Sebastian, the ancient Christian martyr who is often perceived as a gay icon, and this new cinema's genuine attempts to explore homoerotic subtleties in Jewish tradition.

Responsive Counseling in Jewish Orthodox Communities

Responsive Counseling in Jewish Orthodox Communities

Understanding Causes of and Responses to Intimate Partner Violence in a Jewish Orthodox Community: Survivors' and Leaders' Perspectives

There has been little research on intimate partner violence (IPV) in faith-based communities. This qualitative study examines social attitudes and religious values in an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community that affect the incidence of IPV and prevent women survivors from seeking help. Interviews were conducted with 8 Orthodox women and 11 community leaders, and findings include the following: (a) causes of IPV were early marriage, separation of the sexes, and personality characteristics; (b) religious beliefs and social values were barriers to seeking help; and (c) the role of rabbis in education and marital intervention was viewed in markedly different ways by the two sets of respondents. Implications for practice and further research are discussed.

Invasive group a streptococcal infections, Israel.

We conducted a prospective, nationwide, population-based study of invasive group A streptococcal infections in Israel. We identified 409 patients (median age 27 years; range <1-92), for an annual incidence of 3.7/100,000 (11/100,000 in Jerusalem). The mortality rate was 5%. Bacteremia occurred in 125 cases (31%). The most common illnesses were soft-tissue infection (63%) and primary bacteremia (14%). Thirty percent of patients had no identifiable risk factors for infection. Eighty-seven percent of pharyngeal carriers had the same serotype as the index patient. M types included M3 (25%), M28 (10%), and M-nontypable (33%). A marked paucity of M1 serotype (1.2%) was detected. The results highlighted concentrated pockets of invasive disease in the Jewish orthodox community (annual incidence 16/100,000).

Chorionic villi sampling for early prenatal diagnosis: an option for the Jewish orthodox community.

The Jewish religion permits abortion up to 40 days after conception. To accommodate the Jewish orthodox community, prenatal diagnosis in the eighth gestational week may be a feasible goal with clear benefits. We present our experience with chorionic villus sampling (CVS), wherein out of 144 patients requesting CVS, 125 were found to be suitable for the procedure. Excluding patients with fundal placenta and cervical or uterine myoma, chorionic sampling was successfully performed on 102 out of 106 patients (96.2%) and a chromosome result was available for 98 of those patients (96%). Fetal losses, within 14 days following procedure, were 2 out of 125 (1.6%). No complications were encountered following the procedure. The cytogenetic analysis was improved by culturing CVS fragments for 48 h, after which clearer banding patterns could be observed. One of the CVS preparations, from a 7.2/7-week-old embryo was successfully examined. Short-term (6 days) cultures were used as an additional method for chromosome analysis, to extend and confirm results obtained by the direct method.