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

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• Gender
• LGBTQ+
• Reform Judaism
• Ritual
• Resistance
• Tel Aviv-Jaffa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Elazar Ben-Lulu

Elazar Ben-Lulu is an anthropologist of religion and gender with particular interest in the intersection of LGBTQ identities and Judaism. He is a post-doctoral scholar at the Open University of Israel. A former fellow at The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and at Azrieli Center for Israel Studies at The Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, in the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He won in "Baron New Voices in Jewish Studies Award to 2019–2020 on behalf of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, Columbia University, and Fordham University