Customer Reviews

Women As Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem (American Folklore Society, New Series)

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You don't have to be a student of religious studies to enjoy this book. Though it's an anthropological study, it's highly readable & I found myself often continuing on ahead, further than what was assigned for the day. The elderly Jewish women of Sered's study are brought to life & I found them fascinating. The book concluded far too soon. Susan Starr Sered, in researching & writing about the religious lives of elderly Jewish women in Jerusalem, "hope[s] to challenge preconceptions about the very nature of such concepts as the sacred, the holy, and human spirituality" (3). By talking & listening to the illiterate, uneducated women in her study group, observing & interpreting their activities & gestures, Sered finds that 50% of Judaic practice & belief is developed outside of prescribed law & ritual. Women's Judaism is far different from men's, yet no less complex, meaningful, & vibrant. Through interpretation & innovation, women restructure paternalistic & androcentric religious beliefs & traditions. By creating living, useful, & meaningful spirituality appropriate to their own unique needs, these elderly Jewish women can provide inspiration for all women who too often feel alienated & excluded from male-dominated religious institutions.

At the time when Sered examined Jewish elderly women as ritual experts in a Day Center in Jerusalem, there were few studies about women in Judaism from the prospective of the folk, domestic sphere. That has changed a great deal now. There is a great deal of literature dealing with women's roles in patriarchal, monotheistic religions. But Sered's work still makes for interesting reading. She examines how largely illiterate, Kurdish Jews carve out a niche for themselves in the overwhelming male and literate world of Judaism. They do this by often turning certain time honored notions on their heads, and by reinterpreting pejorative notions about women and their role in Judaism in a more positive light.

Sered's study is key to exploring folk-female religion in Judaism and to a larger extent, a good gateway to exploring other communities with similar dynamics. It also throws light on the normative, male tradition, exposing its flaws and prejudices.