CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Iannotti, Deborah Sabrina |
|---|---|
| Title | The Status Quo Agreement and Jewish Religious Pluralism in Israel: Women of the Wall as a Case Study |
| Summary | Identified as a minority group of religious activist and feminist Jewish women, the Women of the Wall have been challenging the exclusively male and Orthodox hegemonic status quo at Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall, for almost 30 years. In their practices and composition, they reflect Jewish pluralism since the group includes Orthodox, Reform, Conservative and secular women not only from Israel but from all around the Jewish world. The struggle of the Women of the Wall (hereinafter WoW) represents not only the efforts of a group to obtain the right to pray according their custom, but it is also a metaphor of the evolution of the national and religious identities in Israel The conflict over the right to pray at the Western Wall receives attention because of the paradox the Wall represents: it is considered as the holiest and most representative symbol of the Jewish Nation but its status quo has been negotiated between the State and the Orthodox Jewish parties between 1947-48. The objective of this project is to study and research the challenges to the religious status quo and its nationalistic expressions in Israel taking as a case study the struggle of the WoW. As Yacov Yadgar (2017) points out, the religious status quo in Israel not only represents a semi-constitutional tool to ease the kulturkampf between the secular and the religious establishment, but it is also the main gatekeeper for the maintenance of Jewish majority in the state. By being so, the status quo cannot be easily challenged, even when the requests for change are voiced by liberal Jewish movements in Israel. The status quo is then the expression of the reliance of the secular elites on narrow interpretations of Judaism in order to regulate the public sphere and govern national politics. |
| Supervisor | Miller, Michael Laurence |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/iannotti_deborah.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University