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ABSTRACT. This article examines an important aspect of the religious world of a group of elderly, pious, Kurdish Jewish women in Jerusalem. While previous scholars have stressed the connection between menopause (with the resultant loss in fertility and so menstrual pollution) and the increased religious inolvement of old women, I argue that the broadening of the religious lives that these women have experienced in old age has been above all connected to widowhood. The women of this study see old age (and more specifically widowhood) as a time for deepening and expanding their religious lives. Now that they are no longer busy with the demands of husbands and small children, they can devote increased time and energy to religious l~ursuits. Specifically, the focus of their religious world has shifted from the domestic to the public sphere. The synagogue, senior citizen's day center, cemeteries, and holy tombs are the most important public, sacred spaces frequented by the women.
Key words: widows, Kurdish Jews, Israel, religion.
INTRODUCTION "Since my husband died fourteen months ago I have begun covering my hair [a sign of female piety] and going to synagogue." "My late husband was the type of man who if he were sitting with a glass of water on the table next to him, would call me from the next room to hand it to him." "My husband was never any help. It was hard then. I raised my children alone, me and God." "It is especially important for old women to cover themselves up. Not to is a humiliation." "When I was younger and busy with the house, I could never go to the holy tombs. Now I go to all of t h e m , . . , light candles, say prayers for my family." "Now [that I am a widow] I go to synagogue four times every Sabbath... to hear 'kiddush' [the blessing over wine], to hear 'havdalah' the [the ritual marking the end of the Sabbath]." Social scientists have stressed the relevance of physiology and more s p e c i f i c a l l y [the c e s s a t i o n of] fertility to t h e s t u d y o f w o m e n a n d r e l i g i o n . A f t e r all, u n l e s s o n e p o s t u l a t e s s o m e e t h e r e a l d i s s i m i l a r i t y b e t w e e n m a l e a n d f e m a l e souls, p h y s i o l o g i c a l e x p l a n a t i o n s d o s e e m t o m o s t easily a c c o u n t f o r t h e w i d e - r a n g i n g sex d i f f e r e n c e s t h a t e t h n o g r a p h e r s h a v e documented (for example, Hoch-Smith and Spring 1978). In particular, emphasis has been placed on the significance of menstruation and menopause tothe s t u d y o f w o m e n a n d r e l i g i o n . L o w i e , in his classic
Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 2 (1987), 139-- 150. © 1987 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
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work on primitive religion, suggested that where women suffer from "pronounced religious disabilities," this can be attributed to "the savage man's horror of menstruation," (Lowie 1952:211; for an interesting counter-example see Gross 1980) or to the "awe inspired by menstruation" (Lowie 1952:216). Other scholars (Gutmann 1977) have seen menopause as the meaningful transition period in the religious life of the mature woman -- now that she is no longer impure as a result of menstrual bleeding she can have increased access to ritual objects, locations, and activities. The problem with these physiologically based theories is that not all significant developments in women's religious lives are tied to physical development. While few would argue that physiology is the sole determiner of religious behavior, such theories have served to discourage scholars from examining other aspects of women's lives that may influence religiosity. This article deals with a group of women whose religious lives dramatically deepened and widened in old age. However, as we can see from the comments of the women quoted in the first paragraph, they themselves point to old age in general, and widowhood in particular, (rather than fertility or cessation of fertility) as having been the most significant factors structuring their participation in religious life. Specifically, as widows they have shifted the center of their spiritual world from the home and home-centered ritual, to such public holy places as the synagogue, holy tombs, and the senior citizen's day center. The women discussed here are elderly, exceedingly pious, Sephardi (mostly Kurdish), Jewish immigrants to Israel. All of the women frequent a senior citizen's day center in Jerusalem, and most are widows. Most of these women are poor, living entirely on the small old age pension paid by the National Insurance. Many of them are diabetic, have high blood pressure, no longer walk very well, have no teeth and poor hearing and eyesight, plus many other minor and major ailments. Yet they are supremely cognizant of their religious role as old women or widows and they enjoy the privileges that go with that role (see also Myerhoff 1978). It should be emphasized that Kurdish-Jewish culture is highly sexually segregated, and both as young mothers and as menopausal great-grand mothers, these women have conducted their religious lives almost solely among other women. When I began my work with these women I was struck by the fact that while widowhood was not a formal requirement for membership in the day center, in reality almost all of the women who were able to attend with any regularity were indeed widowed. This led me to question the relative significance of old age and widowhood as determinants in women's religious lives. The women of the day center believe that women are responsible for their families' health and well-being. (Men's religious activities are more concerned with fulfilling legal or ritual requirements
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and less with seeking divine aid in familial affairs.) F o r younger women, this is manifested primarily through physical acts - - laundry, cleaning, shopping, caring for sick children. Young w o m e n also perform a n u m b e r of religious duties aimed at safeguarding their families, but these duties are primarily ones that are carried out in the h o m e - - what is usually known as domestic religion. Perhaps the quintessential young women's ritual is that of blessing their children when they light candles on the Sabbath Eve. Older w o m e n remain responsible for their families' well-being, but in old age this responsibility is transferred almost totally into the spiritual realm. Old w o m e n no longer can, and are no longer expected to, sit up at night with sick children. Instead, they are considered experts at soliciting divine assistance for their descendants. This is something that all old w o m e n do, widows and non-widows alike. What seems to differentiate the religious lives of widows is that widows choose to, must, or are able to (depending upon the situation) pursue their relationship with the divine in public rather than at home. 1 Thus the deepening of religiosity that begins (for these women) in old age, culminates in widowhood when their opportunities for religious expression widen in a most significant manner.
WIVES AND WIDOWS While there certainly are m a n y Jewish laws dealing with the relationship between a menstruating w o m a n and her husband, and there are some women's folk traditions concerning ritual immersion after menstruation, the w o m e n of this study feel that their husbands' demands, far m o r e than menstrual pollution, had curtailed and shaped their religious experience as young women. As widows they now are able to control their time and their mobility in a way that was not possible when their husbands were alive. Moreover, the w o m e n are conscious about and articulate in describing the manner "in which their religious lives have changed since the deaths of their spouses. In Kurdistan the position of the wife in the patriarchal extended family was an insecure one. H e r husband could easily divorce her by saying so in the presence of a rabbi and giving her the m o n e y specified in the marriage contract. There was no alimony and the husband kept the children. W o m e n typically married at the age of fourteen and the marriage was often consummated before the w o m a n was physically mature. A w o m a n was passed f r o m her father to her husband before being old enough to m a k e decisions on her own. And, both the birth and mortality rate were very high (Weintraub and Shapiro 1968). 2 These w o m e n did not marry for love. Husbands and wives lived very separate lives, and there was no cultural expectation of romance, friendship, or even deep affection between spouses. Although the ethnographic literature abounds with
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details of joyous and festive nuptial celebrations, the w o m e n w h o m I interviewed say little about their own weddings. It is interesting to note that although the w o m e n of this study are aware of the fact that Jewish law enjoins u p o n the w o m a n to abide by her husband's family's customs when she marries, 3 and most of them indeed did this, when they talk about "our customs", or "how it is done by us", they mean by their parents, not by their husbands. Widowhood was a great liberating factor in the lives of the women. One widow told how her husband was always very sickly, and when her six children were small she was "like both a man and a woman." Another w o m a n related how her husband had been sick for eighteen years with asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. She took care of him until he died, taking him to the hospital twice each day. H e had come to Israel from Persia and never learned either H e b r e w or Arabic. The w o m e n believe that their husbands were/are incapable of even fixing their own cups of coffee in the morning, thus a w o m a n whose husband is still living has difficulty leaving the house for m o r e than a few hours a day. (One of the few times that a married w o m a n can justifiably leave h o m e is to go on a pilgrimage to a holy tomb if she had m a d e a vow to do so. While such vows are rare among young women, the husband would not only refrain from hindering his wife, but might even help her go.) All of the w o m e n emphasize that now that they no longer have husbands to make demands on their time, they are free to attend synagogue. 4 The w o m e n of this study were not particularly interested in talking about menstrual taboos and rituals, either out of embarrassment or because the subject has been irrelevant to them for so many years. (Most of these w o m e n have been post-menopansal for about thirty years.) One w o m a n told how in the Old Country the Women had to dip in a freezing cold river at the end of the period of menstrual impurity. Others r e m e m ber that they would sleep on the floor while menstruating (so as not to touch their husbands). 5 This is contrasted with a positive attitude toward menopause. As one w o m a n expressed her feelings about being too old to have any m o r e children, "Thank G o d W h o has released me!" However, although many of the w o m e n are happy to be spared further pregnancies, none of them mentioned m e n o p a u s e as a turning point in their religious lives. The Jerusalem w o m e n believe that very old w o m e n are both m o r e pious and should be m o r e careful about religious observance than young women. F o r example, it is far worse for an old w o m a n to dress immodestly than for a younger one. In m a n y of the folk tales that they know the heroine is an old woman, and frequently a widow. These old women, living by themselves without the demands of husbands and families, devote all of their time to charitable works. A favorite folk story concerns a very poor, old widow who would bake four loaves of bread each day
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and give three away to p o o r people, saving only one for herself. After many adventures, culminating in her saving four victims of a shipwreck, she was rewarded by the king who invited her to come live in his palace and have whatever she wanted for herself and whatever she wanted to give away to the p o o r Before going on, it is necessary to point out that the role of widow hardly existed in the Old Country. Women's life expectancy was much shorter than it is in modern Israel, so that there simply did not exist a group of elderly widows who had a complete religious life of their own. While there are hints in the literature that in Kurdistan very old women could sit in the men's section of the synagogue (Brauer 1947), bless the 'lulav' on Sukkot, 6 and accompany the men to the river for 'tashlich', 7 it seems that there simply were not large numbers of old women. Two religious roles for old women that were slightly more widespread were as experts in various ceremonies to avert the evil eye (Brauer 1947), and as seamstresses of shrouds (Brauer 1947). One other role available to old women was to wash the bodies of female corpses, a job that, according to my informant, took a lot of courage and not all women would or could do. Thus, the religious life of the women of this study is something that to a great extent they have constructed themselves. They did not bring with them from Kurdistan a model for the communal, religious life of elderly women. Rather, they have taken bits and pieces of traditional men's rituals (e.g., synagogue attendance), women's, rituals (e.g., candle lighting), m o d e m , secular Zionism (e.g., planting trees in reforestation projects) and combined them to make a new kind of women's Judaism. Widowhood has had the effect of forcing the women out of the domestic sphere into the public sphere for the performance of various religious rituals. According to Jewish law there are certain religious rituals that both men and women must participate in, but that customarily the man performs at home while his wife watches. The widows of this study who no longer can watch husbands performing these rituals now g o to synagogue to watch them being performed by other men. One woman from Turkey tells that now that she is a widow she goes to synagogue on the Sabbath to hear 'kiddush' (the traditional blessing over wine). This same woman, while her husband was alive, would rarely go to synagogue. H e would make 'kiddush' at home, and she would keep busy preparing his meals while he was at synagogue. It must be emphasized that these widows have not simply t a k e n over male religious roles and prerogatives at the deaths of their husbands (see Gutmann 1977). Whenever possible they find other men to perform the rituals that their husbands once performed; although permitted by Jewish law to do so, the women prefer not to perform the rituals themselves. Those male rituals that they cannot avoid (for example, ritually selling foods that are not permitted for Passover) the women perform with the
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greatest reluctance and discomfort. Thus, while women's religious lives do intensify and broaden in old age and widowhood, the focus of their religiosity remains within the traditional female sphere. Widowhood forces/permits women out of the house but it does not significantly change their religious motivations. The women explain that because of widowhood they are more mobile than they onde were, and they themselves describe this increased mobility primarily in Cterms of their broadened opportunities to leave home to participate in religious study and rituals. In the following paragraphs we will look at three of the public, holy places that the old women have begun frequenting. These three places can be viewed in an ascending order of holiness: senior citizen's day center, synagogue, holy tombs. It is in that order that they will be examined here.
SENIOR CITIZEN'S
DAY CENTER
The day center for senior citizens is utilized only by old women (men may attend but none actually do), and these women had no comparable type of public, religious meeting place when they were young. The weekly schedule of the day center is as follows: Sunday -- Rabbi's lesson, Monday -- (not every week) trip to holy tomb, Tuesday - - Rabbanit's lesson, 8 Wednesday -- Rabbi's lesson..On Thursday and Friday the day center is closed because all of the women are busy preparing for the Sabbath. There are very few secular activities conducted at the day center. While this (and some dozen other) senior citizens day centers are run by the Municipality of Jerusalem, the individual directors and groups of senior citizens can choose the activities that they want (within the appropriate budget). At other day centers in Jerusalem common activities are lectures on various intellectual subjects or English lessons. The fact that at the center frequented by the women of this study almost all of the activities are religious in nature, is the result of the expressed interest of the particular women who attend; the old Sephardi women themselves request religious activities. An important function of the day center is to make celebrations for the women. Every holiday, major or minor, receives a great deal of attention, and is usually accompanied by a party or other,special treat. For example, on Purim they are given bags of cakes and candy. For those women whose children have moved away, the day center may indeed be the focus of their holiday celebrations.-When these same women were younger the essence of the Jewish holidays was food preparation and other domestic rituals. But now that they celebrate many of the holidays in the context of the day center, public rituals have taken precedence. For Tu b'Shvat (the new year for trees) they are taken to plant trees in a reforestation project; for Jerusalem Day they are taken on a tour around Jerusalem.
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The religious lessons that the w o m e n attend at the day center are an innovation. They all emphasize that they have only begun learning in old age or since their husbands died (the mothers of these w o m e n did not learn even in old age.) The w o m e n of this study are exceedingly p r o u d of their learning and listen attentively even when the lesson is incomprehensible to them. When asked why they come to the day center, some answer that they like the lessons, others say that they want to be able to join the trips to holy tombs organized by the center, but m a n y admit that they come in order to pass the time "now that we are all alone." Thus, daily attendance at religious lessons, with the natural result of increased knowledge about Judaica, must be seen as connected to the loneliness of widowhood.
SYNAGOGUE These w o m e n visit the synagogue for both social and religious reasons. Unlike the day center which is ethnically mixed, each w o m a n attends only the synagogue of her own ethnic group. 9 T h e r e she will greet friends, relatives, and neighbors, though almost no active socializing goes o n during the actual service. Very few of the w o m e n went to synagogue when they were younger; they were too busy caring for their children and husbands. A n d still today, at the local synagogues on weekdays, the only w o m e n present are quite old. T h e y explain that only old w o m e n go to synagogue regularly, with young w o m e n coming on such special occasions as Rosh H a s h a n a h and Y o m Kippur. Shai found that younger Kurdish women never go to synagogue - - they are embarrassed to go because it is considered an old women's activity (Shai 1970). Indeed, according to Katzir, in Y e m e n w o m e n were actually barred from the synagogue; it was considered a sin for a w o m a n to learn to read or to enter a synagogue as w o m e n were considered potentially defiling because of menstrual and childbirth blood (Katzir 1976). The Kurdish w o m e n of this study claim that menstruating w o m e n may not enter the synagogue. However, most add that if a w o m a n really wants to she may - - she should just sit as far back as possible and not look when the 'Torah' (Pentateuch) is raised up. 1° It should be r e m e m b e r e d that while most of these w o m e n have been menopausal for m a n y years, they have only recently begun attending synagogue regularly, Furthermore, even when they were young they were often pregnant or lactating and so amenstrual, thus this should not be seen as a key factor determining women's synagogue participation. At synagogue the w o m e n sit in a women's balcony which is entirely closed off from the main [male] section. The w o m e n have a n u m b e r of their own synagogue rituals of which the men are probably not even aware. On weekdays, for example, after the evening service one w o m a n will pass around perfume to all of the other women. They will then anoint
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themselves with the perfume and say the formal H e b r e w blessing over pleasant smells. Other w o m e n pass around grapes or small candies so that their co-worshippers will have m o r e opportunities to say blessings. Most of the w o m e n have special shawls, sweaters, and kerchiefs that they wear in synagogue. Lower arms and foreheads, parts of the body that do not need to be covered at other times, must be covered in synagogue. This has little to do With the men being distracted by the women's sexuality - - the men cannot even see into the women's section. Rather this is an important element in the women's own perception of their relationship with God. The w o m e n attend synagogue for reasons that are very different than those of men. First, as was said above, they go for social reasons - - to get out of the house and meet friends of their own ethnic groups. As widows they are simultaneously lonely and free of household responsibility. Second, they go in order to be able to participate in, albeit passively, such men's rituals as 'kiddush' and 'havdalah'. Third, in synagogue they make personal petitions to G o d in a place that is holy, and so increases the likelihood of the petition's being granted. A n d fourth, the w o m e n believe that one gets religious merit from going to synagogue. Thus, in the words of one woman, it does not bother her that she cannot hear the prayer service because " G o d knows if you have the desire to go to synagogue, so that even if you cannot hear you get the merit." But perhaps the most significant factor both in their increased synagogue attendance and their increased visits to holy tombs is their conviction that the p r o p e r religious role of old w o m e n is to take spiritual care of children and grandchildren. Old w o m e n care for their descendants by praying for them, purchasing blessings from rabbis for them, making petitions for them, asking saints to intercede for them, and giving to charity on their behalf. In short, the role of spiritual guardianship is one that needs to be conducted in such public places as synagogues, because it is in precisely these places that the prayers and petitions are most effective.
PILGRIMAGE The third type of holy space frequented by the w o m e n is holy tombs and cemeteries. Unlike attendance at synagogues and senior citizen's day centers, which are new religious activities for Sephardi women, visiting holy tombs was popular also in the Old Country. However, all of the w o m e n agree that when they had small children they could not leave h o m e to go to the tombs. Indeed, with the exception of huge festivals such as Lag b ' O m e r at Meron, most of the visitors at holy tombs are old women. The w o m e n go to the tombs to request "miracles and wonders", and they consider pilgrimage to be a very serious endeavor. But it is also fun, a break in the routine of their lives, and they thoroughly enjoy the outing.
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During visits to holy tombs the women begin by going into the building housing the tomb, and kissing any 'mezuzot' along the way. 11 They kiss the tomb or the grating around the tomb, whisper a short prayer, put money in the collection boxes stationed around the tomb; and finally light candles that they have brought for this purpose. At several of the tombs they are not permitted to light candles, so they throw the u.nlit candles up against the tomb and leave them there. Sometimes one or more women serve pieces of cake that they had brought from home. Cakes or cookies are often brought as part of a vow that was made during a previous trip -- if one's petition will be granted she will bring a 'simha' (happy celebration) for everyone at the tomb. Most of the women's rituals at the tombs are supremely tactile. The women kiss and caress the tomb, and everything surrounding the tomb. Many of the women cry while leaning against the tomb. One c o u l d even say the crying is ritualistic - - a woman who visits a holy tomb is supposed to cry. For the women, most of whom are illiterate, kissing and crying are important modes of religious expression. Although men also visit hoty tombs (especially that of Rabbi Meir baal HaNess in Tiberias), they generally do not go up to the tomb itself. At those sites where there are places to sit and rest near the tomb, only women sit down. The men either stand at a distance, or, in the case of Rabbi MeWs tomb, they congregate at a synagogue nearby. Covering Rabbi Meir's tomb is a large, heavy curtain, and the women stand in line to be able to walk between the curtain and the tomb and so make their petitions and prayers directly against the tomb itself. The holy tombs are public sacred spaces that are visited primarily by old women. F o r the women of this study going on pilgrimage is both a social and economic luxury that they could not afford when they were younger, and a type of religiosity that was not part of their lives until recently. Visiting tombs gives the women a feeling of holiness, of heightened spirituality, but more important, visiting tombs gives the women the merit or right to ask the saints to intercede on behalf of their families. When the day center organizes a trip to the tombs, many women who do not attend the day center on a regular basis join up for the trip. As far as I can discern, the elderly non-widows who cannot leave their husbands for daily religious activities (the day center or the synagogue) can often manage (sometimes together with their husbands) an occasional pilgrimage.
CONCLUSION In Christian's study of religion in a rural Spanish valley, he collected material on the religious life of the Catholic widowJ 2 According to
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Christian, "It is then ]upon widowhood] that she may become one of the elderly ladies in black that are seen haunting the church in every European village, for the death of the husband is a change in the life stream equivalent to that of passing out of the shelter of parental protection, and as in that earlier situation, a turn to the church is a solution to a sudden sense of aloneness" (Christian 1972: 160). In Christians's opinion, these women are often "devotional, even theological virtuosi" (Christian 1972: 160). They enjoy religion, seeing in old age "an opportunity to work out the logic of ceremonies, the relative merits of different d e v o t i o n s . . . " (Christian 1972: 160--161). While the similarities between the women of Christian's study and the women of this study are striking, there is at least one important difference: the Jewish women were physically transplanted from one culture to another. Whereas the Spanish women can view modern life (and modern religion) as an intruder, as less true than the old ways, the women of Jerusalem, to a very great extent, believe that the 'mainstream' Israeli Judaism (concerning which they are painfully aware of their ignorance) is in many ways superior to their own traditions. Thus, the old women of the Jerusalem study would never consider themselves "theological virtuosi." Like the women of the Valley, these women enjoy religion; they see greater religious involvement as one of the rewards of old age. Yet they retain an awareness of having chosen a new religious path. They know that they cannot model their religious world on that of their foremothers. Their mothers did not have a senior citizen's day center to make holiday celebrations for them; their grandmothers did not attend synagogue. Women in the old country died too young to have a complete, old women's, mode of religious behavior. The women of this study believe that they have been entrusted with a sacred task -- as widows they can travel to the holy places from which requests made to God on behalf of their children will most likely be heard. And that is particularly important in this day and age of secularization, of declining religious observance, of immodest dress and agnosticism. The children of these women regard their mothers as sacred specialists. Most of their children, totally assimilated into modern Israeli society, are far less religious than their parents. Thus the children see their mothers as somehow closer to God, as experts in carrying on holy traditions. While their daughters deeply respect their mothers' spiritual prowess, they themselves seem to exhibit no desire to be as religiously active as their mothers are. And while the mothers of the women of this study may have dreamed of the rich religious life that their daughters now lead, few lived long enough to actualize it. To conclude, in this article I have argued the necessity of looking beyond physiology in order to attempt a coherent analysis of women and religion. While fertility, lactation, blood, and menopause are certainly pervasive, both on the level of myth and on the level of ritual, such
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analyses of female religiosity seem to ignore other social and cultural f a c t o r s w h i c h m a y b e e q u a l l y , if n o t m o r e , i m p o r t a n t . T h e w o m e n o f t h i s study, most of whom are in their seventies and eighties, have been post-menopausal f o r o n e t h i r d t o o n e h a l f o f t h e i r a d u l t lives. Y e t , significant changes have taken place in their religious role more recently, specifically, since they have become widowed. Widowhood, for these Kurdish-Jewish women, seems to be the point at which motive (to safeguard the well-being of their families), method (spiritual guardianship and mediation), and opportunity (release from the demands of husbands) come together.
NOTES There was one young woman (in her late forties) who regularly attended the center, and she indeed had been widowed for a number of years. Old non-widowed women attend the center and synagogue only on occasion. Almost all of the "regulars" are widows. : Shai describes wedding songs of Kurdish Jewish women in which the theme is of the ~ i n g and hiding to escape marriage (Shal 1974). Zenner notes that among the women of Syria the attitude toward marriage was above all fatalistic -- one's husband is called one's fate (Zenner 1965). 3 For a discussion of this law, see Shmuel Katz, Kedoshim Tihyu (Jerusalem: 1980), p. 197. 4 While it would be interesting to know if young, childless widows also attend synagogue, in this population it is impossible to find out, because there are so few young, childless widows. Based on my field work, it seems that only old women go to synagogue (on weekdays). 5 As Harvey Goldberg has correctly pointed out, there is an element of boasting in women's comments about the hardships they suffered in order to observe the laws of menstrual purity (personal communication 1986). 6 The 'lulav' is the palm branch that is held, along with the 'etrog' or citroen, by Jewish males in synagogue each morning of the holiday of Sukkot (see Brauer 1947). 7 'Tashlich' is a ceremony that is done on Rosh HaShana for symbolically casting away one's sins (see Brauer 1947). There is no prohibition against women performing this ritual, but in previous generations they rarely did. 8 'Rabbanit' is the honorific title normally given to the wife of a rabbi or a particularly pious or learned women. The Rabbanit who teaches at the day center is both. 9 Ethnic synagogues are currently in a state of flux in Israeli society. In the neighborhood of the day center where there are numerous synagogues, representing a large number of ethnic groups, there is a small amount of intermingling. 10 The Torah is held up for the synagogue congregation to see on Mondays, Thursday, Sabbaths, and holidays. For the illiterate women sitting up in the women's gallery, the raising of the Torah is the highlight of the synagogue service as this is when personal petitions to God are believed most likely to be answered. In Ashkenazi synagogues in Eastern Europe there was a woman who helped the other women follow the Hebrew service. No such job exists among these Sephardi women. xl The 'mezuzah' is a small box containing several verses from the Bible hung on the doorways of Jewish homes. ~z There have been several recent interesting studies of the religious role of widows in the early Church (Reuther 1979, McKenna 1967).
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Brauer, A. 1947 Jews of Kurdistan. Jerusalem: HaMaarav Press. Christian, W. 1972 Person and God in a Spanish Valley. New York: Seminar Press. Gross, R. 1980 Menstruation and Childbirth as Ritual and Religious Experience among Native Austrailians. In Unspoken Worlds, Women's Religious Lives in Non-Western Cultures. N. Falk and R. Gross, eds. San Fransico: Harper and Row. Gutmann, D. 1977 The Cross-Cultural Perspective: Notes Toward a Comparative Psychology of Aging. In Handbook of the Psychology of Aging. J. Birren and K. Schaie, eds. New York: Nostrand Reinhold Co. Hoch-Smith, J. and A. Spring, eds. 1978 Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles. New York: Plenum Press. Katzir, Y. 1976 The Effects of Resettlement on the Status and Role of Yemini Women: The Case of Ramat Oranim, Israel. Berkeley: Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California. Lowie, R. 1952 Primitive Religion. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. McKenna, Sr. M. L. 1967 Women of the Church: Role and Renewel. New York: Kenedy and Sons. Myerhoff, B. 1978 Bobbes and Zeydes: Old and New Roles for Elderly Jews. In Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles. J. Hoch-Smith and A. Spring, eds. New York: Plenum Press. Reuther, R. 1979 Mothers of the Church: Ascetic Women in the Late Patristic Period. In Women of Spirit, Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions. R. Reuther and E. McLanghlin, eds. New York: Simon and Schuster. Shai, D. 1970 Neighborhood Relations in an Immigrant Quarter. Jerusalem: Henrietta Szold Institute Research Report No. 149, Publication No. 499. Shai, D. 1974 Wedding Customs among the Kurdish Jews in (Zakho) Kurdistan and In (Jerusalem) Israel. Jerusalem: Folklore Research Center Studies 4. Turner, V. and E. Turner 1978 Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Weintraub, D. and M. Shapiro 1968 The Traditional Family in Israel in the Process of Change -- Crisis and Continuity. British Journal of Sociology 19: 284--299. Zenner, W. 1965 Syrian Jewish Identification in Israel. New York: Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University.
Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan Israel
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OF
WIDOWHOOD
ABSTRACT. This article examines an important aspect of the religious world of a group of elderly, pious, Kurdish Jewish women in Jerusalem. While previous scholars have stressed the connection between menopause (with the resultant loss in fertility and so menstrual pollution) and the increased religious inolvement of old women, I argue that the broadening of the religious lives that these women have experienced in old age has been above all connected to widowhood. The women of this study see old age (and more specifically widowhood) as a time for deepening and expanding their religious lives. Now that they are no longer busy with the demands of husbands and small children, they can devote increased time and energy to religious l~ursuits. Specifically, the focus of their religious world has shifted from the domestic to the public sphere. The synagogue, senior citizen's day center, cemeteries, and holy tombs are the most important public, sacred spaces frequented by the women.
Key words: widows, Kurdish Jews, Israel, religion.
INTRODUCTION "Since my husband died fourteen months ago I have begun covering my hair [a sign of female piety] and going to synagogue." "My late husband was the type of man who if he were sitting with a glass of water on the table next to him, would call me from the next room to hand it to him." "My husband was never any help. It was hard then. I raised my children alone, me and God." "It is especially important for old women to cover themselves up. Not to is a humiliation." "When I was younger and busy with the house, I could never go to the holy tombs. Now I go to all of t h e m , . . , light candles, say prayers for my family." "Now [that I am a widow] I go to synagogue four times every Sabbath... to hear 'kiddush' [the blessing over wine], to hear 'havdalah' the [the ritual marking the end of the Sabbath]." Social scientists have stressed the relevance of physiology and more s p e c i f i c a l l y [the c e s s a t i o n of] fertility to t h e s t u d y o f w o m e n a n d r e l i g i o n . A f t e r all, u n l e s s o n e p o s t u l a t e s s o m e e t h e r e a l d i s s i m i l a r i t y b e t w e e n m a l e a n d f e m a l e souls, p h y s i o l o g i c a l e x p l a n a t i o n s d o s e e m t o m o s t easily a c c o u n t f o r t h e w i d e - r a n g i n g sex d i f f e r e n c e s t h a t e t h n o g r a p h e r s h a v e documented (for example, Hoch-Smith and Spring 1978). In particular, emphasis has been placed on the significance of menstruation and menopause tothe s t u d y o f w o m e n a n d r e l i g i o n . L o w i e , in his classic
Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 2 (1987), 139-- 150. © 1987 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
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work on primitive religion, suggested that where women suffer from "pronounced religious disabilities," this can be attributed to "the savage man's horror of menstruation," (Lowie 1952:211; for an interesting counter-example see Gross 1980) or to the "awe inspired by menstruation" (Lowie 1952:216). Other scholars (Gutmann 1977) have seen menopause as the meaningful transition period in the religious life of the mature woman -- now that she is no longer impure as a result of menstrual bleeding she can have increased access to ritual objects, locations, and activities. The problem with these physiologically based theories is that not all significant developments in women's religious lives are tied to physical development. While few would argue that physiology is the sole determiner of religious behavior, such theories have served to discourage scholars from examining other aspects of women's lives that may influence religiosity. This article deals with a group of women whose religious lives dramatically deepened and widened in old age. However, as we can see from the comments of the women quoted in the first paragraph, they themselves point to old age in general, and widowhood in particular, (rather than fertility or cessation of fertility) as having been the most significant factors structuring their participation in religious life. Specifically, as widows they have shifted the center of their spiritual world from the home and home-centered ritual, to such public holy places as the synagogue, holy tombs, and the senior citizen's day center. The women discussed here are elderly, exceedingly pious, Sephardi (mostly Kurdish), Jewish immigrants to Israel. All of the women frequent a senior citizen's day center in Jerusalem, and most are widows. Most of these women are poor, living entirely on the small old age pension paid by the National Insurance. Many of them are diabetic, have high blood pressure, no longer walk very well, have no teeth and poor hearing and eyesight, plus many other minor and major ailments. Yet they are supremely cognizant of their religious role as old women or widows and they enjoy the privileges that go with that role (see also Myerhoff 1978). It should be emphasized that Kurdish-Jewish culture is highly sexually segregated, and both as young mothers and as menopausal great-grand mothers, these women have conducted their religious lives almost solely among other women. When I began my work with these women I was struck by the fact that while widowhood was not a formal requirement for membership in the day center, in reality almost all of the women who were able to attend with any regularity were indeed widowed. This led me to question the relative significance of old age and widowhood as determinants in women's religious lives. The women of the day center believe that women are responsible for their families' health and well-being. (Men's religious activities are more concerned with fulfilling legal or ritual requirements
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and less with seeking divine aid in familial affairs.) F o r younger women, this is manifested primarily through physical acts - - laundry, cleaning, shopping, caring for sick children. Young w o m e n also perform a n u m b e r of religious duties aimed at safeguarding their families, but these duties are primarily ones that are carried out in the h o m e - - what is usually known as domestic religion. Perhaps the quintessential young women's ritual is that of blessing their children when they light candles on the Sabbath Eve. Older w o m e n remain responsible for their families' well-being, but in old age this responsibility is transferred almost totally into the spiritual realm. Old w o m e n no longer can, and are no longer expected to, sit up at night with sick children. Instead, they are considered experts at soliciting divine assistance for their descendants. This is something that all old w o m e n do, widows and non-widows alike. What seems to differentiate the religious lives of widows is that widows choose to, must, or are able to (depending upon the situation) pursue their relationship with the divine in public rather than at home. 1 Thus the deepening of religiosity that begins (for these women) in old age, culminates in widowhood when their opportunities for religious expression widen in a most significant manner.
WIVES AND WIDOWS While there certainly are m a n y Jewish laws dealing with the relationship between a menstruating w o m a n and her husband, and there are some women's folk traditions concerning ritual immersion after menstruation, the w o m e n of this study feel that their husbands' demands, far m o r e than menstrual pollution, had curtailed and shaped their religious experience as young women. As widows they now are able to control their time and their mobility in a way that was not possible when their husbands were alive. Moreover, the w o m e n are conscious about and articulate in describing the manner "in which their religious lives have changed since the deaths of their spouses. In Kurdistan the position of the wife in the patriarchal extended family was an insecure one. H e r husband could easily divorce her by saying so in the presence of a rabbi and giving her the m o n e y specified in the marriage contract. There was no alimony and the husband kept the children. W o m e n typically married at the age of fourteen and the marriage was often consummated before the w o m a n was physically mature. A w o m a n was passed f r o m her father to her husband before being old enough to m a k e decisions on her own. And, both the birth and mortality rate were very high (Weintraub and Shapiro 1968). 2 These w o m e n did not marry for love. Husbands and wives lived very separate lives, and there was no cultural expectation of romance, friendship, or even deep affection between spouses. Although the ethnographic literature abounds with
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details of joyous and festive nuptial celebrations, the w o m e n w h o m I interviewed say little about their own weddings. It is interesting to note that although the w o m e n of this study are aware of the fact that Jewish law enjoins u p o n the w o m a n to abide by her husband's family's customs when she marries, 3 and most of them indeed did this, when they talk about "our customs", or "how it is done by us", they mean by their parents, not by their husbands. Widowhood was a great liberating factor in the lives of the women. One widow told how her husband was always very sickly, and when her six children were small she was "like both a man and a woman." Another w o m a n related how her husband had been sick for eighteen years with asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. She took care of him until he died, taking him to the hospital twice each day. H e had come to Israel from Persia and never learned either H e b r e w or Arabic. The w o m e n believe that their husbands were/are incapable of even fixing their own cups of coffee in the morning, thus a w o m a n whose husband is still living has difficulty leaving the house for m o r e than a few hours a day. (One of the few times that a married w o m a n can justifiably leave h o m e is to go on a pilgrimage to a holy tomb if she had m a d e a vow to do so. While such vows are rare among young women, the husband would not only refrain from hindering his wife, but might even help her go.) All of the w o m e n emphasize that now that they no longer have husbands to make demands on their time, they are free to attend synagogue. 4 The w o m e n of this study were not particularly interested in talking about menstrual taboos and rituals, either out of embarrassment or because the subject has been irrelevant to them for so many years. (Most of these w o m e n have been post-menopansal for about thirty years.) One w o m a n told how in the Old Country the Women had to dip in a freezing cold river at the end of the period of menstrual impurity. Others r e m e m ber that they would sleep on the floor while menstruating (so as not to touch their husbands). 5 This is contrasted with a positive attitude toward menopause. As one w o m a n expressed her feelings about being too old to have any m o r e children, "Thank G o d W h o has released me!" However, although many of the w o m e n are happy to be spared further pregnancies, none of them mentioned m e n o p a u s e as a turning point in their religious lives. The Jerusalem w o m e n believe that very old w o m e n are both m o r e pious and should be m o r e careful about religious observance than young women. F o r example, it is far worse for an old w o m a n to dress immodestly than for a younger one. In m a n y of the folk tales that they know the heroine is an old woman, and frequently a widow. These old women, living by themselves without the demands of husbands and families, devote all of their time to charitable works. A favorite folk story concerns a very poor, old widow who would bake four loaves of bread each day
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and give three away to p o o r people, saving only one for herself. After many adventures, culminating in her saving four victims of a shipwreck, she was rewarded by the king who invited her to come live in his palace and have whatever she wanted for herself and whatever she wanted to give away to the p o o r Before going on, it is necessary to point out that the role of widow hardly existed in the Old Country. Women's life expectancy was much shorter than it is in modern Israel, so that there simply did not exist a group of elderly widows who had a complete religious life of their own. While there are hints in the literature that in Kurdistan very old women could sit in the men's section of the synagogue (Brauer 1947), bless the 'lulav' on Sukkot, 6 and accompany the men to the river for 'tashlich', 7 it seems that there simply were not large numbers of old women. Two religious roles for old women that were slightly more widespread were as experts in various ceremonies to avert the evil eye (Brauer 1947), and as seamstresses of shrouds (Brauer 1947). One other role available to old women was to wash the bodies of female corpses, a job that, according to my informant, took a lot of courage and not all women would or could do. Thus, the religious life of the women of this study is something that to a great extent they have constructed themselves. They did not bring with them from Kurdistan a model for the communal, religious life of elderly women. Rather, they have taken bits and pieces of traditional men's rituals (e.g., synagogue attendance), women's, rituals (e.g., candle lighting), m o d e m , secular Zionism (e.g., planting trees in reforestation projects) and combined them to make a new kind of women's Judaism. Widowhood has had the effect of forcing the women out of the domestic sphere into the public sphere for the performance of various religious rituals. According to Jewish law there are certain religious rituals that both men and women must participate in, but that customarily the man performs at home while his wife watches. The widows of this study who no longer can watch husbands performing these rituals now g o to synagogue to watch them being performed by other men. One woman from Turkey tells that now that she is a widow she goes to synagogue on the Sabbath to hear 'kiddush' (the traditional blessing over wine). This same woman, while her husband was alive, would rarely go to synagogue. H e would make 'kiddush' at home, and she would keep busy preparing his meals while he was at synagogue. It must be emphasized that these widows have not simply t a k e n over male religious roles and prerogatives at the deaths of their husbands (see Gutmann 1977). Whenever possible they find other men to perform the rituals that their husbands once performed; although permitted by Jewish law to do so, the women prefer not to perform the rituals themselves. Those male rituals that they cannot avoid (for example, ritually selling foods that are not permitted for Passover) the women perform with the
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greatest reluctance and discomfort. Thus, while women's religious lives do intensify and broaden in old age and widowhood, the focus of their religiosity remains within the traditional female sphere. Widowhood forces/permits women out of the house but it does not significantly change their religious motivations. The women explain that because of widowhood they are more mobile than they onde were, and they themselves describe this increased mobility primarily in Cterms of their broadened opportunities to leave home to participate in religious study and rituals. In the following paragraphs we will look at three of the public, holy places that the old women have begun frequenting. These three places can be viewed in an ascending order of holiness: senior citizen's day center, synagogue, holy tombs. It is in that order that they will be examined here.
SENIOR CITIZEN'S
DAY CENTER
The day center for senior citizens is utilized only by old women (men may attend but none actually do), and these women had no comparable type of public, religious meeting place when they were young. The weekly schedule of the day center is as follows: Sunday -- Rabbi's lesson, Monday -- (not every week) trip to holy tomb, Tuesday - - Rabbanit's lesson, 8 Wednesday -- Rabbi's lesson..On Thursday and Friday the day center is closed because all of the women are busy preparing for the Sabbath. There are very few secular activities conducted at the day center. While this (and some dozen other) senior citizens day centers are run by the Municipality of Jerusalem, the individual directors and groups of senior citizens can choose the activities that they want (within the appropriate budget). At other day centers in Jerusalem common activities are lectures on various intellectual subjects or English lessons. The fact that at the center frequented by the women of this study almost all of the activities are religious in nature, is the result of the expressed interest of the particular women who attend; the old Sephardi women themselves request religious activities. An important function of the day center is to make celebrations for the women. Every holiday, major or minor, receives a great deal of attention, and is usually accompanied by a party or other,special treat. For example, on Purim they are given bags of cakes and candy. For those women whose children have moved away, the day center may indeed be the focus of their holiday celebrations.-When these same women were younger the essence of the Jewish holidays was food preparation and other domestic rituals. But now that they celebrate many of the holidays in the context of the day center, public rituals have taken precedence. For Tu b'Shvat (the new year for trees) they are taken to plant trees in a reforestation project; for Jerusalem Day they are taken on a tour around Jerusalem.
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The religious lessons that the w o m e n attend at the day center are an innovation. They all emphasize that they have only begun learning in old age or since their husbands died (the mothers of these w o m e n did not learn even in old age.) The w o m e n of this study are exceedingly p r o u d of their learning and listen attentively even when the lesson is incomprehensible to them. When asked why they come to the day center, some answer that they like the lessons, others say that they want to be able to join the trips to holy tombs organized by the center, but m a n y admit that they come in order to pass the time "now that we are all alone." Thus, daily attendance at religious lessons, with the natural result of increased knowledge about Judaica, must be seen as connected to the loneliness of widowhood.
SYNAGOGUE These w o m e n visit the synagogue for both social and religious reasons. Unlike the day center which is ethnically mixed, each w o m a n attends only the synagogue of her own ethnic group. 9 T h e r e she will greet friends, relatives, and neighbors, though almost no active socializing goes o n during the actual service. Very few of the w o m e n went to synagogue when they were younger; they were too busy caring for their children and husbands. A n d still today, at the local synagogues on weekdays, the only w o m e n present are quite old. T h e y explain that only old w o m e n go to synagogue regularly, with young w o m e n coming on such special occasions as Rosh H a s h a n a h and Y o m Kippur. Shai found that younger Kurdish women never go to synagogue - - they are embarrassed to go because it is considered an old women's activity (Shai 1970). Indeed, according to Katzir, in Y e m e n w o m e n were actually barred from the synagogue; it was considered a sin for a w o m a n to learn to read or to enter a synagogue as w o m e n were considered potentially defiling because of menstrual and childbirth blood (Katzir 1976). The Kurdish w o m e n of this study claim that menstruating w o m e n may not enter the synagogue. However, most add that if a w o m a n really wants to she may - - she should just sit as far back as possible and not look when the 'Torah' (Pentateuch) is raised up. 1° It should be r e m e m b e r e d that while most of these w o m e n have been menopausal for m a n y years, they have only recently begun attending synagogue regularly, Furthermore, even when they were young they were often pregnant or lactating and so amenstrual, thus this should not be seen as a key factor determining women's synagogue participation. At synagogue the w o m e n sit in a women's balcony which is entirely closed off from the main [male] section. The w o m e n have a n u m b e r of their own synagogue rituals of which the men are probably not even aware. On weekdays, for example, after the evening service one w o m a n will pass around perfume to all of the other women. They will then anoint
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themselves with the perfume and say the formal H e b r e w blessing over pleasant smells. Other w o m e n pass around grapes or small candies so that their co-worshippers will have m o r e opportunities to say blessings. Most of the w o m e n have special shawls, sweaters, and kerchiefs that they wear in synagogue. Lower arms and foreheads, parts of the body that do not need to be covered at other times, must be covered in synagogue. This has little to do With the men being distracted by the women's sexuality - - the men cannot even see into the women's section. Rather this is an important element in the women's own perception of their relationship with God. The w o m e n attend synagogue for reasons that are very different than those of men. First, as was said above, they go for social reasons - - to get out of the house and meet friends of their own ethnic groups. As widows they are simultaneously lonely and free of household responsibility. Second, they go in order to be able to participate in, albeit passively, such men's rituals as 'kiddush' and 'havdalah'. Third, in synagogue they make personal petitions to G o d in a place that is holy, and so increases the likelihood of the petition's being granted. A n d fourth, the w o m e n believe that one gets religious merit from going to synagogue. Thus, in the words of one woman, it does not bother her that she cannot hear the prayer service because " G o d knows if you have the desire to go to synagogue, so that even if you cannot hear you get the merit." But perhaps the most significant factor both in their increased synagogue attendance and their increased visits to holy tombs is their conviction that the p r o p e r religious role of old w o m e n is to take spiritual care of children and grandchildren. Old w o m e n care for their descendants by praying for them, purchasing blessings from rabbis for them, making petitions for them, asking saints to intercede for them, and giving to charity on their behalf. In short, the role of spiritual guardianship is one that needs to be conducted in such public places as synagogues, because it is in precisely these places that the prayers and petitions are most effective.
PILGRIMAGE The third type of holy space frequented by the w o m e n is holy tombs and cemeteries. Unlike attendance at synagogues and senior citizen's day centers, which are new religious activities for Sephardi women, visiting holy tombs was popular also in the Old Country. However, all of the w o m e n agree that when they had small children they could not leave h o m e to go to the tombs. Indeed, with the exception of huge festivals such as Lag b ' O m e r at Meron, most of the visitors at holy tombs are old women. The w o m e n go to the tombs to request "miracles and wonders", and they consider pilgrimage to be a very serious endeavor. But it is also fun, a break in the routine of their lives, and they thoroughly enjoy the outing.
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During visits to holy tombs the women begin by going into the building housing the tomb, and kissing any 'mezuzot' along the way. 11 They kiss the tomb or the grating around the tomb, whisper a short prayer, put money in the collection boxes stationed around the tomb; and finally light candles that they have brought for this purpose. At several of the tombs they are not permitted to light candles, so they throw the u.nlit candles up against the tomb and leave them there. Sometimes one or more women serve pieces of cake that they had brought from home. Cakes or cookies are often brought as part of a vow that was made during a previous trip -- if one's petition will be granted she will bring a 'simha' (happy celebration) for everyone at the tomb. Most of the women's rituals at the tombs are supremely tactile. The women kiss and caress the tomb, and everything surrounding the tomb. Many of the women cry while leaning against the tomb. One c o u l d even say the crying is ritualistic - - a woman who visits a holy tomb is supposed to cry. For the women, most of whom are illiterate, kissing and crying are important modes of religious expression. Although men also visit hoty tombs (especially that of Rabbi Meir baal HaNess in Tiberias), they generally do not go up to the tomb itself. At those sites where there are places to sit and rest near the tomb, only women sit down. The men either stand at a distance, or, in the case of Rabbi MeWs tomb, they congregate at a synagogue nearby. Covering Rabbi Meir's tomb is a large, heavy curtain, and the women stand in line to be able to walk between the curtain and the tomb and so make their petitions and prayers directly against the tomb itself. The holy tombs are public sacred spaces that are visited primarily by old women. F o r the women of this study going on pilgrimage is both a social and economic luxury that they could not afford when they were younger, and a type of religiosity that was not part of their lives until recently. Visiting tombs gives the women a feeling of holiness, of heightened spirituality, but more important, visiting tombs gives the women the merit or right to ask the saints to intercede on behalf of their families. When the day center organizes a trip to the tombs, many women who do not attend the day center on a regular basis join up for the trip. As far as I can discern, the elderly non-widows who cannot leave their husbands for daily religious activities (the day center or the synagogue) can often manage (sometimes together with their husbands) an occasional pilgrimage.
CONCLUSION In Christian's study of religion in a rural Spanish valley, he collected material on the religious life of the Catholic widowJ 2 According to
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Christian, "It is then ]upon widowhood] that she may become one of the elderly ladies in black that are seen haunting the church in every European village, for the death of the husband is a change in the life stream equivalent to that of passing out of the shelter of parental protection, and as in that earlier situation, a turn to the church is a solution to a sudden sense of aloneness" (Christian 1972: 160). In Christians's opinion, these women are often "devotional, even theological virtuosi" (Christian 1972: 160). They enjoy religion, seeing in old age "an opportunity to work out the logic of ceremonies, the relative merits of different d e v o t i o n s . . . " (Christian 1972: 160--161). While the similarities between the women of Christian's study and the women of this study are striking, there is at least one important difference: the Jewish women were physically transplanted from one culture to another. Whereas the Spanish women can view modern life (and modern religion) as an intruder, as less true than the old ways, the women of Jerusalem, to a very great extent, believe that the 'mainstream' Israeli Judaism (concerning which they are painfully aware of their ignorance) is in many ways superior to their own traditions. Thus, the old women of the Jerusalem study would never consider themselves "theological virtuosi." Like the women of the Valley, these women enjoy religion; they see greater religious involvement as one of the rewards of old age. Yet they retain an awareness of having chosen a new religious path. They know that they cannot model their religious world on that of their foremothers. Their mothers did not have a senior citizen's day center to make holiday celebrations for them; their grandmothers did not attend synagogue. Women in the old country died too young to have a complete, old women's, mode of religious behavior. The women of this study believe that they have been entrusted with a sacred task -- as widows they can travel to the holy places from which requests made to God on behalf of their children will most likely be heard. And that is particularly important in this day and age of secularization, of declining religious observance, of immodest dress and agnosticism. The children of these women regard their mothers as sacred specialists. Most of their children, totally assimilated into modern Israeli society, are far less religious than their parents. Thus the children see their mothers as somehow closer to God, as experts in carrying on holy traditions. While their daughters deeply respect their mothers' spiritual prowess, they themselves seem to exhibit no desire to be as religiously active as their mothers are. And while the mothers of the women of this study may have dreamed of the rich religious life that their daughters now lead, few lived long enough to actualize it. To conclude, in this article I have argued the necessity of looking beyond physiology in order to attempt a coherent analysis of women and religion. While fertility, lactation, blood, and menopause are certainly pervasive, both on the level of myth and on the level of ritual, such
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analyses of female religiosity seem to ignore other social and cultural f a c t o r s w h i c h m a y b e e q u a l l y , if n o t m o r e , i m p o r t a n t . T h e w o m e n o f t h i s study, most of whom are in their seventies and eighties, have been post-menopausal f o r o n e t h i r d t o o n e h a l f o f t h e i r a d u l t lives. Y e t , significant changes have taken place in their religious role more recently, specifically, since they have become widowed. Widowhood, for these Kurdish-Jewish women, seems to be the point at which motive (to safeguard the well-being of their families), method (spiritual guardianship and mediation), and opportunity (release from the demands of husbands) come together.
NOTES There was one young woman (in her late forties) who regularly attended the center, and she indeed had been widowed for a number of years. Old non-widowed women attend the center and synagogue only on occasion. Almost all of the "regulars" are widows. : Shai describes wedding songs of Kurdish Jewish women in which the theme is of the ~ i n g and hiding to escape marriage (Shal 1974). Zenner notes that among the women of Syria the attitude toward marriage was above all fatalistic -- one's husband is called one's fate (Zenner 1965). 3 For a discussion of this law, see Shmuel Katz, Kedoshim Tihyu (Jerusalem: 1980), p. 197. 4 While it would be interesting to know if young, childless widows also attend synagogue, in this population it is impossible to find out, because there are so few young, childless widows. Based on my field work, it seems that only old women go to synagogue (on weekdays). 5 As Harvey Goldberg has correctly pointed out, there is an element of boasting in women's comments about the hardships they suffered in order to observe the laws of menstrual purity (personal communication 1986). 6 The 'lulav' is the palm branch that is held, along with the 'etrog' or citroen, by Jewish males in synagogue each morning of the holiday of Sukkot (see Brauer 1947). 7 'Tashlich' is a ceremony that is done on Rosh HaShana for symbolically casting away one's sins (see Brauer 1947). There is no prohibition against women performing this ritual, but in previous generations they rarely did. 8 'Rabbanit' is the honorific title normally given to the wife of a rabbi or a particularly pious or learned women. The Rabbanit who teaches at the day center is both. 9 Ethnic synagogues are currently in a state of flux in Israeli society. In the neighborhood of the day center where there are numerous synagogues, representing a large number of ethnic groups, there is a small amount of intermingling. 10 The Torah is held up for the synagogue congregation to see on Mondays, Thursday, Sabbaths, and holidays. For the illiterate women sitting up in the women's gallery, the raising of the Torah is the highlight of the synagogue service as this is when personal petitions to God are believed most likely to be answered. In Ashkenazi synagogues in Eastern Europe there was a woman who helped the other women follow the Hebrew service. No such job exists among these Sephardi women. xl The 'mezuzah' is a small box containing several verses from the Bible hung on the doorways of Jewish homes. ~z There have been several recent interesting studies of the religious role of widows in the early Church (Reuther 1979, McKenna 1967).
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Brauer, A. 1947 Jews of Kurdistan. Jerusalem: HaMaarav Press. Christian, W. 1972 Person and God in a Spanish Valley. New York: Seminar Press. Gross, R. 1980 Menstruation and Childbirth as Ritual and Religious Experience among Native Austrailians. In Unspoken Worlds, Women's Religious Lives in Non-Western Cultures. N. Falk and R. Gross, eds. San Fransico: Harper and Row. Gutmann, D. 1977 The Cross-Cultural Perspective: Notes Toward a Comparative Psychology of Aging. In Handbook of the Psychology of Aging. J. Birren and K. Schaie, eds. New York: Nostrand Reinhold Co. Hoch-Smith, J. and A. Spring, eds. 1978 Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles. New York: Plenum Press. Katzir, Y. 1976 The Effects of Resettlement on the Status and Role of Yemini Women: The Case of Ramat Oranim, Israel. Berkeley: Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California. Lowie, R. 1952 Primitive Religion. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. McKenna, Sr. M. L. 1967 Women of the Church: Role and Renewel. New York: Kenedy and Sons. Myerhoff, B. 1978 Bobbes and Zeydes: Old and New Roles for Elderly Jews. In Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles. J. Hoch-Smith and A. Spring, eds. New York: Plenum Press. Reuther, R. 1979 Mothers of the Church: Ascetic Women in the Late Patristic Period. In Women of Spirit, Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions. R. Reuther and E. McLanghlin, eds. New York: Simon and Schuster. Shai, D. 1970 Neighborhood Relations in an Immigrant Quarter. Jerusalem: Henrietta Szold Institute Research Report No. 149, Publication No. 499. Shai, D. 1974 Wedding Customs among the Kurdish Jews in (Zakho) Kurdistan and In (Jerusalem) Israel. Jerusalem: Folklore Research Center Studies 4. Turner, V. and E. Turner 1978 Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Weintraub, D. and M. Shapiro 1968 The Traditional Family in Israel in the Process of Change -- Crisis and Continuity. British Journal of Sociology 19: 284--299. Zenner, W. 1965 Syrian Jewish Identification in Israel. New York: Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University.
Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan Israel
