Book contents
- Women and the Holy City
- Women and the Holy City
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Language
- 1 Introduction: A Tourist at Home
- 2 Women for the Temple and the (In)Divisibility of Temple Mount
- 3 Women of the Wall
- 4 Al-Aqsa will not be Divided!
- 5 Epilogue: The Question of Religious Freedom
- Notes
- References
- Index
1 - Introduction: A Tourist at Home
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 October 2020
- Women and the Holy City
- Women and the Holy City
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Language
- 1 Introduction: A Tourist at Home
- 2 Women for the Temple and the (In)Divisibility of Temple Mount
- 3 Women of the Wall
- 4 Al-Aqsa will not be Divided!
- 5 Epilogue: The Question of Religious Freedom
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
This book explores three contemporary women’s movements in and around Jerusalem’s Sacred Esplanade: Women for the Temple, a messianic Jewish Orthodox women’s movement campaigning for access to Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif; Murabitat, pious Muslim women activists mobilizing for the defense of al-Aqsa Mosque from Jewish claims; and Women of the Wall (WOW), a Jewish feminist organization working against restrictive gender regulations at the Western Wall. Using these cases, the book demonstrates how attention to gender and to women’s engagement in conflict over central sacred places is essential for understanding the intra-communal processes that make contested sacred sites appear increasingly “indivisible” for parties in the inter-communal context. More broadly, the book argues that a gender analysis of contested sacred places enriches and sharpens both our description of the “choreographies” of such sites and our analytical understanding of the contemporary dynamics of conflict in these sites; in particular the processes that give rise to the problem of “indivisibility.”
Keywords
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- Women and the Holy CityThe Struggle over Jerusalem's Sacred Space, pp. 1 - 21Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020