Feminism and Faith in Jerusalem

By: Rachel Angle

September 17, 2018

I spent my first Friday in Jerusalem running away from my Jewish faith. Instead of attending Shabbat, my friends and I decided to take a bus to Tel Aviv. Walking towards the bus stop, I was filled with a sense of guilt. I felt like I should be on my way to synagogue with what seemed like the rest of the city. At Georgetown, things always seemed to get in the way of going to Shabbat. The climbing van never got back on time, I had too much homework, or I just didn’t want to get out of bed. Now that I’m in Jerusalem, I can come up with the same excuses. However, in Jerusalem the Sabbath doesn’t just disappear. It’s everywhere, from the silence in the streets to the clothing of families on the way to worship. I can tell myself that my Judaism is my own and there is room for shirking responsibility every once in a while. After all, this is my personal time for discovery, and that includes pushing the limits of what I can and cannot fit into my life. Yet distractions don’t stop the gut feeling that I should be somewhere else wearing something else.

Imagining the beaches of Tel Aviv, I got dressed that morning in my favorite overalls and a tank top. Thirty minutes later, I felt utterly and completely self conscious about the way I was dressed. This consciousness only heightened with each honk, each stare, each man that walked to the other side of the road when he saw my friends and I headed down the street. Since middle school, I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with dress codes. I push the boundaries because I feel that my skin should not be the object of anyone’s “distraction.” I believe strongly that making assumptions based on women's clothing perpetuates a culture of sexual assault in which scantily clad women are presumed to be "asking for it." 

I found myself in conflict with these ideals and my own reality as I started wishing I had worn something else—something that wouldn’t draw so much attention. I felt like I was disrespecting the people I walked by and interrupting their holy day. Yet the next time someone shouted a profanity at me the guilt burned away and it was replaced with anger. Nothing, I told myself, religious tradition or otherwise, gives any human the right to shame someone else for the way he or she dresses. It didn’t matter that Judaism is a religious tradition which I myself am a part of. 

Living in the holiest city in the world comes with a price. It sometimes means who you choose to be isn’t good enough for others. I do not mean to imply that every resident of Jerusalem will chase after you with a cane if you do not go to synagogue every Friday night. But when the standards of religious belief and practice are so intertwined with daily life and simultaneously set so high, trying to live out one’s own version of Judaism can be a struggle. I grew up in a synagogue where I was constantly taught to question; I was taught that questioning is what it means to be Jewish. Yet in Jerusalem there is so much that feels untouchable. There is tradition so pure and deep that practicing Judaism how I grew up and challenging the norm would only be seen as cheapening the religion.

This struggle is heightened for me as I also try to reconcile Judaism as it is presented in Jerusalem with my own feminist beliefs. The conflict is in the way that we’re supposed to dress on Shabbat and the women covering up their hair that I see on the light rail. It feels like taking steps backwards towards a time where women were objects and dressed up however their owner liked. A woman's choice to cover up is her own, and many empowered women choose to do so for completely legitimate reasons. I only hesitate to fully embrace such decisions because I can’t help but wonder how much of a choice there really is. If not covering up means facing ridicule and violence, the line of free will suddenly gets quite blurry. 

I will continue to seek out these situations that make me uncomfortable because it is within these spaces that I can gain greater insights into what I believe. Only next time, perhaps I’ll bring a shawl when I walk through Jerusalem on Shabbat.

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