{"id":190,"date":"2021-03-07T23:22:50","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T23:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/?p=190"},"modified":"2021-03-09T03:22:43","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T03:22:43","slug":"women-as-ritual-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/women-as-ritual-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"Women as Ritual Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Sered, Susan.&nbsp;<em>Women as Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem<\/em>. Oxford University Press, 1996,&nbsp;<em>ACLS Humanities E-Book<\/em>, www.fulcrum.org\/epubs\/9s161648d?locale=en#\/6\/2[xhtml00000001]!\/4\/4\/1:0.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This book offers a wealth of information about the lives of Jewish women and their connection to food and spirituality. Based on the lives and stories of elderly women who frequent a senior citizen&#8217;s center in Jerusalem&#8217;s Kurdish neighborhood, <em>Women as Ritual Experts <\/em>takes a close look at the spiritual lives of Jewish women and what forms religion takes for them. Covering topics from the sacred nature of food preparation to the hidden liberation in widowhood, this book is a comprehensive look into the secret spiritual world that Jewish women have created under the yolk of a male-centered religion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Much of traditional Judaism excludes women from ritual, having them worship in a different section of the synagogue, not allowing them to spend the day studying the Torah as men did, and marking them as the lesser religious figure in the house. Because of this, women have had to find ways to live meaningful spiritual lives on their own, outside of traditional religious structure. Much of this is channeled into food preparation, the strict dietary laws essentially turning cooking into a religious ritual. Women become religious figureheads in their own homes, dictating the spiritual lives of their husbands and children from the kitchen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This book offered me a lot of wisdom on the subjects of Jewish women&#8217;s spirituality and food. The two are deeply interlinked, finding their connection to God not in the synagog, but in the kitchen. Initially used as a space to contain and oppress women, by subverting and reclaiming their roles as cooks in the home, the kitchen became a place of power. This book highlights how unwilling Jewish women are to accept a reality that does not serve them. When something does not feel good, they will change it until it does. <em>Women as Ritual Experts<\/em> is a testament to how powerful a tool food can be in overcoming the patriarchal holds that have been placed upon you. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PC: Susan Starr Sered<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":462,"featured_media":191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-w21-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}