An in-depth study of Jew­ish reli­gion and law in Israel from a gen­dered per­spec­tive.

In Holy Rebel­lion, Ronit Irshai and Tanya Zion-Wal­doks exam­ine social change in Israel through a rig­or­ous analy­sis of the shift­ing entan­gle­ments of reli­gion, gen­der, and law in times of cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion. They explore the­o­log­i­cal, halakhic, polit­i­cal, and soci­o­log­i­cal process­es and show how they inter­act with one anoth­er in ways that advance women’s rights, as well as how they are met with a con­ser­v­a­tive back­lash in the dis­cours­es and actions of the rab­binic estab­lish­ment. Irshai and Zion-Wal­doks build on legal philoso­pher Robert Cover’s 1982 paper ​“Nomos and Nar­ra­tive,” which explained how cul­tur­al nar­ra­tives and legal norms are rec­i­p­ro­cal­ly enforced or trans­formed. Expand­ing on this notion, Irshai and Zion-Wal­doks pro­pose a ​“nar­ra­tive ripeness test,” an ana­lyt­ic tool that eval­u­ates the rela­tion­ship between cul­ture and law to assess how and when change with­in a minor­i­ty cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty may be accel­er­at­ed or hin­dered by state inter­ven­tion.

Reli­gious fem­i­nisms are emerg­ing around the world, not sole­ly in Israel, and this book helps elu­ci­date how they cre­ate endur­ing and rad­i­cal change. Many lib­er­al states are also con­fronting an illib­er­al back­lash and ques­tion the mul­ti­cul­tur­al framework’s abil­i­ty to serve the needs of minori­ties with­in minori­ties. There­fore, the the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work offered by Irshai and Zion-Wal­doks is applic­a­ble beyond the Israeli case, even as it offers deep­er insights into an Israeli soci­ety in turmoil.