Read more
List of contents
Introduction; 1. Women for the temple and the (in)divisibility of Temple Mount; 2. Women of the wall: feminism between intra- and inter-communal contestation; 3. Al-aqsa will not be divided! Murabitat traveling to, studying in, and fighting for Al-aqsa; Epilogue - the question of religious freedom.
About the author
Lihi Ben Shitrit is Assistant Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. She was a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Middle East Initiative (2018–19), the University of Pennsylvania's Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (2017), and the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School (2013–14). She is the author of Righteous Transgressions: Women's Activism on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right (2015) and her current book project Women and the Holy City won the American Council of Learned Societies and the Luce Foundation's distinguished Religion, Public Affairs & Journalism Fellowship.
Summary
Jerusalem's Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif is one of the holiest places in the world for Jews and Muslims and a constant feature in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This study addresses the gendered dimensions of inter-communal disputes over sacred space in Jerusalem and the role of women in these conflicts.
Additional text
'This sophisticated account of the gendered dimensions of contemporary conflict over Jerusalem's sacred esplanade is a must-read for scholars of religion and politics. Challenging the naïve assumption of women as 'do-gooders,' Ben Shitrit shows that women's religious freedom activism has entrenched the very divisions and hierarchies within and between communities that it is presumed to tame or transcend.' Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Northwestern University
