Lieke Schrijvers

This article analyses the use of a prayer shawl by Liberal Jewish women who did a giyur (‘conversion’) in the Netherlands. One of the defining features of Liberal Judaism is the renewed interpretation of certain commandments in Jewish law. In these communities women are permitted to take on certain roles and tasks traditionally reserved for men. A symbol of this change is the use of a prayer shawl, a tallit, during services on Shabbat. However, the practice of women wearing a tallit is disputed and was often discussed amongst the newcomers I interviewed. For some wearing a prayer shawl marked the full inclusion in Judaism after a long and challenging conversion process, whilst others were hesitant or even opposed to wearing a tallit for various reasons related to gender norms. This article analyses the different uses of a prayer shawl by my research participants as an illustration of the varying gender norms in Liberal Judaism as well as the role of gender in giyur trajectories.

This chapter analyses the intersections between Judaism, conversion, belonging, and gender, through the lived material practice of the tallit. Conversion to a religious tradition is not merely a change in mind set, but rather implies the learning, performance and negotiation of a religious habitus. This is especially the case with conversions to Judaism, or giyur, which focuses on the learning of practices and commitment to synagogue life. Such process of ‘self-making’ is directly related to questions of gender and the possibility of taking on certain objects and tasks. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this chapter traces how conversion materialises in daily ritual practice for women in various Jewish communities in the specific ritual use of the prayer shawl, or tallit. Gender equality has been one of the prime topics by which liberal Judaism came to distinguish itself from orthodoxy in the Netherlands. A symbol of this difference is the use of the tallit by women, both in the local Dutch context as well as internationally. Historically, women have been excluded from Shul life, and wearing a tallit, as is permitted in liberal synagogues, can be revolutionary as a marker of inclusion. For converted women in the Jewish diaspora of the Netherlands, wearing the tallit in service can be a confirmation of their Jewishness, but is more often met with ambivalence. Some don’t practice, because they do not want to disturb the status quo, or because they see value in gender segregation in shul. Others do, for equally varied reasons, from political quests for emancipation, to pious desires for submission and devotion. As a compromise, specific forms of ‘women’s tallit’ have entered the synagogues, worn by women who do so out of pious desire. This chapter starts from these various prayer shawl practices, to trace broader questions of belonging. It asks not only how this object is used, but also which types of gender discourses, pious desires, and notions of agency are expressed through the use (or lack thereof) of a tallit.

The article presents two case studies of two women who were confronted with a loss of religious authority as they were asked to resign from their lay leading positions after their coming-out as transwomen in the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. By focusing on these stories, this article provides further insight into queer lives in Europe starting from the intersections of gender, sexuality and religion. The cases show how the position of transwomen is negotiated by both religious structures as well as by transwomen themselves. The analysis focuses particularly on the interactions between the women and their community and church authorities and examines the use of gender/sexuality terminology, the role of the body, and the individualization of faith. This article brings together insights from religious studies, gender, trans* and queer studies, which allows for a multi-layered understanding of trans* and religion in a European context.

Dynamics of belonging and exclusion and the notion of being 'in-between' are common in dominant discourse regarding sexuality and Christianity in Dutch society. Homosexuality and Christianity are considered as incompatible , with religious homosexuals moving in between religiosity and sexuality. This dominant discourse in both media and academia mainly focuses on homosexual men. As a consequence, the lives and narratives of religious non-heterosexual women are silenced and made invisible – an exclusion which this article seeks to address. Based on in-depth interviews with non-heterosexual Protestant women, this article foregrounds the stories, practices, and experiences of these women. It explores different strategies these women use to move beyond the dominant discourse of incompatibility. Instead of positioning Christianity and non-normative sexuality as opposites, these women show how religion and religiosity can affirm love and desire for women. This article argues that the faith of these women enables them to express love and desire in other parts of their life, such as in relations with women. At the same time sexuality, especially same-sex sexuality and female sexuality, is largely unspoken or even condemned within the Churches that these women attend. These women use various strategies to establish a sense of community by questioning established boundaries through an experience of sex as positive and empowering. Through these negotiations of God, sex, love, and the Church, these stories emphasise the agency and creativity of these women by showing the diverse ways in which religion and sexuality intersect and are embodied. As such religion and sexuality are co-constructed and embodied by these women as empowering modes of negotiation.

This article examines two separate events of 2013: the pro-Black Pete demonstration in the Hague and the anti-Putin demonstration in Amsterdam. By analyzing the contexts and bodies of these debates, this paper looks at several ways in which a Dutch national subject is imagined within these events. I argue that these are local and global sites that are both creating, and created by, structural forces of in- and exclusion within and beyond a notion of “Dutch national identity.” In this paper, I use a transnational feminist framework and queer of color critique to analyze the multiple linkages within, between, and among both spaces to ask how Dutchness is demonstrated.

In public debates in contemporary Western Europe, religious traditions are often met with suspicion when it concerns the freedom of women. Monotheistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are in these debates often considered to pose a threat to ideals of equality and emancipation. At the same time, traditional religious groups increasingly foreground themselves as protectors of conservative notions of family, gender roles and sexual behavior. We could say that this is an oppositional relation of religion and emancipation. Following this, women who convert to religious traditions that are considered to be ‘conservative’, provide us with a paradox, both on socio-political and conceptual level. In my PhD project, I focus on this paradox by collecting and analyzing contemporary conversion narratives of women in Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Netherlands. We expect that women’s conversion implies a negotiation of modern ideals of women’s emancipation and individual autonomy on the one hand, and religious regulations about gender and sexuality on the other. This nuanced perspective is rather different than mainstream representations of conversion in public debates and academia.

See: In public debates in contemporary Western Europe, religious traditions are often met with suspicion when it concerns the freedom of women. Monotheistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are in these debates often considered to pose a threat to ideals of equality and emancipation. At the same time, traditional religious groups increasingly foreground themselves as protectors of conservative notions of family, gender roles and sexual behavior. We could say that this is an oppositional relation of religion and emancipation. Following this, women who convert to religious traditions that are considered to be ‘conservative’, provide us with a paradox, both on socio-political and conceptual level. In my PhD project, I focus on this paradox by collecting and analyzing contemporary conversion narratives of women in Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Netherlands. We expect that women’s conversion implies a negotiation of modern ideals of women’s emancipation and individual autonomy on the one hand, and religious regulations about gender and sexuality on the other. This nuanced perspective is rather different than mainstream representations of conversion in public debates and academia.

See: http://cchr.uu.nl/women-converting-to-islam-in-the-netherlands-van-hagelslag-naar-halal/