Niddah

Since the 1960’s and 1970’s, ethnographic research on Jewish menstrual rituals known as Niddah, Taharat HaMishpacha, or Family Purity has associated their practices with religious behavior. Much of this research organizes around questions of women’s agency within ostensibly patriarchally constructed religious practices that carry the potential to oppress its women practitioners. This premise is built upon a number of implicit assumptions about the history of today’s Niddah practices: that Niddah is observed exclusively by Orthodox Jews; that increasing rates of Niddah observance correlate exclusively with the trend toward stricter observance levels among the Orthodox since the 1960s; and that this increasingly strict observance itself reflects a reactionary trend among the Orthodox community (a.k.a. tradition versus modernity). All these assumptions currently circulate, in various degrees, among the American Jewish lay community and are shared by a significant number of congregational rabbis. Until the 1990s, no history of Niddah existed to either support or refute these assumptions. I initially intended that this project would provide future ethnographers with a comprehensive history of Niddah in America during the past one and a half centuries. I engaged Victor Turner’s theory of Social Drama as a framework for understanding this history as a socio-cultural process, rather than as a series of less than related events. However, this study has resulted in the identification of many more specific assumptions about the decline and revival of Niddah observance in the twentieth century, which are not supported by the scant evidence available. These challenged assumptions beg new directions for research; a thorough reworking of the history of Niddah in America; and a fresh look at the literature advocating Niddah produced in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. This genealogy as Social Drama presents Niddah in twentieth century America as undergoing periods of crisis, negotiation, and reintegration. This drama was triggered by late nineteenth century concepts of religion, body, and ritual that undermined and ruptured the integrity of Niddah as a bodily religious ritual practice. Niddah’s twentieth century social drama culminated in fresh articulations of a unique Jewish sexuality and Jewish marital ethic.

A Lifetime Companion to the Laws of Jewish Family Life by Deena R. Zimmerman is an excellent book for English readers wishing to study the laws of niddah  in a serious manner. It enables one to learn the halakhot from the original sources placing them in a comprehensible framework. The companion is well structured and written in a clear and empathetic style. It discusses practical medical issues typically not discussed in popular manuals. While the book is a great contribution to the field of family purity laws (hilkhot niddah)—specifically to the genre of theoretical books teaching the basic issues involved with keeping these laws—it suffers from the tendency, seen in many other such manuals, to direct the reader to a rabbi rather than resolving issues directly.

""En hébreu rabbinique, le terme niddah désigne la femme au moment de ses règles, le sang menstruel en soi, ou la période d’impureté liée à la menstruation. Une réglementation stricte concerne la femme niddah dans la loi religieuse juive (halakhah) ; notamment, les relations conjugales sont interdites pendant cette période. Parmi les nombreux textes qui traitent des questions liées à la menstruation, la Baraïta de-Niddah est de loin le plus étrange. Écrit en hébreu, il est difficile à dater et à localiser : peut-être peut-on le situer en Palestine, dans la seconde moitié du premier millénaire de l’ère chrétienne. Précédemment, il n’a été publié qu’une fois, en 1890. La présente édition, accompagnée d’une traduction française, voudrait permettre un accès à ce texte fascinant aux hébraïsants ainsi qu’aux non-spécialistes. Prétendant à un statut de texte législatif classique, cette pseudo-Baraïta (texte contemporain de la Mishna, mais qui n’a pas été reçu dans le recueil officiel) a eu un statut ambigu dans la tradition rabbinique. Sans aucun souci de chronologie par rapport aux personnages dont elle cite les propos, elle est en fait un recueil de croyances populaires, où se mêlent des considérations qui se veulent médicales, des observations naturelles étonnantes et, surtout, une peur extrême de la femme menstruée. Ce texte constitue un document particulièrement remarquable, qui devrait susciter l’intérêt aussi bien des ethnologues et des sociologues que des spécialistes de l’histoire des rapports hommes/femmes et des religions.

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Tracing an early rabbinic approach to the human, this article analyzes how the Tannaim of the Mishnah and Tosefta set the human side by side with other species, and embedded their account within broader considerations of reproduction , zoology and species hybridity. The human here emerges at the intersection of menstrual purity law and Temple sacrificial law in the tractates of Niddah and Bekhorot and is part of a reproductive biology that sought to determine the boundaries and overlaps between species. This rabbinic biology ought to be understood amid ancient conversations about what constitutes a proper member of a species, in terms of reproduction, resemblance and variation. The article shows how, even as it disavows genealogical links between humans and animals (and indeed across other species), rabbinic reproductive biology nonetheless implicates humans among and as animals.

The concept of purity exists in many cultures all over the world. This article investigates the idea of Jewish female purity-niddah. The word "purity" itself suggests its connotation to physical and ritual hygiene. This paper shows that even though the concept of "ritual purity" in Judaism might have started as an ancient form of hygiene, nowadays it functions as sexual restriction and biopower over Jewish women. Rabbinical sexual prohibitions have drastically transformed the initial practice in an effort to control female gendered behavior. Due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, this essay is written using the methodology of digital ethnography. The digital research was conducted in several Facebook groups of mainly English-speaking Orthodox women. The online research provides an insight into Jewish practices related to niddah, which are not traditionally spoken of freely and demonstrates how the contemporary concept of niddah affects women's lives severely.

Author: Ginger O'Neil
Publisher: CBE International

Lake Fairfax Park in northern Virginia, with its tantalizing water slides and charming boat rides, attracts thousands of visitors every year—young and old alike, singly, in twosomes, or in larger planned community outings. On a beastly torrid summer day, I went there with my family. Hundreds of folks pranced and splashed about in bathing suits. Being no exception to the norm, we were all in swimsuits, too.

The concept of purity exists in many cultures all over the world. This article investigates the idea of Jewish female purity – niddah. The word “purity” itself suggests its connotation to physical and ritual hygiene. This paper shows that even though the concept of “ritual purity” in Judaism might have started as an ancient form of hygiene, nowadays it functions as sexual restriction and biopower over Jewish women. Rabbinical sexual prohibitions have drastically transformed the initial practice in an effort to control female gendered behavior. Due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, this essay is written using the methodology of digital ethnography. The digital research was conducted in several Facebook groups of mainly English-speaking Orthodox women. The online research provides an insight into Jewish practices related to niddah, which are not traditionally spoken of freely and demonstrates how the contemporary concept of niddah affects women’s lives severely.

Author: William David Spencer
Publisher: CBE International

B: What is the niddah? M: The niddah ritual separation is historical in Jewish, Muslim, and some other religions. The niddah veil is their warning signal. They believe, if a woman is menstruating, she is unclean. So, for example, for Muslims, when a male goes to a mosque and he prays, he should be clean. He cannot touch a menstruating woman. So, you know, when they go for prayer, they wash their hands; they wash their feet; and they go to the toilet; they clean themselves, because, before they go to pray, they should be clean. But they are not supposed to touch anything unclean, because, if they touch anything unclean, they cannot go and pray. So, they consider a woman who is menstruating, she’s unclean. So, that is why they cannot touch a woman. That is why they say sometime even to a stranger or anybody, they do not touch, because they do not know whether she is menstruating or not. If they touch, they are defiled. They become unclean and cannot pray. So, it is mainly for prayer accountability, for guarding the prayers of men. They go to mosque; women don’t go to mosque.