Voices of the Ritual: Devotion to Female Saints and Shrines in the Holy Land (Oxford Ritual Studies) [1 ed.] 9780197501306, 9780197501320, 9780197501337, 0197501303

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Voices of the Ritual

OX F O R D R I T UA L S T U D I E S Series Editors Ronald Grimes, Ritual Studies International Ute Hüsken, University of Oslo Barry Stephenson, Memorial University THE PROBLEM OF RITUAL EFFICACY Edited by William S. Sax, Johannes Quack, and Jan Weinhold PERFORMING THE REFORMATION Public Ritual in the City of Luther Barry Stephenson RITUAL, MEDIA, AND CONFLICT Edited by Ronald L. Grimes, Ute Hüsken, Udo Simon, and Eric Venbrux KNOWING BODY, MOVING MIND Ritualizing and Learning at Two Buddhist Centers Patricia Q. Campbell SUBVERSIVE SPIRITUALITIES How Rituals Enact the World Frédérique Apffel-​Marglin NEGOTIATING RITES Edited by Ute Hüsken and Frank Neubert THE DANCING DEAD Ritual and Religion among the Kapsiki/​ Higi of North Cameroon and Northeastern Nigeria Walter E.A. van Beek LOOKING FOR MARY MAGDALENE Alternative Pilgrimage and Ritual Creativity at Catholic Shrines in France Anna Fedele The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism Michael David Kaulana Ing A DIFFERENT MEDICINE Postcolonial Healing in the Native American Church Joseph D. Calabrese NARRATIVES OF SORROW AND DIGNITY Japanese Women, Pregnancy Loss, and Modern Rituals of Grieving Bardwell L. Smith

MAKING THINGS BETTER A Workbook on Ritual, Cultural Values, and Environmental Behavior A. David Napier AYAHUASCA SHAMANISM IN THE AMAZON AND BEYOND Edited by Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Clancy Cavnar HOMA VARIATIONS The Study of Ritual Change across the Longue Durée Edited by Richard K. Payne and Michael Witzel HOMO RITUALIS Hindu Ritual and Its Significance to Ritual Theory Axel Michaels RITUAL GONE WRONG What We Learn from Ritual Disruption Kathryn T. McClymond SINGING THE RITE TO BELONG Ritual, Music, and the New Irish Helen Phelan RITES OF THE GOD-​KING Śānti, Orthopraxy, and Ritual Change in Early Hinduism Marko Geslani BUDDHISTS, SHAMANS, AND SOVIETS Rituals of History in Post-​Soviet Buryatia Justine Buck Quijada VOICES OF THE RITUAL Devotion to Female Saints and Shrines in the Holy Land Nurit Stadler

Voices of the Ritual Devotion to Female Saints and Shrines in the Holy Land N U R I T S TA D L E R

1

3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Stadler, Nurit, author. Title: Voices of the ritual : devotion to female saints and shrines in the Holy Land / Nurit Stadler. Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, 2020. | Series: Oxford ritual studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019058655 (print) | LCCN 2019058656 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197501306 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197501320 (epub) | ISBN 9780197501337 (online) Subjects: LCSH: Human body—Religious aspects. | Rites and ceremonies—Palestine. | Women saints—Cult—Palestine. | Sacred space—Palestine. | Palestine—Religious life and customs. Classification: LCC BL65. B63 S83 2020 (print) | LCC BL65. B63 (ebook) | DDC 203/.5095694—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058655 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058656 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

This book is dedicated to my own two female saints, Shira and Sivan.

Contents Acknowledgments

Introduction

Body-​Based Rituals Materiality Place Landscapes The Comparative Analysis and Methods of This Book

ix

1

11 12 12 14 15

1. Contextualization: State, Religion, and Contested Borders

29

2. The Experience: Body Rituals

45

3. The Materials of Rituals: Female Magical Objects, Female Sensation

71

Sacred Archetypes of the Holy Land: Texts and Lands Eschatology Versus Pragmatism: Holy Maps and Physical Borders Sacred Places and the Idea of the Jewish State Religion and Rituals in Israel/​Palestine Body-​Based Womb-​Tomb Shrines Barrenness as Fertility: The Jewish Rachel The Devotional Kiss Ritual: Intimacy and Body-​Based Acquisition The Fetus Emerging from the Womb: The Ritual in Mary’s Tomb

The Language of Magical Items: Rachel as the Traumatic Mother Maternity, Mythology, and Materiality: The Shrine of Mariam Bawardi Magical Objects and the Reconstruction of the Shrine The Holy Well: Rachel the Wife of Rabbi Akiva Fertility Objects: Magical Clothing and Washing Supplies

4. Place: Rituals as Land Claiming

Rituals of Femaleness and the Politics of Land Claiming Female Palimpsest in the Midst of Contested Land Place, Motherhood, and Territoriality God is on the Walls: The Woman of the Apocalypse Clothed in the Sun Claiming Peripheral Lands: Rituals at the Tomb of Rachel the Wife of Rabbi Akiva

29 33 35 38 49 50 55 57

73 80 87 91 96

105 107 107 116 120 129

viii Contents

5. Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order

Landscape and Femininity: A Woman Saint as Allegory of the Nation Landscape Rituals: Mariam Bawardi and Street Processions Our Lady the Queen of Palestine: “Reginae Palestinae” Mary’s End of May Celebration: Approprating Jerusalem via Street Processions Landscape and the Politics of Motherhood: Rachel and the Jewish Landscape

Conclusion

The Sound of Silence: Rituals in Female Shrines and the Voicing of Minority Rights Rituals, Mimesis, and Segregation in Hostile Venues Female Sainthood in a Belligerent Militaristic Landscape

Notes Bibliography Index

137

140 145 149 152 155

163 166 168 171

175 179 195

Acknowledgments This book is the outcome of cooperation and support from a long list of precious and generous researchers, scholars, students, friends, and family. This comparative research project began while I was still writing and exploring the world of Ultra-​Orthodox Judaism in Israel. My interest in probing other religions, cosmologies, rituals, and sacred places to develop a comparative perspective for the study of religion, as well as my passion to better understand Mary’s universal force as a feminine symbol of mass veneration, served to both coalesce and stimulate the current volume. It was in the summer of 2003, with my friend Dr. Oren Golan, that I started what would be a lengthy journey into the Christian Orthodox celebrations of Mary in Jerusalem. I thank Oren for being part of this adventure, which required long nights of walking and watching until the very first light of dawn over Jerusalem. I took my first steps toward the many observations that would follow with Oren, and these moments engendered this book. My friend and colleague Professor Nimrod Luz, with his strong intellectual skills and ethnographic intuitions, realized that our research projects intermingled, and thanks to him we launched a collaboration on a larger project on sacred places that compares various streams of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian venerations of sacred places, with the goal of understanding how they all affect the place, landscape, and borderlands of Israel/​Palestine. His name appears in all the chapters of this book, and I am thankful for the inspirations he gave me when writing and using notions from cultural geography. I will be forever grateful for Nimrod’s true friendship and fruitful cooperation. Yolande Mclean edited the manuscript with extraordinary attention to language and with a fine grasp of my deepest wishes. She became a friend, a teacher, and a writing companion. I am grateful to Yolande for her sensitivity and focus on every detail and comment. This book would not have been possible without her. The artwork for this book is mainly based on the collection I produced with the talented photographer Guy Raivitz. Guy and I attended numerous events: his eyes captured things that were invisible to me, and I thank him for letting me use his work in this book.

x Acknowledgments Oxford University Press was welcoming and became an encouraging home. I  wish to thank the editors of the Oxford series on Ritual Studies, Professors Ronald Grimes, Ute Hüsken, and Barry Stephenson. Professor Grimes encouraged me to write this book when it was simply an idea on paper. Since then, he has been involved in all the phases of its development, in particular by stimulating and supporting my writing. I  thank Ron immensely for his patience and help throughout the writing and publishing of this book. I wish to thank Cynthia Read for all her help with the manuscript, her good advice, and her determination. Zara Cannon-​Mohammed the editorial assistant and Rajesh Kathamuthu the project manager, that helped me with all aspects of production and art. I had the honor of working with Wendy Walker that have carefully worked on the editing of this book at the final crucial stages. I thank all of them for the attentiveness and devotion and appreciate their help very much. I would like to express my gratitude to Professor John Eade. He is an inspiration to all who want to study sacred places and journey into the world of pilgrimages. John’s encouragement and my collaboration with him has constantly influenced my work. I thank John for his help, inspiration and cooperation in this book and many other intellectual voyages. Professor Don Handelman worked with me on the introduction to this book: his comments and new ideas on ritual transformed my thinking and formulations. Professor Karen Barkey read various drafts of the book proposal and offered prompt and insightful feedback. She encouraged me to rapidly finalize the draft and publish the book. I  admire her forthrightness and am thankful for her support. I am incredibly grateful to Professor David Lehmann for his longstanding support of my work and for endless conversations on religion, sacredness, and modernity. Professor Valentina Napolitano, my friend and colleague, inspired me with her work on Guadalupe in Rome, an ethnography that gave me a good excuse to participate in several comparative projects and to meet her more frequently in remarkable places. I thank Professor Brouria Bitton-​Ashkelony for her friendship and collaboration on questions of Christianity and pilgrimages, Professor Meir Hatina for his Islamic perspective and theoretical comparative work, as well as Professor Steven Kaplan for his assistance and his wealth of knowledge with regard to Mary in Orthodox traditions. Steven Kaplan adviced me with the idea of the Ark of the Covenant (the Ark of Zion) and the veneration of Mary in historical perspective. With Leonardo Cohen I had the pleasure of talking and learning about Mary in the Ethiopian Church and cosmology. I appreciate

Acknowledgments  xi these long debates and the discussion of our memories of childhood in Mexico. Professor Vered Vinitzky-​Seroussi served as the Dean of the Faculty when I was writing this book, she encouraged me and assisted with everything I needed for this mission. I wish to thank Vered for her support and understanding. Professor Simon Coleman provided inspiration on all aspects of Mary’s venerations and rituals. I thank him for his insights and help with my work. Professor Yoram Bilu inspired my work, particularly his seminal volume on the veneration of saints in Israel. His monumental venture was, and still is, a valuable academic and intellectual standpoint. Professor Susan Sered’s work has always been an inspiration for me. We met in person in 2016 and briefly visited the tomb of Miriam the Laundress together. Her rich knowledge and comments on the veneration of saints helped me enormously, for which I am grateful. I thank my friend Professor Michal Biran for all the meetings and discussions, mutual work and intellectual exchanges, and of course her solid grasp of all the dynamics of writing. When things got difficult, she encouraged me to complete this book. Professor Edna Lomsky-​Feder encouraged me and inspired my work on ethnography and gender and I will always be grateful for her friendship and support, even since I was a student. Professors Tamr Elor was always there for me with questions and debates about ethnographic experiences, I have learned so much from her way of thinking and intellectual journeys. I thank Professor Tamar Rapoport for her inspirational sociological work and the long discussions of every detail of my work through the years. Professor Ronnie Ellenblum, my friend and colleague, is, as ever, a “bridge over troubled water.” He helped and encouraged me to write and get my health back at arduous moments, and ultimately continue with the book. Throughout this project I had the good fortune to work with a series of bright students. Chen Reuveni added the Muslim perspective on veneration at the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem, Emily Kattan and Cyrine Sakas worked with me on various aspects of Christian communities, and Connie Gagliardi inspired me with some aspects of the complex ethnography of Our Lady on the Wall. I thank my Ph.D. students for their involvement and help with the many complications and details of the ethnography. Dr. Lior Chen was the chief project investigator at the Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva; Omer Hacker assisted with the exploration and interpretations of the tomb of Miriam the Laundress. With Lydia Ginzburg I  discussed

xii Acknowledgments theory of religion, cults, and culture moving between transcendence to immanence, and Dr. Lea Taragin Zeller helped me with the project on Rachel the Matriarch and the analysis of visual Jewish images of fertility. Dr. Michal Bitton took me with her to the worlds of the sacred gardens in Jerusalem landscapes. Dr.  Elissa Farinacci conducted the ethnography on Our Lady of the Wall and the Christian venerations of Mary, in addition to the comparative aspects of the veneration of Mary in Italy. Dr. Liron Shani helped conduct interviews in the Orthodox community, especially in the Old City of Jerusalem. Dr. Anna Perdibon introduced me to the sacred world and animistic aspects of Mesopotamia. Bat Sheva Hass inspired me with her work on Islam in the Netherlands and female religiosity. Noga Buber Ben David shared with me the obsession on classical sociology and I  thank her for long discussions on Max Weber. I went to India with my student Jusmeet Singh Sihra to learn about the comparative aspects of sacred places in India, and with Eliran Arazi I discovered the sacredness and territoriality of the Colombian Amazonians. I  thank my students for their willingness to accompany me on these expeditions and take part in endless observations and conversations with visitors and pilgrims. Their intellectual and personal insights make an immense and unique contribution to this book. The Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University supplied everything I needed for the research and the writing of this book. I thank Agnes Arbeli; without her help and friendship things would have been impossible. I thank Ran Bartov for his help, kindness, and interest and for resolving the many complications over the years. I thank Efrat Radotz, Dahlia Bar-​Nahoum, Natalie Golshtein, and Moran Elgrassi for their help and devotion. At the faculty of Social Science, I wish to thank Sharon Ben-​ Arie, and Or David for helping me with administrative challenges of my research always with a smile. Orel Levi and Neta Levi helped me with my faculty obligations, thus giving me time to write this book. I am grateful to have them in my life. Writing is a complex and dynamic task that generates comfort as well as anxiety. During these years of constant writing, I learned that the body is not always a supportive partner for this extensive endeavor. I needed the help of several people whom I would like to thank for their medical care. Shlomo Gobi has always been a guardian angel, and I would like to thank him for his sharp eyes, care, and understanding; Dr. Rami Shapiro for his great surgical abilities; and Professor Zamir Halperin for his assistance in giving me a special toolkit for my health and helping me get back to routine.

Acknowledgments  xiii But this enormous modern scientific help was not enough. Just like my subject in this book, I needed more. I wish to express my gratitude to Philip Lombard, a virtuoso Yoga-​Ayurveda teacher, who took me slowly down a path not taken, from inferno to well-​being. I thank Philip for his inspiring classes and his sharing of knowledge on body movement, precision, and parallelness, as well as the secrets of foods and Indian herbs. Along with Philip, Anat Spiezer, Varda and Brian Streett, the protectors who helped me return to my writing, I thank you with all my heart. Several chapters of this book appeared originally in conference papers, and sections have also been published in earlier and much abbreviated forms in academic journals. Fragments of Chapter 3 appeared in the paper “Between Scripturalism and Performance: Cohesion and Conflict in the Celebration of the Theotokos in Jerusalem” in Religion (2011, vol. 41, issue 4, pp. 645–​ 664) and also in Anthropological Theory (2015, vol. 15, issue 3, pp. 293–​316), “Fertility Rites, Land and the Veneration of Female Saints: Exploring Body Rituals at the Tomb of Mary in Jerusalem.” Fragments of Chapter  5 also appeared in “Appropriating Jerusalem’s Disputed Lands through Sacred Spaces: Female Rituals at the Tombs of Mary and Rachel” in Anthropological Quarterly (2015, vol. 88, issue 3, pp.725–​758). The discussion on Our Lady of the Wall was partly analyzed in a paper with Professor Nimrod Luz, “Two Venerated Mothers Divided by a Fence,” in a special issue of Religion and Society (2015, vol. 6, pp.  127–​141) that I  edited with Professor Valentina Napolitano. The generous support of different institutions at various stages of this project enabled me to conduct extensive fieldwork and to sit down and write this book. I extend my special thanks to the Israel Science Foundation for two generous grants that allowed me to conduct an extensive ethnography with all the necessary equipment and the involvement of many students. I also thank the Shaine Center for Research in Social Sciences for their support during the preliminary stages of this work. I dedicate this book to my two daughters, Shira and Sivan, for their everlastingly humorous way of articulating and experiencing life, and to my husband Kobi, who is a firm and strong confidant. He has always been supportive of every project I have engaged in, everywhere, giving me good advice and honing my endurance. My mother, Rachel, and my father, Asher, are always supportive of my voyages; they help me with everyday life and with the never-​ending responsibilities of the most difficult of all missions—​ motherhood. It is my mother and father that have opened my eyes to the

xiv Acknowledgments different voices of cultures and languages while travelling in endless journeys to the Sonora desert and the long adventures in Latin America. Finally, and most essentially, I wish to express my thanks to my two beloved brothers, Giora and Shahar, whom I love and admire deeply. My whole journey into worlds and words starts with them.

Introduction In the summer of 2003, soon after the beginning of the “Second Intifada,” I journeyed around Israel/​Palestine, where I became interested in the contemporary revival of female saint shrines, and in the rituals performed there. Within the turbulent, fragile, often violent political context of the local region and the Middle East in general, I walked with pilgrims in Jerusalem, in processions whose audience was now smaller than usual. Hearing of their hardships and even heroism in crossing borders to take part in these rituals—​stories of journeys begun in the middle of the night, of facing soldiers and undergoing security checks, of sanctuaries transformed into battlegrounds—​made pilgrimage to Jerusalem a gloomy experience. In spite of the gloom and turbulence, these stories made it clear to me how powerful Holy Land shrines still are, and how profound the influence of the geopolitical context on the rituals is. In more peaceful times, the rituals were much more vibrant and the atmosphere was different, although tension was and still is ever present. After carrying out an ethnography at various sacred sites and rituals at female shrines, I was left with a question: What does this ritualistic revival mean—​ politically, culturally, and spatially? To answer this question, I conducted a long ethnographic study that analyzes the rise of female sacred shrines in the space usually referred to as the Holy Land. The main purpose of my work is to describe, and analyze comparatively, rituals that take place in Christian and Judaic shrines dedicated to female saints and their place in relation to how people enact land ownership through religious discourse and praxis. I found a set of bodily rituals performed in those sacred places, a large set of female themes, and female materiality produced in sites that create feminine religious experiences. Rituals involve body practices that imitate the stages of the cycle of life, from birth to death and rebirth. Materiality also pervades these rituals, shaping themes of motherhood and femininity. Groups involved in territorial struggles lay claim to land through religious codes and modes. I uncover how ideas from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism impact and impinge upon one another in terms of the forms of religiosity adhered Voices of the Ritual. Nurit Stadler, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197501306.001.0001

2  Voices of the Ritual to and how land claims are enacted over disputed territories and how they influence the landscape. I develop my explanation by arguing that there has been a revival in rituals that take place in female sacred spaces due to messy borders, war, and contestation for land. In this reality, the ritual at female saint shrines represents a means for devotees to counter the violent, masculine war culture and extol feminine attributes and values, and in so doing lay claim to terrain. Sacred places are different from all other religious phenomena. They are unique platforms for the performance of romantic, passionate, creative, inventive, enchanted, imaginative thoughts and wishes of pilgrims and visitors. Often, the features they encompass present us with paradox: they are at once holy and tremendous, attractive and repellant. They are not rapidly institutionalized or bureaucratized like religious institutions such as churches, synagogues, and mosques. Following Weber’s (1968) analysis of charisma as the stir of innovation, the sheer force behind the formation of new groups, ideas, and places, I offer to look at sacred places as spaces that are constantly reinvented, shrines that represent religious, political, and geographic challenges to the well-​known religious institutions (Csordas, 2007; Pred, 1984; Saler, 2006). Just as Eade and Sallnow argued that sacred places are creative, innovative, and at times highly politicized, they should be analyzed as mirrors to current conflicts and in the context of social resistance, local political traces, cultural innovations, and challenges to the current dominant landscape (Eade & Sallnow, 1991). They provide us with a unique opportunity to look at the ways specific meanings/​practices are articulated, contested, and negotiated, by various religious groups within and against the background of traditional institutions and states. At the same time, sacred places should be seen as places for the manifestation of piety and the expression of contestation. Rituals performed in sacred places are not only the center of the creation and expression of piety, but they are also places to practice power. In antagonistic tolerance, Hayden (2002, 2013) argues that others’ acceptance in a shared holy place is “a pragmatic adaptation to a situation in which repression of the other group’s practices is not possible” (2002, p. 219). In this situation, the “other community” that shares the site sees it as a threat that must be thwarted as much as possible. Taking into account all these anthropological insights into sacred places, my own analysis has developed as follows. First, I  set out to examine internal characteristics of the ritual, following the theory of the ritual “in its own right” suggested by Handelman (2004), especially focusing on the

Introduction  3 popularity of bodily rituals and embodiment in sacred places and female themes that stem from these rituals. When looking at the “ritual in motion” suggested by Coleman and Eade (2004), I discovered that, in the practices at these shrines, mostly canonical, the idea of the “body in motion” is central, with rituals imitating birth and the cycle of life using a set of body gestures. These mimetic rituals, performed by men and women, are intimate forces that extend between the female saint and the worshippers (Csordas, 1994; Plasquy, 2009). I document the ways rituals are accompanied by feminine materiality produced and scattered around each site, creating feminine religious experiences, different from what Driessen (1983) termed male sociability when analyzing rituals of masculinity in rural Andalusia. I found that this women’s materiality strengthens intimacy and creates a bridge between the experience and the material. To add the central feature of politics and rivalry, I explored how minority groups in these venues, Jews and Christians, use these sacred shrines, their female contents and intimate bodily ritualistic experience, to stake a claim to and appropriate the land. The intimacy between saint and worshiper (women and men each in their own modes) created with the body that imitates the cycle of life, and with the scattered female material, is a key to intimate claims to the land, making the land familiar to worshipers. Last, I show how these rituals encrypt feminine themes into the landscape, a dynamic taking place in a zone that has for decades been dominated by violent, masculine-​disseminated war and conflict. My interest in female rituals is not only intellectual. Since my school years, spent in Latin America with my parents and my two brothers, I have been interested in the veneration of Mary, the mother of Christ. During those adolescent years, I was frequently exposed to the rituals, icons, sculptures, posters, and articles of the Madonna and the emotions produced in their presence. On our family holidays in Mexico City, we went to the church of Guadalupe and followed her city processions and the rituals at the church. At the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we took part in processions, everyday rituals, and grand Masses devoted to Guadalupe. These rituals attracted millions on her day (December 12), with colorfully dressed, excited men, women, and children walking through the streets, singing and praying, expressing their love, adoration, and devotion to Guadalupe (Gómez-​Barris & Irazabal, 2009; Granziera, 2004; Grimes, 2016; Napolitano, 2009; Wolf, 1958). And on regular days, the church was always full of people crawling and praying in front of her icon. My school in Obregon, Mexico, introduced me to Mary in a different way, one that was intimate and direct. The school monastery was full of

4  Voices of the Ritual sculptures, posters, and items of Mary, and observing the material culture, the prayers, the stories of her immaculate conception and heroic motherhood, and her appearance as the mother of all Mexicans made me one of her admirers. A Jewish girl singing the morning prayers for Guadalupe was an oxymoron, but living in the environment of Obregon strengthened my curiosity and desire to learn more about Mary. This is why, when I started to work on Mary’s veneration in Jerusalem, I was thrilled and excited. My initiative was to be able to explore the set of rituals associated with Mary in these places where she lived and acted. Through these years of study, I discovered how significantly different the status and place of Mary were in Mexico and Jerusalem, in terms of the language visitors use to describe her, their ritualistic experiences and mythologies of Mary, and the artistic style, sculpture, and architecture of Marian shrines. I soon discovered that the Mary of Jerusalem has associations clearly different from those of the mother Mary elsewhere. The Mary of Israel/​ Palestine, in comparison with the Mary of places like Mexico, Poland, Greece, France, and other countries, is not a national icon. Rather, she is the mother of minorities, one who represents dearth and hardship. To explore differences in the use of female iconic places, I also started to follow Jewish celebrations and rituals at female shrines. Rachel, the Matriarch, appeared as an immediate comparison. Her tomb has become a center for Jewish worship, her celebrations have been added to the national Israeli calendar, and her image appears in sculptures, stamps, and posters as the Jewish return, a representation of Rachel central to Jewish canonical scriptures. Rachel indeed is becoming a national symbol. And Rachel and Mary are not alone. As my fieldwork developed, I learned of many other female shrines and decided to start working on them comparatively, to learn how their rituals worked and how devotion evolves. Why study female shrines from the point of view of the anthropology of rituals? What do they mean, culturally? Working on these questions is a response to the current groundswell of scholarly deliberation on the effects of rituals (Fedele, 2012), sacred places, and pilgrimage on the contemporary politics (Coleman & Eade, 2004; Eade, 1991; Eade & Sallnow, 1991, Eade, 2012, Eade, 2015). Major academic endeavors focus on the recently reviving cult of the Virgin Mary as “mega symbol,” as a force of national identity and demonstration of minority power (Badone, 2007; Bax, 1995; Carroll, 1992; Chesnut, 2011; Christian, 1996; Dubisch, 1990; Gemzöe, 2000; Gómez-​ Barris & Irazabal, 2009; Grimes, 2016; Liebelt, 2010; Napolitano, 2009;

Introduction  5 Notermans, 2016; Orsi, 1985; Svasek, 2012; V. Turner & Turner, 1978; Tweed, 1997; Wolf, 1958; Zimdars-​Swartz, 1991). Among these studies, there is a surprising lacuna in the study of Marian veneration in today’s Middle East spaces (Albera & Couroucli, 2012; Aubin-​Boltanski, 2010; Carroll, 1992; Jansen, 2009; Liebelt, 2010; Pénicaud, 2014) and a clear void in the ethnographic study and theory of female shrines in Israel/​Palestine. To develop the scope of the study, I follow Fedele (2012), who, in her ethnographic work, shows the interaction of pilgrims with each other and with textual sources: Jungian psychology, Goddess mythology, and “indigenous” traditions merge into a corpus of theories and practices centered upon the worship of divinities such as the Goddess, Mother Earth, and the sacralization of the reproductive cycle. I follow this work by adding a focus on the relationship between the body in motion and claims to lands and territoriality of religious minorities via sacred place. Given the revival of female sacred shrines and the popularization of such rituals in Middle Eastern Islam, Christianity, and other religions (Albera, 2008; Aubin-​Boltanski, 2003), the lack of research is surprising. The challenge of observing the dynamics of rituals in female sacred places in Israel/​ Palestine by means of the perspective of the cult of the Virgin Mary seemed a mission I wanted to tackle. Female saints’ shrines and cults of female deities are rooted in human history (Ornan, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006). These saints attract devotees from all religions and incite rituals worldwide (Brown, 2014; Sharma, 2000)  in, to name just a few current examples, the female saint venerations in Bangladesh (Callan, 2008), the worship of Tunisian saints (Van Binsbergen, 1985), and the veneration of Coptic saints in Egypt (Armanios, 2002). In the landscape of the Middle East, Marian shrines (Albera, 2008; Carroll, 1992; Jansen, 2009; Meinardus, 1996) and female Muslim shrines (Cuffel, 2005; Hegland, 2003; Van Binsbergen, 1985) have long been venerated with much piety (Mulder, 2014). Susan Sered (1986) is probably the only anthropologist who has done fieldwork in female saints’ shrines in Israel/​Palestine. Wishing to explain why people venerate female saints’ tombs, Sered concentrates her work on Rachel’s Tomb and the Milk Grotto of the Virgin Mary. Sered developed a gender account of this veneration. In her comparative study, Sered (1986) explains how women, as dominant agents in these places, have developed their own customs, rituals, and beliefs at canonical Holy Land female shrines. According to Jewish Midrash,1 says Sered, the Matriarch Rachel died after giving birth and was buried in Bethlehem. Similar to the perception of Mary

6  Voices of the Ritual in Christian sources, the view of Rachel in Jewish tradition is as a suffering mother who accompanied her children into exile, wept for them, and interceded with God on their behalf during their hour of need. Sered focuses on rituals performed by women, and especially Jewish women. Sered is an important starting point for my work. However, I wanted to make a comparative study that would consider many female shrines and look at them through the lens of ritual and its dynamic and influence on place and landscape. This mission took me on a voyage with devotees as they walked in processions, holding icons, lighting candles, and praying in front of tombs, shrines, wells, walls, stones, and trees. To develop a comprehensive comparative view of female shrines and their veneration in Israel/​Palestine, I undertook fieldwork at a broad array of female shrines. The sites or events in the greater Jerusalem area I include in my comparative analysis are the Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch, the Tomb of Mary, the city’s annual Catholic Marian celebrations, Our Lady of the Wall, the Visitation Church and Mary’s Well in Ein Karem, Our Lady of Palestine, and the grave of Miriam the Laundress. With respect to other parts of Israel/​Palestine, I have canvassed the birthplace of Mariam Bawardi, the Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva, the Cave of Hanna and her sons, the statue of Mary in the Galilean village of Tarshiha, and the Crying Madonna at St. Georgios Greek Orthodox Church in Ramla. The revival of devotion of sacred shrines is taking place in what is probably one of the world’s most turbulent regions (Aran & Hassner, 2013; Breger, Reiter, & Hammer, 2009; Hassner, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013; Reiter, 2009). When the state of Israel was declared independent in 1948, the question of the Jewish state’s physical borders was not settled, and it has remained undefined until today. All policies, debates, and ideologies, even the most pragmatic ones regarding the borders of what Jews, Muslims, and Christians consider the “homeland,” the “holy land,” and “the sacred place of worship,” escalated conflicts and violence between groups, religions, and sects. Questions concerning the extension of the borders and inclusion of territories underwent several modifications depending on the degree of belligerence and views of the political parties during different historical moments. The absence of definitive borders, division into different zones, and continual questioning of land appropriation and claims of different groups created instability and ongoing conflicts between various forces, and today it remains one of the most problematic issues in the region. Israel’s borders with Egypt and Jordan have been formally recognized and confirmed in peace treaties with those

Introduction  7 countries. However, the borders with Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine are still in dispute, a situation that has recently given rise to a new border dispute with Jordan. The border with Egypt is the international border drawn in 1906 between the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire, confirmed in the 1979 Egypt Israeli Peace Treaty. And the border with Jordan is based on the border defined in the 1922 Trans Jordan memorandum, confirmed in the 1994 Israel–​Jordan peace treaty. In this book I  demonstrate that, in this perplexing indeterminate context, the study of female sacred places provides a unique lens for examining how people perform rituals and rethink their models of religious performance and land ownership. As I show, female saints have a pacifying effect. In the men and women involved in their veneration, they arouse no warlike emotions of preparing for conflict. I began my ethnographic work on sacred sites in the most blustery time of what, in the region, is called the “Second Intifada,” also known as the Al-​Aqsa Intifada. Since my journey in 2003, I have been collecting data and attending events at the sacred shrines. My analysis is predicated on intensive fieldwork at all these places throughout the calendar year. During my visits, pilgrims, visitors, and especially locals mentioned many other places, advice I followed by visiting those places as well. I used various methods to collect and analyze my data on rituals and sacred places. Among the manifold research methods that I used were observations of processions, rosaries, saint memorial days and other rituals; photographing and videoing popular devotional activities; and holding informal conversations as well as interviews with local residents, pilgrims, and organizers in Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, English, French, and Russian, sometimes with the help of students and colleagues speaking these languages. Some of the places are mentioned in the Bible and central canonical texts, and others have long histories and are associated with political, theological, and spatial debates. In addition, I perused relevant journal articles and collected pamphlets that were distributed at the shrines. Another major dimension of this study is the venues’ material culture, including their architecture and grounds, objects, iconic paintings, statues, and other relics placed in or scattered around these places. Due to the strict gender separation that usually prevails at Jewish sites, most of my time at these venues was spent in the ezrat nashim (women’s section). In light of the burgeoning popularity of female saint sites among both religious and secular Israeli Jews, I also mined the vast stores of germane material in local newspapers and on sundry websites.

8  Voices of the Ritual Many people involved with my work question the lack of Muslim places in my comparison. The reason is simple: when I was seeking a female Muslim place for this project, I realized that, although there are female Muslim places around the Middle East (Mulder, 2014), for example the popular shrine of Sayyidah Zaynab2 Mosque in Damascus (Deeb, 2005; Mervin, 1996; Szanto, 2014), this is not the case in the zone we call Israel/​Palestine. Surprisingly, even though there is a sacred geography of female saints devotion from different periods of Islamic history (Canaan, 1927, 1928, 1934; Ju’beh, 2005), there is no vibrant female center of worship in Israel/​Palestine. The reason for this lacuna should be studied further. However, for this book, the absence of such a center is the reason I can only focus on ritualistic performances in Jewish and Christian female shrines. Still, as we shall see, the Muslim context, the resurgence of Muslim sacred places, and the reactions of Muslim believers to these vibrant and popular rituals are strong agents in all the places I  have explored, affecting all aspects of religiosity. All the places I explored are also the result of the Islamization of the zone, the Islamic impact, practices, images, and materiality. A site can be a result of Islamic forces or have a tremendous effect on Muslim places. Some places are shared, just like other places worldwide, but most places I have visited are nowadays divided from, and forbidden to, other religions. As I will show, the effect of the three religions on one another, and on the construction, forms, and rituals, is crucial to the understanding of the creation of female sacred places, their revival and ritualistic manifestations. Another unique aspect of Holy Land rituals should be explained. Distinctively from other holy places worldwide, shrines in the Holy Land tend to reflect an array of scriptural narratives, as many of them are dedicated to canonical Jewish and Christian female figures. Nevertheless, my findings show that the rituals, iconography, and architecture of these places, more than following a canonical text, reinforce mimetic body rituals and female materiality. In many of these places, body-​based practices that imitate the infant coming out of the womb are central practice. As I will show in Chapter 2, these places express feminine themes such as virtuous motherhood, fertility obstacles, tragic barrenness, and women’s suffering, themes that I  analyze as an alternative way of challenging the current politics of the place. These customs and rituals heighten the devotees’ sense of politics and belonging to their specific clan and kinship. However, they are expressed in disputed territories that have no definite borders. In these places, female rituals, themes, and materials, most notably related to fertility and motherhood, are most

Introduction  9 strongly connected via the ritual, in a body-​in-​motion manner, to the national allegiances and the contesting of land issues. These amalgams between novelty and affiliation with a sacred past and between femaleness and territoriality foster the mimetic body rituals that inform these sites. These rituals have a strong effect; they are performed on soil that is associated with the womb, and symbolically, they fertilize the land that is the nation. In doing so, they contribute feminine attributes and imagery to the public sphere and the landscape, challenging patriarchy and accepted political, militaristic, and local masculine notions. Claiming land via female saint spaces is deeply rooted in natural depth, womb fertilization, and pregnancy. In comparison to masculine claims to land that are more claims to surface, dominance, and power, female claims deserve a separate discussion, because they call for maternity and express a longing for peace and solace. My explanation of the ritual dynamics taking place in female saints’ shrines in Israel/​Palestine is based on three prisms through which ritual has been examined. The first examines the ritual in its own right; here I base my analysis on the observations made by Handelman in his work. Handelman (1981) follows Claude Lévi-​Strauss’s call for the analysis of the ritual “in itself and for itself . . . in order to determine its specific characteristics” (1981, p. 669). Handelman (p. 680) writes, “Lévi-​Strauss’s concern was to distinguish ritual from myth, his overriding focus of study. He identified myth with mind and thinking, and ritual with living and the attempt to overcome any break or interruption in the continuity of lived experience, the discontinuous made continuous.” Ritual, he wrote, “turns back towards reality” (p. 680) in that “it is not a direct response to the world, or even to experience of the world; it is a response to the way man thinks of the world” (p. 681). Handelman and Lindquist suggest a path distinct from that of Lévi-​Strauss, one that does not pursue his quest for universals yet originates from a not entirely dissimilar premise: if one wants to think about what ritual is in relation to itself, how it is put together and organized within itself, then ritual should first be studied in its own right and not be immediately presumed to be constituted through representations of the sociocultural surround that gives it life, first exhausting what can be learned of ritual from ritual, and only then turning to the connectivities between ritual and wider sociocultural orders. The idea is to understand ritual’s momentary autonomy from social order. Though this may be so for particular rituals, it is a matter not of a priori theorizing but rather of the analysis of particular ritual forms (Handelman & Lindquist, 2004).

10  Voices of the Ritual The second interoperation suggests seeing the ritual from the perspective of “ritual in motion” (Coleman & Elsner, 2002; Handelman & Lindquist, 2004). Coleman and Eade discuss the varieties of physical motion involved in pilgrimage, from walking to crawling to dancing. And yet, most do not show movement itself, and it is here that we see something of the dilemma facing both the photographer and the anthropologist in presenting images of pilgrimage. The act of representation—​involving either the literal or the ethnographic snapshot—​encourages concentration on images and issues that lend themselves most easily to the gaze of the analyst: in other words, relatively fixed rather than fluid physical and social processes (Coleman & Eade, 2004). At the same time I show how the ritual is shaped by contextual, political, and material forces (Bell, 1992; Geertz, 1957). Here I base my analysis on Eade and Sallnow’s seminal work “contesting the sacred,” which opposes the communitas paradigm, and the idea of the sacred as an organizing pattern, focusing instead on the role of major shrines in hosting and amplifying discrepant discourses among varied groups of pilgrims, thus acting as “empty vessels” that can reflect back visitors’ objectified assumptions in sacralized form. Similarly, Hayden (2002) has used the concept of competitive sharing to explain how sacred sites long shared by members of differing religious communities may come to be seized or destroyed by members of one community to manifest dominance over the other. The analysis will show that these internal/​external features of the ritual are dynamic. My analysis of the data I  collected in female sacred shrines led to four principal findings:  body-​based rituals, materiality, place, and landscapes. My explanation is derived from the three theoretical suggestions I followed when reading the anthropological works on the ritual. However, my findings have pushed me to develop a different explanation. The explanation of the revival of rituals in female sacred spaces that I develop in this book is that the ritual’s internal dynamic effects and affects state borders, land claiming, and landscape. In Israel/​Palestine where borders are vague, where there is war and land is under contestation, local devotees use ritual, especially around female deities, as a platform for expressing feminine attributes and, in doing so, for claiming lands. When minorities have no voice in established legal, political, economic, agriculture and media institutions, rituals in sacred places become the only venue to perform their belonging to the soil/​state through rituals,

Introduction  11 with their bodies, objects, and architecture. Visitors use these sites as new venues of knowledge and voice. In praying, kissing icons and books, crawling under icons, and singing to Mary, Rachel, or Miriam, they are appropriating the land, claiming their rights, each from their own narrative of territoriality. In this reality, those I call “silent people,” men and women, voice their expectations and challenge the current social order. Understanding the “sounds of silent devotion” has become the main task of my ethnography.

Body-​Based Rituals The focus on the body stems from the idea of analyzing the internal configurations of the ritual (Grimes, 1995; Handelman & Lindquist, 2004; Muir, 2005). As mentioned above, the first step in analyzing my data is based on the idea of Handelman’s analysis of “the ritual in its own right,” hence the focus on its inner dynamics and consolidations. To further the internal analysis suggested by Handelman, I  draw on Coleman, Eade, and Elsner and develop the term “body in motion.” This enables me to explain current practices of devotion (Coleman, 2004; Coleman & Eade, 2004; Coleman & Elsner, 2002). Various mimetic body-​based rituals, such as crawling, bending, kissing, praying, touching, and candle lighting, are all part of an experience that is replicated and standardized, with the objective of spreading female saint devotion and popularizing these shrines and their attendant rites. In the places I have explored, men and women perform female body gestures and rituals together. Body rituals are unique because they have developed around the stages of the cycle of life, from birth to death and rebirth. In sacred places that celebrate a female saint, these female body gestures are a central performance for women and men together. These are rituals of the emergence of life, nascence, death, and regeneration (Grimes, 1982; Rappaport, 1999; Weissler, 1999). Carrying out these practices, visitors experience through their own bodies the lifespan of the human being:  the evolution of the fetus, the infant’s emergence from the womb, birth, life, and death. The body is the active dynamic source of this experience; mimetic rituals activate and embody it with a certain primacy of movements, of time, memories, and mythologies, that are foundational for these groups and their claims (Rose, 2000; Sheets-​Johnstone,  2011).

12  Voices of the Ritual

Materiality The second step in examining rituals at female saints’ shrines is a material analysis of objects and the interaction between people and the objects of their devotion (De la Cruz, 2009; Houtman & Meyer, 2012; Meyer, 1997; Meyer & Houtman, 2012; Morgan, 1997). I found it is not enough to focus on the body in analyzing the internal ritualistic scene. Visitors to female sacred places always find female materials and magical objects scattered there. I follow studies that center upon objects, their properties, and the materials they are made of, and that look at the ways these influence human sensations, central to an understanding of culture and social relations in sacred places (Notermans & Jansen, 2011). In this analysis, we comprehend how objects in sacred places impact visitors’ experience, looking at the phenomena as they appear to the consciousness of an individual or a group of people (Desjarlais & Jason Throop, 2011, p. 88; Notermans, 2008). To do so, I observe the interaction of subjects’ bodies with what is called “the nonhuman environment” they are embedded in and depend on for their existence (Descola, 2003; Hazard, 2013; Ingold, 2007b; Miller, 2005; Morgan, 1997). To show this interaction, I focus on a few items that I identified in my observations and photographs as central to the ritualistic form in the sacred places: the dress of Nava Applebaum and the red string at Rachel’s Tomb, the well and the holy water in Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva, the shrine and objects at the house of Mariam Bawardi, and finally, the clothes and cleaning artifacts at Miriam the Laundress’s grave. I have examined these magical items and many more that contribute to shaping the female saints’ places where they have a strong impact on the body-​based and ritualistic experience. As I will demonstrate, materiality and the ritualistic experience reinforce and are involved in shaping the themes of motherhood and femininity in the place.

Place The third step derives from my findings that the rituals in sacred places are connected to the sense of place. This interpretation looks at rituals as performances related to contextual framework that have external implications (Baumann, 1992; Bell, 1992; Grimes, 2013; Reader & Walter, 2016). The ritual in Bell’s theory is not only a world of its own but also a platform of daily social influences (Bell, 1992, 1997). Geertz (1957) has

Introduction  13 illustrated how a social change within Javanese society has made a tremendous change in the local funeral rituals. Rituals that used to keep the traditional features, Hindu, Buddhist symbols have become syncretic spaces of Muslim symbols and Koranic texts. Some of the rituals actually take shape in their place (Grimes, 1999; Smith, 1992). In light of the analysis of female saints’ ritualistic experience, the external happenings, especially those concerning political questions of territorial belonging and land claims, are also part of the ritual framing. Within this framework, different groups enlist female shrines to further their local politics and claims to lands (Berger, 2011; Bowman, 2001; Peppard, 2013). These developments are particularly salient in Israel/​Palestine, where borders and land holdings are the objects of a protracted conflict and are in constant flux (Hassner, 2006). More specifically, in Israel/​Palestine, sacred places and their rituals are used by a host of ethno-​ religious groups to claim lands and territories. Building on the anthropological literature concerning the place and rituals (Dubisch, 1990; Knott, 2015; Markus, 1994; Pred, 1984), I elucidate places where disparate and adversarial ethno-​religious groups simultaneously venerate the same or different female saints. Immersed in territorial struggles, such groups have historically resorted to an assortment of economic, financial, legal, and political tactics, some of which entail the use of violence. Over the past few decades, these same factors have increasingly mobilized sacred places in the hopes of gaining leverage in these conflicts (Hassner, 2009; Hüsken & Neubert, 2012). Thus, various groups that consider themselves minorities (Muslims and Christians as minorities in a Jewish state, and Jewish as minorities in a Muslim space) use the replication and commodification of the sacred as critical and local political tools. For this analysis, I use my ethnographic data on the various places to show and explain how female shrines such as the Tomb of Rachel, the Lady of the Wall, Mary of I’bellin, the Tomb of Rachel in Tiberias, and many others are becoming not only centers of devotional experience but also places, practices, and materials devotees use for advancing claims and appropriating land. Bilu has shown how the transfer of saints’ tombs from the Maghreb has established new sacred centers in Israel. In my work I show that rituals in sacred places are not only a way of appropriating spaces, something holiness has always been associated with, but are currently strongly associated with appropriating state spaces and the dictating of land ownership (Bilu, 2005a). Many of the female sites under review fall under this heading. For example, at the Tomb of Rachel, the Jewish concept of “the return from

14  Voices of the Ritual exile” is intertwined with the saint’s symbolic role as eternal mother of the Twelve Tribes. At Mary’s Tomb, Catholics and Orthodox Christians bolster their territorial claims to Jerusalem by stressing their belonging to Mary’s traditions.

Landscapes The fourth interpretation is based on findings that rituals are embodied in the landscape. Rituals are both affected by and affect the landscape (Ashmore, 2007; Aveni, 1991; W. T. Mitchell, 2002; Mittermaier, 2010). Female rituals have a unique influence on landscape, imposing femininity where they are practiced (Cole, 2004). The book’s theoretical strand illustrates how local minority groups that worship at female shrines in Israel/​Palestine display female body rituals and maternal themes, and make political claims for the sake of resisting the social order in all that concerns local politics and the landscape. I will turn to the metaphor of the palimpsest (de Certeau, 1984; Huyssen, 2003) to explain the relation between how each particular venue is imagined and its venerated female figure (Mosse, 1985a). Commensurate with its standing in Israel/​Palestine, each group possesses unique narratives of the land, its dispensation, and national identity, as well as of the character and image of the saint. For instance, whereas Rachel, as I mention above, is considered the eternal mother of the Jewish nation, Mary is cast in the role of the mother of minorities. The fertility of these holy saints is equated with the holiness of the land. And in turn, the mimetic rituals of these sacred places reinforce worshipers’ fertility, and thus create a connection between the pilgrims and the lands. This is especially true for women, but not only for women: I show that this association is made at these places for men as well. Thus, mimetic rituals intended to enable fertility, as well as other rituals of the human life cycle, are no less claims to the natural connection between devotees and the land. Here I am going back to Handelman’s suggestion when interpreting the ritual, to add the “interior” interpretation of the rituals at these female saints’ shrines with the “exterior” claims to lands and the landscape. What I show is that these intimate, female, body rituals performed by the people with no voice are used as “external” requests, as land claims, and used this way, they alter Israeli/​Palestinian landscapes (Handelman, 1998; Handelman & Shulman, 1997).

Introduction  15

The Comparative Analysis and Methods of This Book To learn about the voice of rituals at female shrines, I started a long ethnographic study in the summer of 2003. I began this work on the rituals in sacred sites in the most turbulent time of what, in the region, is termed the “Second Intifada,” also known as the Al-​Aqsa Intifada. The second Palestinian uprising—​a period of intensified violence—​started in September 2000, when Ariel Sharon made a visit to the Temple Mount, an act local Palestinians and the Muslim world3 saw as highly provocative. In Israel/​Palestine both parties caused high numbers of casualties among civilians as well as combatants. The year 2002 was another of these ruthless years for everyone living in Israel/​Palestine. In January 2002, the IDF Shayetet 13, marine commandos, captured the Karine A, a freighter carrying weapons that allegedly came from Iran and were bound for Israel, believed to be intended for militant Palestinian use against Israel. On March 3, a Palestinian sniper killed ten Israeli soldiers and settlers and wounded four at a checkpoint near Ofra. The rate of the attacks increased and reached its highest in March 2002. In addition to numerous shootings and grenade attacks, that month saw fifteen suicide bombings, an attack carried out almost every day. The high rate of attacks caused widespread fear throughout Israel and serious disruption of daily life throughout the region. March 2002 became known in Israel as “Black March.” The wave of suicide bombings culminated with an attack in Netanya city on March 27 in which thirty people were killed at the Park Hotel during Passover.4 The historical debate on the meaning of the suicide bombers, whether they were freedom fighters or terrorists, became a political debate that has shaken even the most humanistic philosophies on both sides, as well as stirred a world debate that is ongoing today. I began my work at the Tombs of Rachel and Mary in a climate of conflict. My main reason for exploring this site was not political. At this time, I was reading ethnographies on the cult of Mary, her veneration and politics worldwide, and it struck me that no anthropological works had been done in Jerusalem on Mary. I wanted to explore the rituals around Mary in the place where her story was first told, in Jerusalem. I also wanted to tell the story of Jewish saints and their sacred shrines from the perspective of the works on the cult of the Virgin Mary worldwide. Reading Carroll’s 1992 book The Cult of the Virgin Mary and reports on the growing numbers of places dedicated to Mary in postmodern times has made me even more

16  Voices of the Ritual curious. Visiting the tomb in Jerusalem with its relics and visions was enormously inspiring for me. I had just given birth to my second child, Sivan, a little sister to Shira, who was by now five years and five months old. With two small children, days were long and nights very short. A long nighttime ethnography was not the best choice, but I guess curiosity was stronger than fatigue. I started conducting nocturnal fieldwork, joining pilgrims and locals on processions to Mary’s Tomb. I planned to learn about the local Mary and from there, move to intensive fieldwork of the Jewish Rachel celebrations. At these celebrations I talked to the visitors, pilgrims, tourists, and locals I met in the places themselves during celebrations and on regular days. This participation in ceremonies and processions became a habit. On the eve of Mary’s Dormition rituals, Orthodox pilgrims and locals walk through the Old City to the Theotokos Tomb. I realized then that this would not be only a project concerning female saint shrines in Jerusalem. When I first started observing the Jerusalem street procession, I met people who told me clearly that this year was not like other times, that the political situation, the Intifada, and the construction of the Wall had all finally had a tremendous effect on the rituals and the processions. Visitors sadly explained that the Intifada had caused a drastic decrease in the number of participants, an increase in strict security checks and the lowest Israeli army entrance approval for people coming from the Palestinian territories. It became clear that not only are these places driven by faith, ritualization, and communitas, but they are also a strong reflection and projection of the perplexity of the Israeli/​Palestine conflict, the militarization of this zone, the masculinity of practices and landscape, violence from all sides of the map, and reaction to the destruction of communities and identities. The rituals of Rachel and Mary gave rise to an opportunity to examine the challenges people face and their response to the dynamic political situation, as well as to look at veneration in shrines as opposition to politics, the state, and territories. Reading my field notes from the Tomb of Mary, I decided to start working comparatively there and at the Tomb of Rachel. I assumed that, as these two figures are the region’s matriarchs, I would learn about the current dynamic of Mediterranean piety. Their tombs represent canonical/​archetypal places of female saints’ historical shrines. These two sites are the most vibrant female pilgrims’ centers in Jerusalem, both situated at the heart of the conflict in its many levels. Both represent a possibility to examine practices and voices in a condensed sphere, and to give voices to people—​in particular, Jews and Christians—​who have no other way to express their needs and aspirations.

Introduction  17 Indeed, such people are excluded from all formal platforms: the law, politics, the economic sphere, and the media. As the ethnography developed, I realized that this comparison revealed a large number of similar practices and narratives produced in sacred places. The resemblances intrigued me. What is the meaning of these similar practices, themes, and rituals practiced at both shrines? And how do contextual forces affect these shrines? At this point, I also started a partnership with Nimrod Luz, who was at the same time working on Islamic sacred places in the region. Nimrod (Luz, 2008) was doing fieldwork in Muslim centers such as Hassan Bek Mosque in Tel Aviv-​Jaffa, Al-​Haram Al-​Sharif Jerusalem, Maqam Abu al-​Hijja, Kaukab, the Lababidi Mosque in Acre, and Maqam Shiahab al-​Din Nazareth. With Nimrod, I have expanded my work to sacred places in the three Abrahamic religions in the region (Figure I.1). The project brought together researchers from Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and secular communities, who, together and apart, conducted fieldwork in various sacred places. In writing this book, I decided to focus on sites dedicated to female figures that are undergoing resurgence. After seeking a female Muslim place for this project, I began to understand that, although there are female Muslim places around the Middle East, this is not the case in the zone we call Israel/​Palestine. However, as we shall see, the Muslim context, the resurgence of Muslim male saints shrines, and the reaction of Muslim believers to Jewish and Christian sites are a strong influence in all the places I have explored, affecting all aspects of religiosity. Thus, a site can be a result of Islamic forces or have a tremendous effect on Muslim places. Some places are shared, but most are divided from, and forbidden to, other religions. As I will show, the effect of the three religions on one another and on the construction, forms, and rituals is crucial to understanding the creation of female sacred places and their revival. I chose the female Christian and Jewish places for several reasons. They enable me to center on female venerations, rituals, place, and materials, and to examine how they affect and are affected by land, territory, and the landscape. I decided to explore each place but also to widen a comparative analysis that will enable the understanding of this revival and its effects. Adopting various methods and methodological approaches, I chose to focus on ten places out of the larger project in writing this book. Moreover, female sites, especially those dedicated to Mary, mother of Christ, are undergoing a resurgence worldwide, and, as mentioned before, my wish was to explore and learn more about local compared to global female veneration (which focuses mainly on Marian shrines).

Figure I.1  Map of the holy places explored in the book. The Center for Computational Geography, The Department of Geography, HUJI, Israel.

Introduction  19 The ontological turn in the theory of anthropology opens up an opportunity to rethink some of the main theoretical assumptions and methods used in the study of female sainthood. Exploring religious practices through interviews and observations can be an opportunity to look at venues other than the phenomenological worldview of the participant and body gestures. Looking at the effect of the place itself, how spatiality is designed to be dedicated to a female saint, with its magical female objects and womblike structure, together with how the landscape is influenced, is also part of the analysis. A much longer stay at these places is needed to achieve this. This is why, along with conducting at least twenty-​five interviews in each place and observations on special occasions such as the day of birth/​death of the saint, I also visited the places on regular days. On these days I took pictures and short films and analyzed the sacred objects, paintings, icons, stones, cloths, trees, grottos, springs, wells, and architectural maps of each place. As I explained earlier, to develop my comparative and ethnographic scope, I focus on sites that meet the following prerequisites: they commemorate a female figure; they are vibrant sites open to the general public; and they host special occasions, such as the saint’s day of passing. Notwithstanding these shared parameters, the case studies are far from homogenous, each with its own characteristics, mythologies, histories, objects, and visitors. In the following, I briefly explain each of the sites. To understand the archetype and the uniqueness of female sacred site in the Holy Land, I  have carefully studied Limor’s (2014) historical examinations on the tomb of Hulda/​St. Pelagia/​Sit’ Raba’a al-​Aduwiyyeh (Limor, 2006b), a female sacred place central to the three religions on the Mount of Olives. This is a sacred compound, built in the womb-​tomb style of architecture, that I chose as an archetypal place to start my work. The tomb is a closed shrine, merely visited and located between houses. To enter the shrine, one must ask a Muslim family living nearby for the key. Inside, one must climb a long, narrow staircase to a small, humid room where there is a tomb. This site has all the local elements of a womb-​tomb structure (a term I explain in Chapter 2) that emphasize many of the features I have found in other places. This place and Limor’s examination became an archetype and a model to start my examination (Limor & Stroumsa, 2006). I quickly realized that this place could only serve as a first step to my ethnography. Although the structure of the tomb, its atmosphere, and choreography of rituals are a womb-​tomb archetype, one condition prevents this place from being suitable for being part of the research itself: it’s usually empty. Even though it has

20  Voices of the Ritual a rich tradition, narratives, and miracles for the three religions, it is closed most of the time, and the family that owns the place has no motivation to change this situation. When I asked the family about it, they answered laconically, saying they would open the place for anyone wishing to see it. As such, this shrine served as a good starting point for me to learn about the architecture and the history of a female sacred place in the Jerusalem context and to experience the sense of a womb-​tomb place and how different traditions are created in the same place. However, I also understood the limitations of certain holy places that no one visits. I decided to concentrate on popular, celebrated sacred places that possess dynamic, vibrant ritualistic traditions. Here are the places that I analyze. In sharp contrast to the tomb of Hulda, the Tomb of Rachel, the Jewish matriarch (and all other shrines I have chosen for this book), is one of the more salient examples of contemporary female saint veneration based on the canonical scriptures and has become one of the most vibrant places of female saints’ devotion (Gonen, 1999; Limor, 2007; Selwyn, 2009; Sered, 1986, 1996a). Rachel’s Tomb has become a shrine that all of Israel’s Jewish denominations currently embrace. The cult surrounding this burial site is grounded in age-​old traditions (Sered, 1998). In biblical and rabbinic sources, love, barrenness, motherhood, and death are the central themes in the narrative of Rachel. Over the centuries, this compound has undergone several major overhauls. The core structure—​its dome and columns—​dates back to the Crusader period, and the graveyard’s Muslim elements were completed by the Ottomans in 1622 (Schiller, 2012). Over two hundred years later, Moses Montefiore (a British-​Jewish philanthropist) purchased the site on behalf of the Jewish community. Besides repairing the tomb, he constructed a vaulted antechamber for Muslim services and burial preparations (the room was even furnished with a mihrab, a prayer niche signifying the direction of Mecca). Like the Tomb of Mary, the tomb is a womb-​tomb structure and many of the rituals and symbols are very similar. The Tomb of Rachel is one of the most affected by the geopolitical situation. Located in the most disputed zone, with Beit Jala to the West, Bethlehem to the South, Jerusalem to the North, and Aida, a Palestinian refugee camp, to the North (situated two kilometers north of Bethlehem), it is a place rife with political conflicts, terrorist events, and religious tensions. The Tomb of Mary lies at a Crusader-​era site with Byzantine foundations (Jotischky & Pringle, 2008; Pringle, 1993) and is administered mainly by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. According to the local

Introduction  21 Orthodox priests I interviewed, its commemorative-​style cruciform structure and ecclesiastically sanctioned rituals embody their denomination’s venerable narratives of the Madonna’s final days on Earth (Jotischky & Pringle, 2008). In this respect, the features I learned about from Limor’s work became vividly evident in these tombs. They are womb-​tomb based, but unlike Hulda’s tomb, they are vivid and lively. The field work on the Tombs of Rachel and Mary became my reference for all other sacred places that I have explored, since they encapsulate all the main characteristics that together produce a religious experience that intermingles strong body-​based rituals that become a container for local visitors to claim their lands and political rights. I began visiting the Tomb of Rachel in 2004, a few months after my first observations at the Tomb of Mary. Since then I have visited the site regularly, especially on celebration days, staying with the visitors for the entire event. Men and women are always happy to talk with me about Rachel, her mythology, biblical importance, and centrality in Jewish life and culture. As in every other place, I present myself as a university professor interested in female saints. People willingly talk with me and I’ve never had a bad incident. The visitors I meet seldom ask me about my personal life, and not once have they asked me about my political views. Mostly, they are enthusiastic about telling me their own stories. In these situations, participants give a full description of the saint followed by many details and a long discussion about problems of fertility, health, and livelihood. Scholars of religion will not be surprised by these narratives; they can be found in many pilgrims’ stories. What is unique in Jerusalem’s sacred places and perhaps the entire region is the effect of politics, security narratives, and security architecture. The Tomb of Rachel is fully surrounded by a large-​scale security wall. Traveling to the place is a journey through a closed zone that gives rise to a sensation of fear and insecurity. Where the wall starts, the view is blocked from both sides, and one can only see the gray of the cement. One must lift one’s gaze to see a slice of blue sky. The road takes you directly to the entrance, and there is no view of the urban surroundings, Beit Jala, Gillo, nature, trees, or flowers, only a view of the cement walls along both sides of the narrow road (Gonen, 1999; Sered, 1986; Stadler, 2015). These female saints’ sanctuaries are a fertile ground to explore how the experience is designed, and how it has popularized these rituals, expanding them to other places, copying one from the other, as well as what the meaning of this dynamic of experience, material culture, politics, and place is. To

22  Voices of the Ritual enlarge my comparative scope and learn more about these questions, I added more shrines to explore using the same tools. One shrine that is now becoming more and more popular is a Jewish womb-​tomb shrine, the tomb of yet another Rachel, the one buried in Tiberias. In 2010, I started working on the Tomb of Rachel wife of Rabbi Akiva, with Nimrod Luz and my student, Lior Chen, then a Ph.D. student in the department of sociology and anthropology at the Hebrew University. The three of us went to the place every time there was an event, hillula (a commemoration of a saint day of death), and rituals. This shrine sits in the southern Jewish cemetery of Tiberias. Locals currently identify the gravesite as that of the pious wife of the famed Talmudic sage Akiva ben Joseph (ca.50–​ca.135 ce) and a model of Jewish female piety and of a wife who has sacrificed her life for her husband’s dedication to Torah studies. Arriving at the tomb, one sees the beautiful panorama of the Sea of Galilee revealed. Naturally, like the dates of death of other canonical figures, Rachel’s date of death is unknown, and the scripture does not say much about her. However, as the people at the place explain, her hillula day has been arbitrarily set on the third day of the Jewish Passover. Women and men come to pray at the place for fertility. They usually speak of her being a model for the Jewish wife, one who knew how to encourage her husband to pursue his Torah studies, even if she had to take upon herself a personal sacrifice and live in poverty to achieve that sacred goal. Studies of the building tell us that the rectangular structure of the tomb was in a state of neglect until 1993 (Gonen, 1999). Local Muslims claim that the site is the final resting place of a venerated Muslim woman, Sitt Sukayna. According to the site’s current “gatekeeper,” a Kashrut inspector named Rabbi Rafael Cohen discovered the place in 1993 as an abandoned Muslim cemetery, and, according to local Jews, the place was abandoned and neglected. A donor decided to renovate the place as the Tomb of Rachel. The local Muslims we spoke to claimed the site was originally a shrine to Lady Sakina (d. 745 in Medina), and some even said that she was a part of Muhammad’s family. During the same years, the Muslim authorities brought up the appropriation of the tomb’s place and lands in the Knesset. However, they did not pursue a court case. With the Jewish fund raising effort, the reconstruction was created around Rachel’s grave with separate spaces for men and women. The tomb was built as an inside room, in a womb-​tomb pattern, although there are other rooms with different styles and activities. At the entrance is a little shop for candles, special bottles of holy water, talismans, and relics for visitors.

Introduction  23 One of the most unusual and surprising places we studied was raised in direct response to physical geopolitical changes:  the wall between Israel and Palestine. The wall that separates Jerusalem and Beit Jala has not only separated Christians and Muslims from their holy places and spaces of rituals and prayer, but it has also given rise to creativity and innovation. One place is Our Lady of the Wall, an increasingly popular mural that graces a few slabs of the Separation Fence. In 2010, an icon of the Virgin Mary was painted less than 500 meters to the east of Rachel’s Tomb, on the Palestinian side of the Wall. Christian locals explain the painting of this new mural as a reaction to the wall enclosure. We started visiting this place in 2012. Most of the time, it was empty, and we conversed mostly with the icon painter and British iconographer, Ian Knowles, and with the nuns at the Emmanuel Monastery. The local narrative, they told Nimrod and me when we first arrived at the convent, is that a small picture of the Virgin was placed between two of the barrier’s concrete slabs. However, heavy winter rains soon damaged the picture. Ian Knowles, a former priest, was commissioned by local nuns from the nearby Emmanuel Monastery to paint a permanent mural. Many people we met described the experience of being shut out by the Wall. Under these circumstances, people can no longer reach places that were integral to their daily life, or religious places such as the churches of Jerusalem. Knowles’s icon was painted on a segment of wall directly in front of the entrance to the monastery. The grave of Miriam Mizrahi, a woman of grace, is in the Giv’at Shaul cemetery at the entrance to Jerusalem. In 2011, I read in one of the local Haredi magazines that Mizrahi’s grave had begun to attract many people. That same winter, I went to see her grave. On my approach, when I was asking about its location, the Haredi men working at the cemetery were thrilled to answer questions; they pointed up to show me this tomb that was not far from the parking lot and the tombstone shops scattered around. They told me that they call Mizrahi “Miriam the Laundress,” and that she was a Tzadika who had worked in Jerusalem for the large famous Hasidic families doing their laundry and other housework. I realized through my visits that many local Jews consider Miriam the Laundress to be a sacred fertility figure. The stories vary: some say that Miriam knew the grief of a woman who has failed to conceive and have children of her own, while others say that she gave birth to a child who died. After Miriam’s death in 1965, she was laid to rest in West Jerusalem’s Giv’at Shaul cemetery. In recent years, among local Jews, it has become popular to visit, venerate, and pray at her grave. But many visitors

24  Voices of the Ritual from ultra-​Orthodox North American communities also come to visit her grave and pray for the fertility of the women in their families. Now that the grave is increasingly attracting attention, it is undergoing renovation. A pergola was built to protect visitors from sun and rain, to highlight the place and distinguish it from other tombs, as well as to make it more visible from far away. When I first visited the site, the place was empty. However, a little Muslim boy grasped that I was heading there alone and accompanied me, holding a bucket full of water. When we arrived, he washed the tomb carefully, keeping an eye on my movements. Over the course of my visits, this place became a main interest to me, and together with Omer Hacker and Lior Chen I carried out a long ethnography, which includes observing rituals and hillula days, interviewing women and men, and taking pictures and short videos of rituals. Another sacred place dedicated to a female shrine, one that is, however, less popular than the others I  describe, is the Catholic church and sculpture of Our Lady of Palestine (Reginae Palestina). The church is at the Deir Rafat Monastery houses, established in 1927, thirty-​five kilometers east of Jerusalem, at the initiative of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Luigi Barlassina, who instituted the feast. According to the Deir Rafat nuns, the annual feast began in 1933 so that all local Christians could pray for the Virgin Mary’s special protection of her native land. Nowadays, the place is managed by the Sisters of Saint Dorothy, who came from Vicenza, Italy. The statue of the Virgin is also placed on the roof of the chapel, with her hand extended to bless the land. At her feet is the inscription, “Reginae Palestinae.” Every October 30, hundreds of pilgrims flock to Deir Rafat for the Feast of Our Lady of Palestine—​the patroness of the Jerusalem diocese. Among other pilgrims, the celebration attracts local families, priests, seminarians, and overseas volunteers, all of whom pray in unison. Similarly, representatives of Israel/​Palestine’s Catholic denominations—​the Latin, Melkite, Maronite, Armenian, Chaldean, and Syrian Catholic churches—​concelebrate Mass there. On the Tuesday I arrived to start my research, the gate was closed. I rang the bell and waited a long time for the nuns to open the church gate. When a nun finally appeared, I asked her for information about the procession and other celebrations for Mary. However, it was hard to get any clear answers. When I arrived a few weeks after, I asked the same questions of local priests, and they told me about the October procession and the gathering outside the

Introduction  25 church in front of the huge statue on the monastery’s roof. The procession is a small one, and only local Christians gather to take part in it. A small statue similar to the one on the roof is taken out during the procession and carried around the site. The area around Jerusalem is not the only region for the resurgence of sacred spaces in general and female places in particular. Traveling through the country, one can find many new or renovated holy places, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Druze. The most important is the Bawardi home and shrine, both in the village of I’billin. The Vatican canonized Mariam Bawardi in 2015. According to the textual tradition, Mariam was born in 1846 and became a Carmelite nun who later endured demonic visitations and stigmata. She is said to have merited facial radiance and been bestowed with the gift of prophecy, possessed by “the Good Angel,” and able to fathom the human heart. Her birthplace in the Galilean village of I’billin is undergoing an unusual restoration process carried out by the site’s private owner, Ass’ad Daoud. With Mariam Bawardi’s growing fame as the first canonized Palestinian female figure, the owner is reconstructing the shrine slowly with the aim of making it a true replica of the ancient site as it appears in photos. Mary is venerated in two churches dedicated to her name, one Catholic and the other Orthodox, representing the two traditions at I’billin. Christians, as well as Muslim women coming to ask for the saint’s help with infertility and family issues, venerate the shrine and the house. Some visitors told us that Jewish women also come to pray there. The most celebrated day is the last Saturday of October, when a procession takes place. On this day, a painting of Bawardi is carried around the village in a van. Another female saint shrine, the “Weeping Mary,” is located at St. Georgios Church in the old city of Ramla. Rebuilt in 1835, this Greek Orthodox house of prayer commemorating St. George sits on ninth-​century ruins. Born in the nearby city of Lod, the saint is believed to have slain a dragon that represented the wild enemy of the Christian faith. The church is replete with icons and other religious articles. However, my interest in this church is the painting of the Virgin by the entrance to the adjoining monastery. In 2013, this painting, now called the Weeping Mary, began shedding tears and oil. News of this mysterious phenomenon circulated widely through the internet. Now, Christians from Ramla, the region, and further afield visit this site, where they fall to their knees and pray before the miraculous icon. Since 2013, many have visited St. Georgios Church, asking to touch and kiss the painting.

26  Voices of the Ritual The three following places serve to widen the comparative venues; however, they are different and are not as central or popular as other sites. Nonetheless, I visited these places and wrote field notes. The first sacred site in this category is the Cave of Hanna and her sons, located in Safad’s old cemetery. In the Jewish tradition, Hanna is a Jewish archetype of heroic motherhood. To enter the womb-​tomb burial chamber at the Cave of Hanna, which draws supplicants who have difficulty conceiving, visitors must crouch. According to the popular narrative, Hanna and her sons were killed by the Seleucid authorities (the Seleucid Empire ruled the land of Israel during the second and first centuries bce) for refusing to violate major tenets of their faith. In dying this way, they fulfilled the age-​old Jewish precept of lamut al kiddush ha’shem (to die in sanctification of God’s name). Versions of this story can be found in the Book of Maccabees, in the tractate of Gittin of the Babylonian Talmud, and Lamentations Rabbah. In the north of the city of Tiberias is another place that has recently become a center for female veneration, a site long considered the final resting place of Jochebed and Zipporah (Moses’s mother and wife, respectively), along with Elisheva —​the wife of Aaron the Priest. Nestled between apartment buildings in Tiberias, this burial facility’s distinguishing features are a circular roof, extruding diagonal buttresses, and faux-​ceramic floor tiles. Over the years, a tradition has emerged according to which the shrine also contains the graves of Bilhah and Zilpah—​the concubines of Jacob the Patriarch—​and, more recently, King David’s wife, Abigail. Given the various narratives surrounding these figures, visits to this site are considered a remedy for infertility. The visitors, especially Jewish women who are devotees, explain that the place is dedicated to Segula Lepirion, meaning a remedy for fertility. This shrine is a good place to ask for children because, according to tradition, Jochebed and Elisheva used to act as midwives. At the site of Our Lady of Tarshiha in the Galilean village of Tarshiha is a statue of the Virgin Mary that is reputed to have shed tears in early 2014. Devotees come to behold, touch, and kiss this wondrous effigy. At each of these sites, I have analyzed the construction or reconstruction of its defining elements on the part of devotees and other stakeholders. Some of the shrines are venerated by multiple faith groups, and some are exclusive to a particular community, religion, group, or sect. This comparative ethnography centers on a set of research activities conducted with students and colleges. Let me briefly explain the ethnographic work.

Introduction  27 In most places, though by no means all, a set of formal interviews was conducted with “gatekeepers,” especially in the first stages of research (Bilu & Ben-​Ari, 1992). At each site, these comprehensive interviews were held with these gatekeepers—​rabbis, priests, monks, nuns, owners of the place (secular or religious), and devotees. During interviews, we asked about the following topics: mythologies, canonical texts, and legends regarding the saint at hand, the prayers directed to her, and the rituals performed on both ordinary and festive days. To complement these interviews, we conducted in-​depth interviews with pilgrims and visitors. At every shrine, I conducted interviews with devotees:  What was their religious background? What were their motives for visiting? How did they experience their bonds with the local saint? And what did they know about the pertinent canonical texts, narratives, and mythologies? Handelman suggested that the first step to understanding the ritual was to ask what particular rituals are about, what they are organized to do, and how they accomplish what they do. These are empirical questions whose prime locus of inquiry is initially within the rituals themselves. The idea is to study the ritual by approaching its interior dynamics and practices, and not initially from the wider sociocultural fields ritual is embedded in. After the interviews, I conducted participant observations at each site, with the help of colleagues and students. We attended festivals and processions, took part in ritual activities on regular and special dates, and observed how devotees interacted with each site. We also held informal conversations with local visitors and pilgrims (Handelman, 2004). Before dwelling on my fieldwork findings and the theoretical explanations, I’ll start with a short chapter contextualizing sacred places in Israel/​Palestine and the Middle East in general.

Figure 1.1  An Ethiopian nun at the entrance of the Holy Sepulcher. Photo by Guy Raivitz.

1  Contextualization State, Religion, and Contested Borders

The best way to humanize research is to contextualize it, says Ronald Grimes (Grimes, 2013:24), a suggestion that is central to my research and to my case studies. Rituals and sacred places grow and flourish in the current Middle East, a contested and violent place. Here, to understand the human dimension of ritual, we must also understand these rituals at different levels of resolution: the Holy Land, the Middle East and its contemporary politics, and the Israeli/​Palestinian conflict. When we look deeply into the internal character of the ritual, as Don Handelman suggests, we can use this level of analysis. And in this deeper analysis, we will find deeper insights unfolding at these resolutions like overlapping transparencies, each a subtly different map.

Sacred Archetypes of the Holy Land: Texts and Lands To study rituals performed in sacred places, we need to conceptualize the sacred archetype itself, a structural and structuring element of the religious phenomenon. According to Eliade (2005), the archetype is a potential form, an original model of the “collective unconscious,” the chief source of man’s reaction and behavior. Sacred places in East Mediterranean countries are unique archetypes, because they are usually sites whose sacredness is based on the spatial interpretation of the holy scriptures—​Jewish, Christian, and Muslim (Poorthuis, 1996). Here, what we call the Mediterranean East is considered to be where everything started, where biblical figures were born, practiced, lived their everyday lives, and died. Archetypes are not only considered elements in the transcendental-​numinous sphere, but they are also designated “models of practice” in the sphere of religious life. As I show in this book, it is in archetypal spaces that the Abrahamic mythologies have started, as well as where their rituals, images, art, and performances are materialized. Voices of the Ritual. Nurit Stadler, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197501306.001.0001

30  Voices of the Ritual In Jewish sources, Adam, the first man, is described as being created in the same place where the Holy Jewish Temple would be built in the future, in Jerusalem. When he was expelled from the Garden of Eden, Adam returned to this place to offer a sacrifice to God. Cain and Abel brought their offerings to this same place that would one day be called the holy altar. The Jerusalem Altar, as Eliade’s theory of “the myth of eternal return” (1971) suggests, is a permanent shrine where all biblical figures worship God, and even if it is destroyed by a flood or other catastrophe, all Jews will return here to worship it again. The following text is recited again and again by devotees to emphasize this idea: “You shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place” (Deuteronomy 12:5). From the Jewish perspective, the Holy Land is viewed as the land where sacredness was first created and materialized. The events of the Bible are canvassed in the territory of the Holy Land. In the Jewish Bible, the Holy Land appears in Zechariah 2:16 where, it is said, the land was given to the Israelites by God as the “promised land.” This is why there are many commands (Mitzvot) that can only be fulfilled in the land of Israel (e.g., the law of shmita, the seventh year of the seven-​year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the Land of Israel). The term “Holy Land” also appeared in the Book of Wisdom 12:3 and 2 Maccabees 1:17. Jerusalem is a land where many sacred events take place. It is considered the holy Mount of Moria, where the binding of Isaac, the akeda, the covenant with God, took place. Few anthropological ethnographic studies of Jewish canonical places exist. In her comparative study of pilgrimages to two such places, Rachel’s Tomb and the Milk Grotto of the Virgin Mary, Sered (1986) explains that the Matriarch Rachel died after giving birth to Benjamin and, according to Jewish Midrash, was buried in Bethlehem. Similar to the way Christian sources perceive Mary, Jewish tradition views Rachel as a suffering mother who had problems conceiving, accompanied her children into exile, wept for them, and interceded with God on their behalf in their hour of need. Against this backdrop, visits to Rachel’s Tomb are usually spurred on by problems concerning marriage, pregnancy, and childbirth. From a Christian perspective, the Holy Land is a landscape that reflects Christian perceptions of biblical events and scriptural texts (Halbwachs, 1992). According to Luke, Jesus spent his childhood in Jerusalem; Mark 11 recounts the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple and chasing traders out of the sacred surroundings. The Gospels end with accounts of

State, Religion, and Contested Borders  31 Jesus’s Last Supper, his arrest in Gethsemane, his trial, his crucifixion at Golgotha, his burial nearby, and his resurrection and ascension, as well as the prophecy of his return. All these canonic actions were materialized in different times and physically constructed as ritualistic places and shrines. Mary, like Jesus, is also mentioned in the New Testament and apocryphal accounts. For example, the devotion of Mary in Jerusalem is based on a fixed liturgical set of long-​established utterances and acts that are viewed with awe by the local clergy of the different communities, in Catholic as well as Orthodox churches in Jerusalem. Various members of the ministries I interviewed explain that by guarding Mary’s practices, the clergy wish to follow the scriptural tradition and to preserve what they see as the most authentic way of worshiping Mary. Over the centuries, Christians have created a landscape in Jerusalem that reflects their own view of biblical events and scriptural texts (Halbwachs, 1992). In this landscape, pilgrims bring the scriptures alive when they visit the city’s canonical sites (Poorthuis, 1996). Multiple ethnographic accounts of veneration sites demonstrate that participants expect a chorographical experience of whatever biblical event transpired at the site they happen to be visiting (Bowman, 1991; Collins-​Kreiner, 2006; Feldman, 2007; Sered, 1986). In his seminal study, Bowman (1991, p. 99) sheds light on the textuality of Christian imagining of sacred places (1991, p. 107). Sered’s (1986) comparative study of worship in Rachel’s Tomb and the Milk Grotto of the Virgin Mary explains how women have developed their own customs, rituals, and beliefs at canonical Holy Land shrines that commemorate female saints (1986, p. 19). Bajc (2008), meanwhile, examines the connection between the biblical text and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher through the prism of the six denominations that claim rights to the sacred compound: the Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, and Roman Catholic Churches, all of them embroiled in festering conflicts concerning their rights at and the administration of the “Great Church.” After describing these feuds, Bajc discusses how they shape the ways the streams comprehend their differences and the boundaries within the compound. Feldman (2007) studied Protestant visits to sacred sites and claims that the Israeli tour guide and Protestant pastor co-​produce a mutually satisfying performance that transforms the highly contested terrain of Israel/​Palestine into the “Land of the Bible.” Bowman (1993) illuminates the importance of biblical texts in Christian imagining of sacred places, and demonstrates how

32  Voices of the Ritual rituals are structured according to the ontology of the pilgrims’ sectarian identity (1991, p.  107). Moreover, he describes how different Christian groups, whether Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant, engage in interpreting the significance of holy places, and how each group incorporates its own understanding of sacred textual events into its rituals. The Garden Tomb is a popular pilgrimage site near Damascus Gate, which Charles George Gordon suggests is the true place of Golgotha (Bitton, 2012, 2019), rather than the Holy Sepulcher. In the Protestant view, this is where Jesus was buried and went to heaven, and not, as other Christian streams suggest, the Holy Sepulcher. The Holy Land or Blessed Land is an important central notion in Islam, and a place of veneration (Mulder, 2014). In the Qur’an, the term Al-​Ard Al-​ Muqaddasah, “Holy Land,” is mentioned at least seven times. For example, in the Qur’an, Surah 5:21 Moses proclaims, O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin. Al-​Quds, meaning the “Holy,” has particular significance in Islam. As Uri Rubin explains (2008:345), the Qur’an defines the land of Israel as “the sacred land” (al-​ard almuqaddasa Qur’an 5:21), and especially as a land on which God’s blessing (baraka) has been bestowed. The land which We blessed (al-​ard allati barakna fiha) is the one to which Abraham and Lot escape (Qur’an 21:71)

The Qur’an refers to Muhammad experiencing the Isra and Miraj as “a Journey by night from the Sacred, meaning to the Mecca Mosque to the Farthest Mosque (al-​Masjid al-​Aqsa), whose precincts We did bless” (17, p.  1). In later interpretations and in the common understanding among Muslims today, this mosque is the Friday mosque built on the ruins of the Jewish Temple by the Umayyads in 692 ad. Since the seventh century, and hand in hand with growing Islamic dominance, a sacred Islamic geography has been developing in the region. Indeed, Jerusalem served as its center, but other shrines and sacred pilgrimage sites have also emerged. These perceptions of the Holy Land demarcate it as an axis mundi for the three Abrahamic religions and make the center a crucial territory. Sacred places are therefore a materialization of a textual, transcendental, metaphysical-​abstract notion of acredness.

State, Religion, and Contested Borders  33

Eschatology Versus Pragmatism: Holy Maps and Physical Borders Sacredness is materialized in a specific political system. In current political thinking, the zone I am exploring in this book is referred to as Israel/​ Palestine. The region we currently call Israel/​Palestine can be investigated as a product of colonialism, especially the outcome of the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate, and, since 1948, the Israeli state. Moreover, its symbolic and physical maps are the product of a long process of postcolonialism. All these forces left a region divided by random, external, sometimes violent forces. Here, I  am referring especially to a mixture of inhabitants, people immigrating from place to place according to the political forces, native peoples, refugees, religious communities, and more, who all claim that the land belong to them as part of the power of God’s will. The decision about the Jewish state and its construction in 1948 has reinforced political and territorial struggles over issues concerning the theology, economy, and borders of the region. However, the most critical problem was and is still the combat over territoriality, the ownership of lands and the inability to decide on borders and state sovereignty (Ghanem & A’li, 2005). When national borders are not defined, uncertainty is reinforced, controversies are provoked, and violence is the main tenet between different groups. As I discussed earlier, these are not issues that have emerged recently; they accompany the history of the place and have been contested for centuries. For example, the concept of the state, for Jews, and mainly Jerusalem, was an unattained dream, an eschatological term, a place that is real and unreal for Jews all over the world. In that respect, for an extended time, the “promised land” was for Jews more a geohistorical concept, an allegory of return to a land that God promised to His people. It was conceptualized as an unreached territory, long rooted in historical Jewish consciousness. The promised land is a territory that was imagined, theologized, and turned into a modern commodity. The idea of “stateness” has existed in the Jewish imagination for decades (Kimmerling, 2001; Kimmerling & Migdal, 1994). What happened when the Jewish dream was modernized and translated into a real state? More specifically, how would this dream translate into a tangible modern state? Zionism as a movement had to deal with the various interpretations of this historical opportunity. The main problem was to deal with the ideo-​religious idea of ertz Israel hashlema, the concept of the greater Israel, that soon after the Holocaust became a political statement, and a discourse

34  Voices of the Ritual on the privileges of the Jews, not only for the realization of a state, but also with the desire to maximize borders according to biblical narratives. After the Holocaust, mainstream Zionists accepted a more pragmatic partition of what had been British Palestine into independent Jewish and Arab states. In this view, the eschatological biblical view must be translated into a possible pragmatic state, and rapidly to accommodate Jews, especially those who were refugees after World War II. However, the biblical dream did not stop there. In current politics, it is still a dominant viewpoint of many streams in Israeli politics. When Israel was declared an independent state in 1948, the question of the physical borders of the Jewish state was not settled, and it remains undefined today. All policies, debates, and ideologies, even the most pragmatic ones regarding the borders of what Jews, Muslims, and Christians consider the “homeland,” the “holy land,” escalated conflicts and violence between groups and sects. Questions concerning the extension of the borders and inclusion of territories underwent several modifications depending on the degree of belligerence and views of the political parties during different historical moments (Kimmerling, 1983). Between 1949 and 1967, it seemed that the Israeli polity had come to a growing acceptance of the 1949 armistice borders as the (more or less) appropriate boundaries for the nation-​state (Shelef, 2010). However, the Six-​Day War and its aftermath altered this notion concerning the physical borders of the state, especially regarding the West Bank, driving the government to adopt a policy of ambiguity (Feige, 2002b). The Oslo agreement (1993 Oslo I and 1995 Oslo II) involved the transfer of certain powers to the Palestinian Authority; these powers apply in dozens of disconnected enclaves containing the majority of the Palestinian population. In terms of territoriality, as a result of the Oslo Accords, three zones were created: Zone A, under the control of the Palestinian Authority; Zone B, consisting of civilian Palestinian control and Israeli control for security (entailing full Israeli control except on Palestinian civilians); and the third zone, Zone C, which falls completely under Israeli control and includes Israeli settlements and security zones. Since 2000, these enclaves, referred to as Areas A and B, have accounted for approximately forty percent of the area of the West Bank. Control of the remaining areas, including the roads providing transit between the enclaves, as well as points of departure from the West Bank, remains with Israel. Instability and ongoing conflicts, as we have seen, arise from division of communities, an absence of definite borders, and challenges to land

State, Religion, and Contested Borders  35 appropriation and various groups’ claims. This book aims to explore how the study of sacred places can be a lens through which to examine how people perform rituals and think about religiosity and land ownership. As I  mentioned earlier, these three imaginary scenarios and narratives of what the three religions call the holy land are imaginative maps based on many texts, ideas, and figurative maps. Many groups within the three religions have different interpretations of the concept, sometimes shared and sometimes conflicting. Using the terms “the Middle East” and “Israel/​ Palestine” is very political, and the imaginative form is sometimes easier to use. Thus, although the holy land concept is religious and vague, I prefer to use it in this book, especially because people I’ve interviewed and chatted with as well as the texts I read use this term when they refer to sacred places, saints, and lands. I do sometimes call the place Israel/​Palestine, especially when I contextualize the political framework of this study.

Sacred Places and the Idea of the Jewish State International law in general and Israeli law, in particular, do not define specifically what a sacred place is (Hassner, 2009). How should a sacred place be treated in the context of modern states? How does state law define a sacred place? Who is in charge of it? From the perspective of the written word, the Israeli law, sacred places are to be kept in accord with humanistic values and values of basic human rights, equality, and freedom of worship. With this in mind, it follows the law of the Ottoman period and the British Mandate that the state should follow the status quo of holy places—​what is called “the status quo of the holy land sites.” This is a decree written by the eighteenth-​ century Ottoman Sultan Osman that preserved the division of ownership and responsibilities of various sites important to Christians, Muslims, and Jews to their then current holders or owners. Land and acquisition, settlement, and nationalization have been primary goals for the Zionist movement since the nineteenth century. Furthermore, during the declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel (May 14, 1948) it was expected, from the point of view of international law, that the state would keep the status quo as it was formalized historically. However, since the creation of the state, Israeli policy has consistently preferred and invested in only Jewish sacred places all over Israel and in Jerusalem in particular. Most holy places in the Holy Land, which in many cases are also

36  Voices of the Ritual archaeological sites, are considered sacred to the three religions. The legal system and the political offices permit enhancement of the Jewish identity of sacred places, even if they were previously shared by Muslims or/​and Christians, or belonged specifically to one stream. The Israeli law of the custody of sacred places was written in 1967 to satisfy international critical voices regarding the status of Jerusalem. Regarding Christian places, the state of Israel functions as a mediator between the various churches. The status quo has largely been observed, especially in places like the Holy Sepulcher, and state officials help Greek Orthodox, Copts, Syrians, Ethiopians, Armenians, Franciscans, Greek Catholics, and others to achieve understanding. Regarding Jerusalem, the status quo is a central issue. The law declares that holy sites in the city would be kept and recognized as being permanent. Despite the arguments over who would control what aspects of these sites, the status quo has remained largely intact from the seventeenth century to the present. The quarters and areas remain roughly as they have been inside Suleiman’s walls. In this reality, the city was divided into four quarters: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Armenian. The Temple Mount was recognized as a Muslim holy place; the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and many other Christian sites, churches, and monasteries were recognized as belonging to the Christian world and declared as the Christian Quarter. Under the status quo, no part of what is designated as common territory may be so much as rearranged without consent from all these communities. This often leads to neglect when repairs are badly needed and the communities cannot come to an agreement about the final shape of a project. Just such a disagreement has delayed the renovations of most pilgrimage sites, and also where any change in the structure might result in a change to the status quo that is disagreeable to one or more of the communities. Looking at the website of the Custodia Terrae Sanctae, the Franciscan serving the Holy Land,1 we learn about their way of thinking about the law: “Status quo,” or “statu quo,” as it is commonly called in the Holy Land and in many publications, refers in a broad sense to the relations between the Christian communities of the Holy Land with the governments of the region. Specifically, status quo applies to the situation within the Holy Land that the Christian communities find themselves in regarding ownership and rights possessed by each within the sanctuaries, both alone and in conjunction with other rites within the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and the Tomb of the Virgin

State, Religion, and Contested Borders  37 Mary in Jerusalem. The life of the sanctuaries is inseparable from the political regimes of the Holy Land, which have slowly led to the situation in force today. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Greek Orthodox and Catholic Churches were in a continual struggle over a number of sanctuaries including the Holy Sepulcher, the Tomb of the Madonna, and the Grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem. This was a period of “fraternal strife and political interventions.” Through these painful events, one arrived at the existing situation, ratified by an official declaration on February 8, 1852, and referred to by the term status quo. The status quo in the sanctuaries of the Holy Land, especially in the Holy Sepulcher, determines the subjects of ownership of the holy places, and more specifically, the spaces inside the sanctuaries. It also extends to the times and durations of functions, movements, the routes taken and how they are implemented, whether by singing or by reading.

In this section from the Custodian website, we read an explanation, especially in historical terms, of the importance of the status quo for Christians in general and specifically for all Christians living in Israel/​Palestine. It emphasizes the dimension of the law and the keeping of all streams according to its principals. According to this interpretation, it is not important who the current ruler is; what is crucial is the idea of keeping this law forever with no alterations (Emmett, 1997). The state of Israel has a specific law regarding sacred places. The law regarding protecting sacred places for all religions was crystalized in 1967, and it explicitly stated the following: The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places. Whosoever desecrates or otherwise violates a Holy Place shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of seven years. Whosoever does anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years. This Law shall add to, and not derogate from, any other law. The Minister of Religious Affairs is charged with the implementation of this Law, and he may, after consultation with, or upon the proposal of, representatives of the religions concerned and with the consent of the Minister of Justice make

38  Voices of the Ritual regulations as to any matter relating to such implementation. This Law shall come into force on the date of its adoption by the Knesset 1967.

This law is signed by Levi Eshkol, the prime minister of Israel at that time, as well as Zerach Warhaftig, the minister of religious affairs, and Shneur Zalman Shazar, the president of the state at that time.2 In 1981, Jerusalem was declared to be the capital of Israel. In this same year, a specification of the holy places was added, with a total of sixteen holy places being determined under the regulation for the preservation of holy places, all of them being strictly for Jews including: The Western Wall and any overground or underground passage whose entrance goes through the plaza; the Shimon Hatzadik Cave (in East Jerusalem’s contested Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood); the Yad Avshalom place; the little Sanhedrin; the tomb of Ovadia of Bartenura; and the tomb of Zecharia the prophet. In this reality, Christian and Muslim places have no defense law of the state itself, and do not benefit from state funds for preservation and reconstruction. In sharp contrast, Jewish sites are given priority in terms of special funds for preservation and enlargement of sacred places, ancient and new. Sacred Jewish sites are reconstructed and cared for, with cleaning personnel taking care of the buildings, toilets, and surroundings, visitors being provided with hotels and hostels built around the site, and roads being built and rebuilt to afford fast and easy access to these places. Most funds are state funds, especially from the Ministry of Tourism. As we shall see, this has a tremendous effect on sacred places, and on their reconstruction and revival. Jewish places have priority and are easier to build. This is part of the Judaization of the land (Yiftachel, 1999). Nevertheless, Christians and Muslims react to this creation (Feige, 2009).

Religion and Rituals in Israel/​Palestine Religion in Israel/​Palestine is undergoing a revival (Lehmann & Siebzehner, 2006; Stadler, 2009, 2015). Recent decades have borne witness to new forms of spiritualism, piety, charismatic groups, and syncretism as well as wide-​scale conversion and extreme interpretations of sacred texts worldwide (Asad, Brown, Butler, & Mahmood, 2009; Mahmood, 2001, 2011). Moreover, a broad range of ethnographies on religious life demonstrate that those same modern phenomena that sociologists thought would lead to the

State, Religion, and Contested Borders  39 secularization and liberalization of the state—​education, the mass media, the labor market, and science—​have actually sparked a hearty religious revival throughout the world, sweeping up large numbers of devotees of the three Abrahamic faiths. At the same time, the modern age has also given rise to a wide array of new spiritual movements, such as neo-​shamanic, neo-​pagan, New Age, and therapeutic groups. Fundamentalist movements, charismatic groups, and mass group worship in Israel usually fall under the purview of Orthodox and Haredi streams. However, these phenomena are far from the only signs of religious rival in the “Promised Land.” Many Israelis, secular and otherwise, have embraced various aspects of the new religiosity and spiritualism within the framework of New Age movements and similar groupings. As in other countries, there are Israelis who have reacted to monotheistic ideals of religiosity by creating an assortment of religious practices that fuse elements of paganism, shamanism, and Buddhist spirituality with New Age content and some Jewish elements as well (Klin‐Oron, 2014). People tend to use religion to identify themselves as, say, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or Sikhs. However, I would like to suggest that the topics latterly covered in the anthropological and sociological literature on religion, especially with respect to knowledge and classification systems (e.g., totemism), taboos, rituals, and myths, have exposed the need for new categories that go beyond religious denominations and streams. Within this in mind, when looking at the Middle Eastern religions, we can divide current religious resurgence into a few primary groups: fundamentalist movements, violent extremist groups, charismatic movements, various forms of group worship, and New Age (Stadler, 2012). Within these tendencies, mass worship is a central popularized religious propensity that is growing in the Middle East in general, and in the area of Israel/​Palestine in particular. By virtue of anthropology’s longstanding preoccupation with devotion and ritual, scholars have produced a cornucopia of studies on contemporary rites. In addition to elucidating the symbols, meanings, and customs that inform these sites, they examine the degree of communitas between the various devotees. Many of these researchers also shed light on the political aspects of religious events, such as the different antagonistic and conflicting nationalist narratives that crop up during services, ceremonies, and rites across the globe. Victor and Edith Turner (Turner & Turner, 1978;. Turner, Turner, & Turner, 2011)  argue that the crux of the pilgrimage experience—​the trek to holy shrines—​is a shared universal experience in which the participants

40  Voices of the Ritual reach a state of communitas for the sake of, say, completing their vows or bolstering their struggle against evil (Turner, 1967). In fact, Victor Turner contends that liminality is “the optimal setting of communitas relations, and communitas—​a spontaneously generated relationship between leveled and equal total and individuated human beings, stripped of structural attributes,” who “together constitute what one might call antistructure” (1973, p. 216). During such events, Turner writes, “symbol becomes associated with human interests, purposes, ends, and means, whether these are explicitly formulated or have to be inferred from the observed behavior.” As a result, the symbols evoked or engendered instigate a social ferment that arouses individuals and groups to action, whether orderly or chaotic (1967, p. 36). Such a phenomenon informs many of the burgeoning pilgrimage sites in the modern Christian world. Shrines of charismatic figures, such as Padre Pio in Italy, have become immensely popular (McKevitt, 2013). Similarly, the age-​old pilgrimage to the Basilica of Santiago de Compostela in Spain has been transformed into a prime destination for modern pilgrimage and tourism, and the ancient cult of the Virgin Mary has attracted immense crowds to Marian shrines throughout the world (Badone, 2010; Slavin, 2003). Partially on account of the development and affordability of rapid means of transportation, over the past few decades, there has been a marked increase in the number of visitors—​ both foreign and local—​ to Muslim, Christian, and Jewish sites. Pilgrimage to Mecca has blossomed, as the holy city attracts millions of Muslims from around the globe. Likewise, hitherto dormant Jewish shrines have shed their cobwebs. For instance, thousands of Jews belonging to dozens of Orthodox groups flock to the tomb of the aforementioned Nachman of Breslov in the remote Ukrainian town of Uman. During Nachman’s lifetime (1772–​1810), thousands of Hasidim traveled long distances to spend Jewish holidays in the rabbi’s company and listen to his sermons. On the last Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) of his life, Nachman stressed the importance of his followers joining him for this particular holiday. Consequently, the rabbi’s top disciple instituted an annual pilgrimage to Nachman’s gravesite on Rosh Hashanah. Throughout the early twentieth century, this annual event drew thousands of Breslov Hasidim from throughout Eastern Europe, but attendance fell off drastically during the Communist era. Only after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 did the gates fully reopen and Uman regain its standing as a vibrant, active shrine (Akao, 2007).

State, Religion, and Contested Borders  41 A Jewish example of the global trend of female saint worship is the cult veneration at the Tomb of Rachel. In the next chapters I explore how the rites performed at Rachel’s shrine have resurrected fertility cults that have been popular in the Middle East since ancient times. According to Sered (1986), the uniqueness of these shrines rests in the fact that both Rachel and Mary are deemed to be the prototypical women of their respective faiths, namely mothers benefiting from special relationships with God and embodiments of female yearning for fertility. Sered argues that a woman’s pilgrimage to either site constitutes a sacred act that endows her with some power. In this respect, the female pilgrims who partake in these rites are essentially coping with the marginal status of women in patriarchal societies (Sered, 1986, p. 19). Sered also refers to constraints at the two sites: Rachel is considered a local saint, so that only women from the general vicinity visit her tomb. The Milk Grotto, meanwhile, is “a dark, private, and even antisocial” shrine. Pilgrims to the Milk Grotto must ring a doorbell to gain admittance and are chaperoned by a male Franciscan guard throughout their stay. Rabbi Shimon’s tomb attracts pilgrims throughout the year, but his hillula on the festival of Lag BaOmer is probably the largest annual gathering in all of Israel. Bilu (2003) describes the halaka (first haircut) ceremony during this event. This place is scriptural. According to kabbalistic tradition, a Jewish boy gets his first haircut at the age of three. At Meron, the halaka is performed by the proud fathers against the ecstatic backdrop of the mass pilgrimage to the tomb. From dawn to dusk, the site’s courtyard is packed with Hasidim dancing rapturously to deafening music. In the inner circumference of the seemingly endless layers of dancers, the recently shorn children are showered with gifts and encouraged to live up to their newly acquired status as boys, no longer toddlers (2003, p. 184). There are also popular Jewish saint tombs on Israel’s southern and northern peripheries. These sites are based not necessarily on canonical scriptures, but on the relocation of saints and sainthood venerations of immigrants. One example of such a site is the grave of the Baba Sali, Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira (1890–​1984), in the Negev town of Netivot. Among the most venerated burial sites that dot the Galilee is that of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai on Mount Meron. Shimon Bar Yohai is considered one of the most devoted disciples of Rabbi Akiva, a leading light of the Tannaic era. Moreover, he is deemed to be a leading kabbalist and the author of Sefer ha-​Zohar (Book of Splendor, the canonical text of Jewish mysticism).

42  Voices of the Ritual These places, new and old, are all central, vibrant, sacred places that are visited on festival days and regular days, all year long. The life cycle of a specific saint is celebrated here. Looking at these places through a comparative lens we see a sacred map, an alternative to the regular map of villages, cities, urban centers, and peripheral municipalities. This sacred map is an alternative glance at the Holy Land landscape. Visitors to these places are familiar with this alternative map. As we shall see, local visitors around Israel/​ Palestine mostly come from a low socioeconomic background, whether they are Jews, Christians, or Muslims. These visitors view the space through this cornucopia of holy archetypes. They come to visit the place when they need succor, help, and comfort in their daily life. However, as I will show in this book, it is not only piety and comfort that these people seek in sacred places. Visitors use these sites as new venues of knowledge and voice. When they pray, kiss icons and books, crawl, and sing, they actually appropriate the land. They claim their rights, each from their own narrative of territoriality. In this reality, the people I call “silent people” voice their expectations, and challenge the current social order. Understanding this “sound of silence devotion” is the main task of this book.

Figure 2.1  A Woman Praying at the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem. Photo by Guy Raivitz.

2 The Experience Body Rituals

Handelman suggests that, to begin the analysis of ritual as a phenomenon in its own right, we need make no immediate assumptions about how sociocultural order and ritual are related, neither about the meaning of signs and symbols that appear within a ritual, nor about the functional relationships between a ritual and social order. Handelman goes on to say: It is the phenomenal of the ritual itself that is the problematic—​a question perhaps even more of the logos of the phenomenon than of the phenomenal. And, more broadly, this problematic may be characterized as concerning the extent, if any, to which particular phenomena have degrees of autonomy from the worlds that create them. The sole way to address this problematic is to make ritual phenomena themselves the locus and focus of inquiry (Handelman, 2004, p. 3).

Following this claim, by closely observing the ritualistic inner experience in female sacred places, we learn about the centrality of the body and the “ritual of the body in motion.” As I mention in the introduction, in the Holy Land, places of veneration and rituals are based on canonical texts or mythologies of particular saints. When using Handelman’s suggestions on the study of the rituals in female sacred places, my first assumption was that the rituals performed in them are not only an analysis of inner characters but also a product of meanings around the textual traditions and their translation into action in Holy Land spaces (Duncan, 2004; Halbwachs, 1992). However, my analysis and findings show different dynamics of these rituals. Although the canon and its physical manifestations are robust, it is mostly “the body in motion” that shapes the experience (Coleman, 2009). Thus, my central finding is that the body and embodiment are at the heart of the rituals I have explored. Body rituals are unique, having developed around the stages of the cycle of life, from birth Voices of the Ritual. Nurit Stadler, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197501306.001.0001

46  Voices of the Ritual to death and rebirth, just as the cyclical growth and wilting of plants is evidence of a non-​dyadic (non-binary) link between death and revival. Eliade (1959, 2005, 2009; Eliade & Trask, 1964)  explains these regeneration rituals as a coincidentia oppositorum: the expression of a wish to recover the lost unity of the mythical paradise, in that it constitutes a reconciliation of opposites and the unification of diversities, death is associated with life, the tomb becomes a triumphant shrine, the cadaver is analogous to a fetus, infertility is transformed into fertility, barrenness is associated with motherhood and virginity with heroic motherhood. In sacred places that celebrate a female saint, these female body gestures are a central performance for women and men together. Why do people tend to perform body rituals? Body rituals at sacred places are manifested in a special geopolitical context of the Middle East and the Israel/​Palestine conflict. Here I  am referring to the well-​documented Jewish–​Muslim struggle in Israel/​Palestine;

Figure 2.2  The grave of R. Hananiah Ben Akashia. Photo by the author.

The Experience: Body Rituals  47 the unrest between various Jewish/​Christian denominations and sects in the Holy Land; the fraught relations between the Orthodox Patriarchate and both the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority; the tension between Jewish dominance and minorities; the tension between Orthodox and Catholics arising in response to various religious, political, and economic issues; and the tension between Christianity and Islam and within the Jewish-​ based state. These tensions are embedded in the manifestation of body ritual and alter its significance and its effect on place and landscape. * * * In Holy Land archetypes, the relations between rituals and texts are crucial. To explore the ritual in the Holy Land’s sacred places, we have to understand the relations between canonical text and performance. As I mentioned before, the study of pilgrimage at Holy Land shrines is unique because scholars assume that sacredness and its ritualistic manifestations are based on the notion that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim canonical texts are central for the manifestation of sacredness. In Markus’s historical insights (1991) on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, plumbing the annals of devotional travel since the fourth century ce, Markus argues that most of its destinations are rooted in textual traditions. For example, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is believed to house the sites where Jesus was crucified and buried. According to the New Testament, the Garden of Gethsemane, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, is where Christ and his disciples prayed the night before the crucifixion (Halbwachs, 1992; Limor, 2006a). Ora Limor demonstrates that sacred sites dedicated to Mary embody the canonical narratives of her birth in Nazareth, life, and death in Jerusalem (Limor, 2006a). The map of Jewish holy sites in Israel/​Palestine also traces canonical events and holy figures. Yoram Bilu has analyzed a host of Jewish shrines in Israel proper, especially on the country’s southern and northern peripheries (Bilu, 2005b). As part of Jewish religious revival, synagogues have been constructed adjacent to some of these sites, and tombs and caves have been reconstructed for ritualistic purposes. Moreover, the publicity surrounding these shrines has triggered a flurry of new activities (Bilu, 2005b). A case in point are the mass pilgrimages to kivrai tzadikim (tombs of the righteous) on the hillulot (anniversaries)1 of the saints’ deaths. More often than not, the number of attendees at these celebrations far exceeds the local community’s population (Bilu, 2005b, p. 62; Bilu, Kedar, & Zwi Werhlowsky, 1998). For the Jewish population, perhaps the most venerated burial site in the Galilee belongs to Rabbi Shimon Bar

48  Voices of the Ritual Yohai, among the most distinguished students of Rabbi Akiva (a leading light of the Tannaitic era2). Examining female shrines from a comparative perspective provides another angle for understanding the ritual. It enables us to understand how performances of the body, womanly themes, and rituals can be infiltrated into places, lands, and landscapes by various pilgrims and visitors. Engraved into the structure of these female places is the ancient knowledge and architecture that is today being refreshed and reinvigorated, physically preserved, and swept back into the spotlight. Moreover, the focus on Jewish and Christian places is not random. As I explain in the introduction, until this day, I have found no vibrant popular shrine of a Muslim female saint in the place we call Israel/​Palestine. In this case, Muslim devotion can be found in the places I have explored, and I have fused these voices in my study. Moreover, Muslim devotion, in general, has affected the rituals and performances in Jewish and Christian places, an effect I  have taken into consideration in my analysis (Stadler & Luz, 2014). All the Jewish and Christian female shrines that I  visited are also replete with iconographic, visual, architectural, ritualistic, and symbolic manifestations. As I  elaborate in Chapter  4, place can be understood as palimpsests of material, narratives, and images from different historical periods, such as the biblical age, Byzantium, Crusades, Mamluk, Ottoman, British, modern, and postmodern images. Naturally, the three major faiths usually have divergent narratives, memories, and interpretations of the same places. Having said this, when I was observing these rituals, I saw that the key factor in the religious experience, whether Jewish or Christian, is not the scriptural traditions, important as they may be. Instead, body practices such as crawling, walking barefoot, genuflection, kissing, and touching dominate the rite, personify the signified events, and help devotees make sense of a particular site, even if it is their first visit. Over the course of my fieldwork, I frequently asked visitors about the canonical or mythological significance of the place and its rituals. However, most of my interviewees, Jews and Christians, men and women, were indifferent to or lacked any knowledge of these Jewish/​Christian canonical or theological topics. Conversely, just as Latour suggested, the devotees’ own lived bodies played a major role in shaping various current experiences (Latour, 2004), with body practices being followed by long discussions on fertility/​ barrenness, motherhood/​infertility, women’s suffering, and miracles related to health and fruitfulness.

The Experience: Body Rituals  49 As the number of shrines included in this project mounted, as well as the number of my observations, I came to the realization that the same set of body-​ based actions and movements had been replicated and adopted at other sites. In other words, rituals and practices constitute a transmitted form of embodied female knowledge. Eade’s (2015) work on Lourdes, Coleman’s (2004, 2009) on the Marian shrine of Walsingham, Dubisch’s (1990) and Håland’s (2012) on the Madonna of Tinos, and other ethnographic studies of female shrines demonstrate that such rituals and customs are essentially being materialized, popularized, and globalized. At each venue, devotees observe, imitate, and duplicate body-​based practices from other popular places. This process is global and local at the same time, not only ratcheting up the popularity of these holy sites but giving rise to a shared intimate experience (Coleman, 2002, 2009) that is imitated in other places and transmitted on to still others.

Body-​Based Womb-​Tomb Shrines Rituals performed at Holy Land sacred shrines very often center around tombs, relics, or icons. Moreover, they tend to combine architectural elements like domes, inner courtyards, and dark rooms with natural phenomena such as caves, wells, and springs. Human communities worldwide have designated springs, wells, trees, groves, mountains, and caves as sacred, and perhaps nowhere more so than in the Holy Land (Lissovsky, 2014; Petersen, 2002). At these sites, people would erect their shrines and placate their gods or goddesses. As Berger (2011, p. 2) argued, Even when monotheism took firm hold, the sites were not abandoned. Instead, patriarchs, saints, sheikhs, and sages took the place of the pagan deities or local spirits. The sites—​and the figures associated with them—​ often became known for a “specialty,” usually having to do with healing, economic prosperity, looking for a wife or husband, human fertility, exorcizing the evil eye, or the act of purifying the soul. No matter what new conqueror appeared, the people on the land would not abandon their devotion to the holy sites, though the names of the figures honored could change.

Instead, other saints were invented to replace “old” gods and saints. As I demonstrate in the introduction, the structure of womb-​tomb shrines, like in the tomb of Hulda, is a dominant archetype in Israel/​Palestine venues.

50  Voices of the Ritual Jewish, Muslim, and Christian visitors venerate their saints in womb-​tomb sites. In these structures, the ritual is shaped. The Tomb of Rachel and the Tomb of Mary, as well as other shrines examined in this book, are womb-​ tomb shrines. What rituals can be produced in them? How are they mobilized for a certain body politics? To explore this, I encapsulate my observations of the body experience, mainly concentrating on my findings at the Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch and the Tomb of Mary (during Orthodox and Catholic celebrations).

Barrenness as Fertility: The Jewish Rachel Rituals that imitate the body and the cycle of life are associated with female themes, especially motherhood, the suffering of infertility, and the blessing of productivity. These themes are the most central in the Israel/​Palestine area, as the different populations struggle for territorial dominance. A woman’s productivity is the most important motive, and her womb is politicized and perceived as a demographic and national instrument. This is why female virginity or barrenness is linked in sacred shrines with “bad womanhood,” and thus the significance of symbols and objects of fertility, regeneration, and life is intensified in these places. In these sites/​rituals, death is not considered an end but an opportunity for life. Moreover, infertility and virginity are associated with productivity, and as I explained before with the fruitfulness of the soil that is feminized. If the soil is fruitless, the clan will vanish, and women’s barrenness is a symbol of this problematic situation. These female themes are emphasized and performed through the body itself at a variety of womb-​ tomb shrines, such as the Tomb of Mary, the Tomb of Rachel, the Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva, and many others. In the Jerusalem vicinity (six miles from Mary’s Tomb) the Tomb of Rachel, the biblical Matriarch, is becoming popular. Just like other female shrines, the structure of the Tomb of Rachel is informed by afterlife architecture and thus body-​based ritual, and the replication of sacredness. The Jewish canon views Rachel as a suffering, heroic mother. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all associate Rachel with regeneration and fertility (Sered, 1986) and consider her tomb to be an important and “authentic” holy site, the biblical place of her burial (Sered, 1986; Stadler, 2015). Moreover, each of the three faiths has canonical texts and traditions that locate her burial site in the greater Jerusalem area (Aghazarian, 2010; Graff, 2014). According to Susan Sered,

The Experience: Body Rituals  51 the cult surrounding Rachel is based on deep-​rooted Jewish traditions. In biblical and rabbinical sources, the major themes in the Rachel narrative are love, barrenness, motherhood, and demise (Sered, 1986). My findings show that body rituals are more dominant than the textual tradition. They are performed around the cycle of life and the most important aspects celebrated are fertility and rebirth. Nowadays, the most important annual celebration at this tomb is the traditional anniversary of the Matriarch’s passing. On this day, the 11th of Ḥeshvan (a Hebrew month that falls in the autumn), thousands of Israeli Jews from all the various streams flock to the shrine for a huge gathering of celebrations (Figure 2.3). Over the centuries, Rachel’s Tomb has gone through numerous construction phases that altered the ritualistic experience. The core structure—​the dome and columns—​dates back to the Crusader era, and the graveyard’s Muslim elements were introduced by the Ottomans in 1622 (Pringle, 1993). Roughly 220 years later, Moses Montefiore (a British-​Jewish philanthropist) purchased the site and the key to the tomb was given to the Jewish community.

Figure 2.3  Gimnasia Herzelia students visiting Rachel’s Tomb at the beginning of the twentieth century. Courtesy of the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, The National Library of Israel.

52  Voices of the Ritual Nevertheless, Montefiore also constructed a vaulted antechamber for Muslim prayers and burial preparations (the room being furnished with a prayer niche facing Mecca). Before the creation of the Israeli state, Haredi Jews used to visit the place and pray for Jews to survive the Holocaust (Sered, 1986). Nonetheless, Christians and Muslims also prayed to Rachel to provide prosperity and health. After the creation of the state, Rachel was associated with the mythology of the return of Jews to their homeland and, slowly, Rachel became the mother of the nation, an iconic figure portrayed as longing and weeping for the return of her children to their native lands, and for recovery from the Holocaust. From the point of view of architecture and structure of this female shrine, the most dramatic change was wrought in 1995 when the Israeli government commissioned architect Yaron Katz to revamp the site in accordance with what the state saw as new security demands, especially after the First and Second Intifadas. To this end, the compound was surrounded by a stone wall, which Katz adorned with several dozen sealed arches (I elaborate on the political issues in Chapter 4) (Figure 2.4). The place is secured by the Israeli army 24/​7, and all people undergo strict scrutiny and security checks at the entrance, with only Jews being permitted. Christians are allowed to visit on

Figure 2.4  Rachel’s Tomb in 2013. Photo by Chen Reuveni.

The Experience: Body Rituals  53 special occasions and in groups. Muslims are excluded and not permitted to visit the compound (Stadler & Luz, 2015). The place is growing increasingly popular as a shrine exclusively for Jewish devotion. Jewish men and women, whether they describe themselves as religious, ultra-​Orthodox, or secular, coming from all parts of Israel, represent the largest groups visiting Rachel’s Tomb. The majority of visitors take the public bus line to reach the site.3 On the ride over, women talk freely about the Matriarch’s place in their daily lives. Most feel as though they have a special connection with Rachel, whom they refer to as a “tragic figure.” Sarah is a Haredi woman of fifty-​three, a schoolteacher from Ramot, a neighborhood in Jerusalem. She was on the bus heading to Rachel’s Tomb one rainy day in October 2010. When I asked her why she was going to the tomb, she told me that Rachel’s image has endured for “thousands of years” and continues to influence “our everyday life.” She said that Rachel is her mother “and the mother of all.” Another woman, Dina, age thirty, from Mevasert Sion, heard that we were talking about Rachel. “Rachel is a mofet [Hebrew for paradigm of excellence] for many things in our lives,” said Dina. “If only we could be like her in just the little things. There is a great difference between the inner feelings of women and the inner feelings of men. Here we all connect with her as a woman.” At this point, one of the other women on the bus, wearing a large black garment that covered her body, approached us to speak. She explained gently that Rachel “is a symbol of the mother who prays for her children. It is the same at the grave of Samuel the Prophet [south of Jerusalem], where we also pray because of his mother, Chana, who was barren for many years, until she had the miracle and gave birth to a ṣadiq [righteous man].” As evidenced by its panoply of fertility symbols, customs, and prayers, sterility is a central theme at this site as well. “Rachel is the model Jewish mother,” as Dina put it, “sacrificing for our well-​being and security. We feel her unlimited love and motherly concern in our everyday lives, and this is what draws all of us to her tomb, back in history and today.” Moshe is an ultra-​Orthodox Jew from Jerusalem, a Kollel student of thirty-​two and father of four who has dedicated most of his life to studious activities. When I arrived with this group of women, he was praying enthusiastically by the entrance to the men’s section. He was close to our group and heard what the women told me. He explained his own notions about why people come to this shrine:

54  Voices of the Ritual For many years, Rachel’s Tomb has been a site for the Jewish people to visit. We know that Rachel herself was childless for many years and fervently prayed to be granted children. This is why she is now considered the mother of the Jewish people, and her tomb is one of the best-​attended sites for Jewish prayer to God. Here we see that, above all, barren women have traditionally come to her grave to pray. But both men and women in need assemble before the grave of “Mother Rachel” to seek God’s blessing. Here you can see that there are groups of women who begin each day, before dawn, at Rachel’s Tomb; and when the army allows them to be there, believers can be found at her grave around the clock. She is never alone.

Moshe comes to the tomb at least once a month. He describes himself as truly pious and devoted especially to Rachel, the mother of the Jewish nation. Like Moshe, the men and women I  met and chatted with in the place appeared glad to talk with me and to answer my questions about Rachel and her devotion. After passing the Israeli army’s checkpoints, we had to walk toward the arches of the Tomb, where visitors enter either the men’s or women’s section. Gender separation of this sort is enforced around the clock at many institutionalized Jewish sites throughout Israel/​Palestine, such as at the Western Wall, the Baba Sali’s grave in the Negev, the Cave of the Patriarchs, and many other sites. In fact, partitions like these are fast becoming the rule at venues of this sort, for intermingling between the sexes is a Jewish taboo of rising significance. Parts of the Matriarch’s tomb abut each of the gendered sections, so that both men and women can touch the tomb, kiss the tombstone, and pray. At any given hour, there are likely to be women at Rachel’s Tomb reciting psalms in groups or alone. Showcasing their piety, female devotees hold multiple copies of the Book of Psalms open at once, stacking them one atop the other. The space closest to the tomb is usually crammed with visitors. Closing their eyes, women immerse themselves in prayer. From time to time, they grope and kiss the tomb and stone around it. When I asked about the content of their prayers, the majority of the women said that they confined themselves to reciting psalms. However, an appreciable number also read pertinent passages from the Bible, especially those verses depicting the Matriarch’s anguished struggle with barrenness. When I asked visitors to talk about Rachel, they usually said the same things. But when I insisted on going deep into the textual tradition, they seemed reluctant to speak. Women I spoke to usually wanted to keep doing the rituals and added many personal wishes for either

The Experience: Body Rituals  55 themselves or their daughters, mostly connected to fertility, health, and maternal issues.

The Devotional Kiss Ritual: Intimacy and Body-​Based Acquisition The ritual of kissing is prevalent in most of my case studies, Jewish and Christian. From the perspective of the ritual, kissing can be understood as a mimetic gesture, analogous to kissing a baby and as a totemic ritual, a practice of belonging. Kissing rituals are related to themes of women’s care, affection, and regeneration that, as mentioned before, are emphasized in sacred tomb architectures. This should come as no surprise, for the kissing of objects is a popular performance in both Judaism and Christianity (Petkov, 2003). In the Christian tradition, Catholics and Orthodox, the kissing of painted images, tombs, stones, and other objects is a primary form of veneration (Alexiou, 2002; Phillips, 1996). Historians of iconography have shown that, some Christian communities, the custom of kissing icons dates back to the fifth century ce (Frijhoff, 1991). In some Jewish culture, the kissing of tombstones, books, scrolls, and sacred objects is also a popular expression of devotion (Fishbane & Fishbane, 1996; Sered, 1996b). The ritual of the kiss is a dominant practice in all places I have explored. Pilgrims at Mary’s Tomb press their lips to the tombstone, the Icon of the Dormition, and other items, paintings, and icons. At the Tomb of Rachel wife of Akiva, Jewish women repeatedly kiss the gravestones while reciting psalms and kissing the books scattered around the place. Just like the other body-​based practices described above, this custom is also a form of mimesis that enables devotees to become intimate with the site and its elements—​a form of embodiment that is connected to feelings of local belonging and ownership. Jewish women kiss the tomb while reciting psalms at the Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch. On the bus ride to the tomb in August 2011 I asked Naomi, a Haredi woman of twenty from Beit Shemesh, what she planned to do at the shrine. “We want to read psalms,” she replied. “With all our hearts; we want to cry, kiss the stone, and be close to the grave.” Naomi had just married, and she was planning to have many children. “I want to have more than ten, and my first baby girl will be named Rachel, just like our Matriarch,” she said. One of the security guards, a religious person from Gilo, age forty-​four, informed me that “some of the women insist on reading the entire Book [of

56  Voices of the Ritual Psalms straight through], and we have to gently see to it that they leave the area [right next to the tomb], and let others have a turn.” It is indeed difficult to get close to the tomb itself, for women who arrived earlier cling to the revered object while immersed in prayer and ritualization. During their moments close to the sacred tomb, women pilgrims ponder over the deep suffering that Rachel endured on account of her barrenness. When I ask about what they did, they told me they associate the rituals of praying and kissing with issues that pertain to fertility and motherhood. While we were standing next to the tomb, Naomi told me that “Rachel herself was childless for many years before she was granted children. This is why women who, in particular, are currently suffering from infertility travel to her tomb to pray and ask for a child.” Owing to a sense of female solidarity at Rachel’s Tomb, visiting women felt comfortable enough to share their emotions with strangers, myself included, and recount their own experiences with infertility. How do devotees explain bodily practices and rituals? Here the significance of creating intimacy is central: kissing, crawling, bending, and reciting are all practices that heighten the visitors’ familiarity and sense of intimacy with and belonging to the shrine/​place/​saint. As we noticed at the Tomb of Rachel, kissing the tombstone is akin to taking care/​possession of the site. As we shall see at Mary’s Tomb, the kissing rituals are also merged with the crawling rituals that, again, serve as familiarity, intimacy, and bodily appropriation of the shrine. Mary, like other saints, embodies the idea of a container or vessel (Rubin, 2010). Simon Coleman (2009) describes the original structure of the Marian shrine in Walsingham as a manifestation of the Virgin—​a womblike “container” for both the Christ Child and the steady flow of pilgrims to the site. By visiting these shrines, Coleman avers, devotees are “reliving” the sacred presence of a saint. This undertaking involves an embodied mimetic practice that bridges the gap between past and present, while sacramentally linking the pilgrims to revered figures and their bodies. Moreover, they get the sense that modern pilgrimage can faithfully emulate their “medieval forebears or spiritual exemplars” (Coleman, 2009). In Coleman’s view, mimesis implies that communion with a historical past can be maintained in perpetuity. This process valorizes precise forms of imitation that enable devotees to tap into the “real” history of a divine presence (Coleman, 2009). According to my own findings, ritualistic body mimesis is powerful in all spaces; for example, in the Tombs of Rachel and Mary, womb-​tomb architecture that resembles a birth canal compels

The Experience: Body Rituals  57 visitors to proceed mimicking birth and thus creation of the human and the universe.

The Fetus Emerging from the Womb: The Ritual in Mary’s Tomb Like the Tomb of Rachel, the Tomb of Mary is a center of devotion and rituals at a female saint in the midst of a contested political expanse (Figure 2.5). In 2003 I  started my ethnographic work, especially observations of the celebration of the Dormition of Orthodox Christians every August. In Jerusalem, the Greek Orthodox Church considers itself to be the only authentic stream of Christianity—​an irreplaceable link in an age-​old chain. Its members claim to perpetuate the ancient tradition of monasticism, which dates back to the colony of monks that was established in the Judean Desert during the Byzantine era. Moreover, they consider the region’s Orthodox settlement, liturgy, and ceremonies to be part of an unceasing effort to preserve a legacy that harks back to biblical times. From the standpoint of the local clergy, the Jerusalem rites are performed in the venues that the Madonna

Figure 2.5  The entrance to the Tomb of Mary Photo by the author.

58  Voices of the Ritual

Figure 2.6  The Icon of the Theotokos at the Tomb of Mary Photo by the author.

personally stepped foot in. Although the details of Mary’s final days on Earth are not mentioned in the Gospels, local Orthodox monks praying in the tomb explained to me that the various components of the rite are predicated on the original and other early interpretations of the apocryphal narratives, such as the Protevangelium of James from the late second century.4 During interviews and informal discussions, the organizers, laypeople, nuns, and clergy always expressed their conviction that the Jerusalem rite is the most genuine representation of Mary’s Dormition, and thus its performance should be practiced with much strictness and devotion (Stadler, 2015). Like many other Christian Orthodox festivals, an icon—​in this case, the Icon of the Dormition—​stands at the forefront of the procession (Dubisch, 1990)  (Figure 2.6). The Dormition Icon’s permanent residence is the Metoxion5 of Gethsemane Church, a small monastery adjacent to the Holy Sepulcher Church. Following an all-​night vigil at the Metoxion, a funeral procession heads out of the monastery at the break of dawn. Insofar as the Greek Orthodox clergy are concerned, the procession’s main objective is to transfer the icon from the Metoxion to Mary’s Tomb. They assert that this annual event constitutes a mythic return to the final days of the Virgin’s life and her funeral procession in which the Apostles carried her body through the

The Experience: Body Rituals  59 streets of Jerusalem along the route to her burial plot on the foothills of the Mount of Olives. One of the Greek Orthodox priests I interviewed summarized what he believed to be his denomination’s narrative: At the time of her death, the disciples of our Lord, who were preaching throughout the world, returned to Jerusalem to see the Theotokos. All of them, including the Apostle Paul, were gathered together at her bedside. At the moment of her death, Jesus Christ himself descended and carried her soul to heaven. . . . Following her repose, the body of the Theotokos was taken in procession and laid in a tomb near the Garden of Gethsemane. When the Apostle Thomas arrived three days after her repose and requested to see her body, the tomb was found to be empty. The bodily assumption of the Theotokos was confirmed by the message of an angel and by her appearance before the Apostles.

Accordingly, the trek to the tomb is based on several early Byzantine accounts of Mary’s Dormition and Assumption, so that the ceremony is replete with symbols of death, mystery, and rebirth. The Orthodox clergy officiate over the procession in strict adherence to their interpretations of the Jerusalem traditions of Mary’s last days. With the rituals, they wish to dictate the funerary script to the “flock.” However, almost all of the lay groups maintain their own ideas, gestures, interpretations, and expectations of the procession, which often run counter to those espoused by their hosts. In consequence, the attendees conduct themselves in a less-​than-​uniform fashion. At the various stages of the rite, the different groups tend to stress their own particular needs, feelings, and aspirations to include their conceptions or fantasies of Mary in Jerusalem while ignoring, resisting, or even interrupting the Patriarchate’s efforts to run the procession as a funerary ritual. At the outset, though, the organizers manage to conduct a regimented ceremony that strictly adheres to their script, as the vigil at the Metoxion is held entirely in Greek and is presided over by Orthodox priests, foremost among them Father Philomenos, the superior of the Gethsemane Monastery. The services are held in the presence of the Dormition Icon. Encased in a wood and glass display case, the two-​sided effigy (apparently crafted in the nineteenth century) is inserted into an oklad (a traditional silver frame) mounted on a broad cross. Mary’s face is illustrated in great detail, and shadings create a sense of depth on the wooden base. Mary lies on her back and a sparkling metallic crown graces her head. It bears noting that, in the

60  Voices of the Ritual Orthodox tradition, icons are not mere ornaments but constitute the heart of the proskínima, a Greek term for the set of rituals performed upon entering a church.6 Participants explained that the Dormition Icon possesses miraculous powers in all that concerns livelihood, fertility, health, solace, and other basic human needs. The visitors have come from far and near to venerate Mary: local residents arrive from their homes in the Old City and the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem; others come from Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and other towns and villages in the West Bank and Israel; and there are pilgrims from Russia, Romania, Serbia, Greece, and other Orthodox countries, who usually stay at hotels and hostels in the vicinity. The ceremony’s hosts—​the patriarch, bishops, monks, and nuns of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem—​ live in and around the Christian Quarter. The local Christian denominations (Greek Orthodox, Armenians, Catholics, Ethiopians, and Copts, among others) constitute a small minority among Muslim Arabs and Israeli Jews. From the perspective of some Muslims, the Palestinian Christians are an anomaly, and also are perceived as cooperating with European imperialism, the Jewish state, and other purveyors of modernity. From the Holy Sepulcher, the procession heads in the direction of Olive Press Street (Rechov Bait Ha’bad). Hundreds of people squeeze into the narrow street and advance at a glacial pace. Many others, especially packs of youngsters, proceed via alternate routes along the shuttered stalls of the bazaar. Entire families, mostly Palestinian Christians, join us from the side streets. As the procession advances, more and more young Christian Arabs indeed emerge from the Old City’s alleys. Upon joining the procession, they are immediately engulfed by the masses. By the time the procession arrives at the tomb grotto, the Palestinians will have become the majority and Arabic the dominant language of both conversation and song. According to both security officials and the participants themselves, in recent years the Israeli authorities have granted more entry permits to Orthodox Palestinians wishing to attend the Dormition Feast. Once the procession hits the Via Dolorosa, the route is laden with churches and other sacred sites, most notably the fourteen Stations of the Cross. In addition, devotional stops have been set up at the entrance to the Greek Orthodox churches along the route,7 all of which are already open in honor of the festival. To mark the occasion, the hosts have decorated the entrances with candles, branches, and a rich array of Byzantine-​style icons and paintings. Orthodox priests perch on the steps and sprinkle holy water

The Experience: Body Rituals  61 on the passersby. These temporary stations serve as inspirational and commemorative attractions that remind the participants of the canonical events that, according to sacred Orthodox texts and clergy’s interpretations, transpired at these very spots. For the most part, it is the overseas faithful who pause to kiss the proffered icons and offer their prayers at the festooned entrances. Once again, similar to rituals performed in the Tomb of Rachel and other female saint shrines, the kiss is a way to make the space intimate. The descent from the Old City to Mary’s Tomb traverses Jericho Road (al-​ Maqdisi Road in Arabic), where a large contingent of border patrol troops has already taken up positions. Police officers stop traffic in both directions so the procession can cross the highway without pause. The decorum that was forced upon the faithful by both the clergy and the narrow streets of old Jerusalem is instantaneously breached, as the long line of marchers disperses in every direction. Upon crossing the road, one sees the opening of the grotto coming into view. The religious ferment steadily intensifies, as the poignancy of the singing, smells, and excitement rises up a few notches. The pilgrims fill the streets outside the city’s eastern wall and proceed toward the stairs leading down to the small square in front of Gethsemane Church. At this point, the terrain enables even the laggards to see the icon-​bearer. Just outside the entrance is the Grotto of the Agony, and in front of the square is the tomb of a Muslim saint (Cust & Schiller, 1980). With Father Philomenos back in view, the faithful have but one objective in mind: to get as close as possible to the Dormition Icon. Once again, hundreds of believers rush to kiss the holy object, riling up the Greek clergy, who struggle to keep the clamorous throngs at bay. The sheer number of pilgrims gathered outside the modest structure triggers a series of dramatic events. As the icon-​bearer reaches the square, young nuns approach him and ecstatically kiss his hands. Philomenos attempts to tamp down the excitement to keep emotions from spilling over. The monks protecting the venerated object assume a cold yet nonconfrontational attitude toward the effusive sisters but have little patience for the laity. Despite the monks’ heavy-​handed efforts to restrain the on-​rushers, waves of pilgrims close in on the icon. Some manage to break through the monastic cordon and cosset the venerated article, so that the father barely manages to reach the door. At this juncture, the contrasting desires of the hosts and the various lay groups burst to the surface. Whereas the former are interested in sticking to the funeral script and conducting their practices according to the local

62  Voices of the Ritual Marian traditions, the masses are mainly concerned with an array of rituals and expectations that, for the most part, revolve around the Dormition Icon. As we shall see, the irreconcilable aims of the clergy and flock will continue to clash within the confines of the ancient shrine. As aforementioned the tomb of Mary is a center of body-​based rituals and in a womb tomb structure. Body-​based rituals are choreographed by the religious architecture, especially the womb-​tomb architecture. Built inside a subterranean cavern, the Church of Gethsemane, or Mary’s Tomb, is a Crusader-​period complex with Byzantine foundations. Its commemorative-​ style cruciform structure is intended to embody the Virgin’s death, resurrection, and ascension. Testimonies and writings from the Middle Ages attest to the sanctity of the cave’s entrance, which is hewn into the mountain (Clayton, 1998). These same sources also indicate that the tomb has been a popular pilgrimage destination since the sixth century. A monumental Crusader-​era staircase, consisting of forty-​eight steps, leads down to the ancient crypt. This expanse occasionally takes the form of a long, narrow, and shadowy passage

Figure 2.7  The Night Procession of the Theotokos, Jerusalem. Photo by Guy Raivitz.

The Experience: Body Rituals  63 reminiscent of the human birth canal. The dark, hollow, and occasionally humid space perhaps symbolizes the anatomy of the uterus. Due to these sites’ “terrain,” visitors are indeed compelled to imitate a fetus emerging from the womb (Stadler, 2015; Stadler & Luz, 2014). Given the context of the event, the stifling August heat, and the humidity inside the cave, visitors to the dimly lit shrine are likely to feel as though they are entering a womb. The clergy are busy preparing for the funerary ceremony, but the flock’s primary objective is to reach the spot that will serve as the Dormition Icon’s abode for the next ten days. Near the entrance, an Orthodox nun stands over open boxes of candles. Some participants have informed me that the candles are produced especially for this occasion and imbued with the Holy Mother’s spirit. Within a half-​hour, the stairs are covered with a stream of brown and white candles that emits a brilliant yet faint glow. A  few dozen barefoot women arrange the shimmering candles into wide swathes. Amina, a young woman of twenty from Haifa, was sitting on the stairs when I started talking with her about Mary. When I asked her about the meaning of the tomb and the procession, she said that “the idea of leaving the bright Jerusalem sunlight for a subterranean expanse, where even the faintest noise is echoed, affords the sensation of entering a divine structure that gives us a maternal sensation, like nascence.” Many interviewees at the Tomb of Mary peppered their own narratives of their arrival with references to the Virgin’s body/​sacred architecture, Mary’s rebirth, and her resurrection at the tomb. I found similar accounts in scholarly works on ancient and medieval pilgrimages to revered caves (Vogt & Stuart, 2005).8 During the procession and other festivals the crypt is indeed abuzz with devotees, and a wide array of ritual activities is under way throughout the shrine. The panoply of personal and frequently improvised prayers, ceremonies, and other rituals all express or consist of a full repertoire of symbols and demands, many of which are incompatible with the other practices going on. In consequence, in the tomb, the differences and disputes between the various groups become ever more salient. Each group positions itself in a separate location for the sake of performing private ceremonies, and a medley of different songs resonates throughout the cave at the same time. Whereas the prayers at the Metoxion were recited exclusively in Greek, in Mary’s Tomb, various languages can be heard, foremost among them Arabic, Greek, Russian, Polish, and French. Among the events in progress are ceremonies and prayers at the site of what the Greek Orthodox believe to be the tombs of Joachim and Anne (Mary’s parents), which are located in a recess about a

64  Voices of the Ritual third of the way down the stairs. Inside this chamber, a priest slices bread into small pieces using a gilded knife while praying in Arabic. It is worth noting that none of the pilgrim groups attend any of the clergy’s rituals in the grotto. The clergy are aware of this, and they perform rituals in the Orthodox shrines of the cave according to their own particular timetable, employing knowledge that others do not possess. By this stage in the day, most of the pilgrims are sweaty and their hair is disheveled. Many appear to be exhausted, and some have even fallen asleep in isolated corners of the shrine. The Orthodox clergy perform most of the prayers in the eastern iconostasis, to the right of the bottom step within the main expanse, which is partitioned into distinct areas, each of which is under the jurisdiction of either the Greek Orthodox or the Armenians. The Orthodox priests are the only ones to understand the internal division of the cave, details of which they explained to me: the Syriac Orthodox Church has the right to hold services in some parts of the grotto and, at one time, the Roman Catholic Church had exclusive possession of the structure and even holds various documents that refer to these rights. Nevertheless, by the early eighteenth century, the Greek Orthodox and Armenians each controlled an altar in the church, whereas the Latins were completely ousted in 1757 (Bagatti, Piccirillo, & Prodomo, 1975; Cust, 1929, p. 35). In a domed passage (a Byzantine remnant) to the east is the chapel and aedicule that house Mary’s sepulcher. The lamps and other hanging ornaments in the right and left wings of the chapel belong to the Orthodox and Armenians, respectively. Behind the tomb is an Orthodox chapel, next to which sits the Altar of St. Bartholomew. This devotional table is owned by the Armenians, but the Syrian Jacobites conduct their ceremonies around it. The adjacent Altar of St. Stephanos and all the outer extremities of the church belong to the Greek Orthodox.9 The passage housing the sepulcher leads to the northern part of the complex. In a corner opposite and about twelve feet away from the staircase is the Orthodox’s Saint Stephanos Altar. A small number of devotees wait in line to enter the Virgin’s aedicule. When their turn arrives, they squeeze into the entrance and bend down to touch and kiss the stone. As opposed to the Orthodox clergy, who situate themselves in their special areas in front of the tomb, the pilgrims are interested only in the icon in the eastern side of the church. Pilgrims and local Christians line up to the left of the aedicule for the purpose of entering a narrow room that houses the Icon of the Dormition. At the end of the chamber housing the venerated object is a rounded apse, which is nearly fenced in by Greek Orthodox altars. On one of

The Experience: Body Rituals  65 these altars is the Panagia Iersolymitissa (Panayia the Jerusalemite). A local woman told me that, according to Orthodox legend, “this icon was painted by Sister Tatiana in around 1870 following a revelation that she experienced opposite the tomb.” The Panagia is surrounded by Byzantine-​style paintings whose primary motifs are the Dormition and the Assumption.10 Although most of the pilgrims are unfamiliar with Tatiana’s vision, many of them engage with this icon as well. Here, all devotees perform rituals of bending, kissing, touching, and praying in front of the icon. While we were descending the steps on one of my visits, a forty-​five-​year-​ old Palestinian woman from Jerusalem named Emma told me about her long bout with cancer. Until her illness she was a teacher and later on the head of one of the most prestigious Christian high schools in the region—​a very busy woman, as she described herself. From her standpoint, her repeated pilgrimages to the Tomb of Mary helped her overcome the disease, as her tumor completely disappeared right after she vowed to make these visits a regular lifelong habit. When we were sitting together on the stairs, resting from the hectic morning, she told me that “Mary had personally and corporeally provided her succor inside the aedicule.” Emma spoke at length about her desire to crawl beneath the icon of the Theotokos at the site as many times as possible. I accompanied her to the icon and slid across the floor with her. The sensation was pleasant. She told me that most of her friends also regularly came to the shrine to kiss the tomb and ask Mary to cure their ailments and grant them children and grandchildren. We crawled together from one place to another, while she touched and kissed each of the photos and icons. That same day, Emma introduced me to Ana, an elderly Orthodox Palestinian who comes to the shrine after every feast to fulfill the vows that she made after giving birth to her eldest son. In keeping with her votive offering and together with a few other women, Ana maintains the premises. I met her while she was cleaning the staircase and the candle wax that had collected there. While I helped the volunteers complete this task, the women outlined their daily rituals, such as kissing the icons, telling me where they preferred to pray and sit in solitude. For them, the rituals were all a way to intimate their bodies with the sacred space. Kissing and cleaning are significant body rituals of familiarization. In addition, they enumerated the various miracles that the different objects have produced for them over the years. Most of the miracles were associated with women’s infertility and the wishes of men and women to have children. As we saw at the Tomb of Rachel and

66  Voices of the Ritual other sacred places, the “rituals in motion” are a way to familiarize and enhance intimacy with the saint and the place. Going back to the celebrations of the Dormition, reposing on an ornate chair in the prayer room behind the sepulcher, the effigy of the Madonna is out in the open, accessible to anyone willing to brave the lines. Besides desiring to touch and kiss the sacred epitaphios (icon), many pilgrims are eager to partake in the rite of crawling (also popular in other Greek Orthodox shrines). This potentially grueling feat is considered a solemn public expression of piety as well as devotion and gratitude to the saint. The mass crawling at Mary’s Tomb has undergone certain changes over the course of my multiyear study. While the vast majority of laypersons are bent on crawling under the Icon of the Dormition, the Greek clergy are opposed to this practice, or at the very least wish to limit its scope. Here, especially, Palestinian women and men adamantly insist on their right to perform this ritual, which they consider to be the festival’s high point. Not only does the crawling attest to their devotion, but it is an act of defiance against the strict, alien demands of the “foreign,” whether they are the demands of organizers, police, soldiers, or any other civil servants. Just as the Arabic singing in the streets served as a protest against the clergy’s insistence on sticking to the Greek liturgy, many women and men obstreperously struggle to preserve the crawling tradition without any intervention on the part of the Orthodox hosts. The Palestinian faithful are usually the first to get in line and animatedly encourage others to take part in the crawling ritual, even in the face of pushing and stern rebuke.11 Pilgrims stand in a long, disheveled, and extremely cramped line to share a fleeting moment with the icon. Following a protracted wait, which entails some rough pushing, they finally make it to the back room where an Orthodox nun, recently installed to supervise the ritual, explains how to touch the effigy’s face and body, scatter the flowers and basil leaves, and crawl away from the icon. The devotees are less than pleased with the sister’s presence, and most would prefer to conduct the ritual without any assistance. Some women seek to demonstrate their fervor by continuing to lie on the floor next to the narrow and congested exit routes. Yet another practice that involves the Dormition Icon is that of praying for the health or recuperation of one’s children by rubbing their photographs on the effigy. A few of the devotees at Mary’s Tomb bring pictures of sick children or barren daughters,

The Experience: Body Rituals  67 which they rub on the effigy in the hope that Mary will intercede on their behalf. In a similar vein, pilgrims to Tinos wait in line on the steps leading to the Church of the Annunciation for their turn to enter the main chapel and perform the proskínema (Dubisch, 1990; Håland, 2012), the set of body-​based practices that are traditionally observed upon entering an Orthodox church. The most important ritual of the proskínema is kissing a venerated icon. It was while crawling under the effigy that I met Lucy, a fifty-​year-​old Christian Orthodox woman. Lucy owns a shop not far from the Tomb, and she is a resident of Jerusalem’s Old City. When we were entering the tomb, she told me that her daughter had had trouble conceiving. Consequently, she decided to dedicate her life to the Tomb of Mary, visiting the site on all the festivals marking the saint’s Dormition and Assumption. She carries photos of her daughter from all ages in her wallet and swings them again and again over the icon’s body. She showed me how to do it and encouraged me to do this with my own pictures of my girls. With much enthusiasm, she explained that this is a remedy for fertility problems, that her prayers were answered, and that I should also come to the shrine more often and pray for my own family. “When my wishes came true,” she said, “I decided to come more often and pray for more grandchildren.” I asked Lucy about the fact that the grotto commemorates the Madonna’s final days on Earth and how this is related to fertility. She explained to me that this is the tradition that spoke through the stones of the place and that most of the devotees engaged in rituals of fertility. “This is how it has always been here,” she said. As we see, the body practices that symbolize regeneration and are thought to promote fertility, parturition, and well-​being are connected to a story of death. The visitors attach the symbols of death to regeneration and do not see this as a contradiction. On the contrary, together, fertility and death formulate the life cycle, the myth of the eternal return explained by Eliade (2005). Here again, the ritual in motion as described by Coleman and Eade (2004), the kissing, and the other body gestures enhance intimacy with the place, and female themes enhance empathy with female suffering and familiarization with the place and the saint. *** Nature, Walter Benjamin observed, spawns similarities, and mimesis is humankind’s gift for identifying them. This gift is but a remnant of our forebears’ powerful urge to become and behave like someone else (Benjamin, 1934). Unlike in the art world, where mimesis is questioned and at times excoriated, in sacred spaces it is a principal religious means for drawing

68  Voices of the Ritual closer to the numinous. Body rituals represent intimacy and replicate ideas that are subsequently disseminated from place to place. As I  demonstrate, a cornerstone of female saint shrines is their afterlife architecture and feel, elements conducive to mimicking the human body, especially the womb and parturition. In discussing the ritual significance of the notion of rebirth, Eliade (2005) stresses that the cyclical growth and wilting of plants is evidence of a non-​dyadic link between death and revival. What is more, he observed that regeneration rituals involve a coincidentia oppositorum. Eliade claims that many myths, rituals, and mystical experiences involve a “coincidence of opposites,” which is the basis of the pattern of every myth and, subsequently, the ritual. Eliade noted that the myths “present us with a twofold revelation”: on one hand, they express the diametrical opposition of two divine figures sprung from one and the same principle and destined, in many versions, to be reconciled at some illud tempus of eschatology. On the other, they express the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) in the very nature of the divinity, which shows itself, by turns or even simultaneously, benevolent and terrible, creative and destructive, solar and serpentine, and so on (in other words, actual and potential). In many mythologies, the lost mythical age was a paradise, a paradoxical state in which the contraries exist side by side without conflict, and the multiplications form aspects of a mysterious Unity. The idea of the mysterious Unity expresses a wish to recover the lost unity of the mythical paradise, for it presents a reconciliation of opposites and the unification of diversities such as life and death (Eliade, 1996, p. 419). In the cases I discuss, a virgin or barren saint involves a “coincidence of opposites,” an understanding that is twofold, associated with life and death, infertility and fertility, sacredness and taboos, all these elements intertwined in the ritual and the myth of a particular sacred space. At Rachel’s and Mary’s shrines, fertility rituals are conducted by devotees in the presence of a tomb. In these events, the site of death is used as an opportunity for life. The visitors pray and ask for their own fertility and that of their family and their clan. Here again the coincidentia oppositorum appears in the architecture and structure of the place. Holy tombs invite visitors to pray for fertility, well-​being, and long life. A dead body represents the fetus, and the tomb grotto represents the living, eternally reproductive womb. On the basis of my own observations of devotees repeatedly entering and leaving the small chapel, this body-​based ritual indeed constitutes a coincidentia

The Experience: Body Rituals  69 oppositorum. Put differently, it is an iterative voyage of death and resurrection in an afterlife setting. On account of imitative body practices, demise and rebirth are experienced in a sacred female realm at one and the same time. In the next chapter, I will discuss the material dimension of female sacred shrines.

Figure 3.1  The Icon of Mary in the Catholic Celebration, Jerusalem, 2010. Photo by Guy Raivitz.

3 The Materials of Rituals Female Magical Objects, Female Sensation

Objects are part of the body-​based ritual experience at sacred shrines. Materials and objects representing female saints and images are scattered all around the shrines I  visited. In the previous chapter, I  demonstrated that body rituals such as crawling, bending, and kissing are performed in a unique sacred female architecture, placing a strong emphasis on femininity, fertility, motherhood, and other female themes. Indeed, in a womb-​ tomb female architecture/​space, the rituals of the body have a much greater effect on the visitor than do the theology, official mythologies, and biblical narratives embedded in canonical Holy Land sacred places. It is true that the canon provides these places with their unique significance and centrality but, as I demonstrate in Chapter 2, it is the “body in motion” that makes these places popular venues for devotion and appropriation of identity and lands. Rachel’s and Mary’s tombs in Jerusalem contain a sensual and mimetic body experience, especially the mimicking of the infant emerging from the womb. Such rituals are the central practice in female sacred spaces all around Israel/​ Palestine. As I observed at many of these sacred sites, the architecture and structure of the place make this powerful body-​based experience possible. These embodied gestures are usually (but not always) designed in an architecture of womb-​tomb sacred structure, and the rituals that are performed there mimic the different repertoires of practices that, put together, are all symbols of the human cycle of life. This performance reinforces the themes of heroic motherhood and the centrality of fertility, dominant and potent images in Israel/​Palestine nowadays where the womb is the female opportunity to be part of the demographic and land struggle in a zone of ongoing conflict over peoples, territories, and lands. In this chapter, I continue with the internal analysis of the “ritual on its own right” suggested by Handelman. This time I concentrate on some of the sacred objects I have observed and analyzed the structure and architecture of sacred places. Here my questions are: What do these objects symbolize Voices of the Ritual. Nurit Stadler, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197501306.001.0001

72  Voices of the Ritual or represent? Why are materials placed in specific places? And how do they produce particular effects or permit certain behaviors, cultural practices, and religious rituals? In anthropology, the theory of materiality and the study of material culture is a growing field (Gharavi, 2011). I follow recent studies that center upon various articles, their properties, and the materials they are made of, and that look at how these material facets give rise to human sensations, a consideration that is central to an understanding of culture and social relations in sacred places (Houtman & Meyer, 2012; Keane, 2008; Meyer, 1997; Meyer & Houtman, 2012). Material objects need to be analyzed in terms of how they instill sensations and bodily reactions in the visitors and devotees who experience them. Sacred tombs and female shrines pose an opportunity to explore the intertwined and dialectical relationships between people and things, pilgrimages, and sacred objects as they are arranged and experienced in the place of devotion. From this perspective, not only does faith inhabit the subjective consciousness, but the material view seeks to enhance another point of analysis of the phenomenology of experience. We learn that religion is more than what Clifford Geertz (1957, 1976) referred to as “a collection of beliefs that construct reality,” or a mental map that enhances practices and notions about the world (Marx & Engels, 1957). These beliefs are neither a spiritual (Otto, 1958) or cognitive-​psychological perspective (James, 1985), nor a merely phenomenological outlook (Husserl, 1931). Religion is shaped within a material space. This outlook compels the ethnographer to take into account the elements that organize the site in question: its constituent structures, architecture, and the physical objects in its possession (Morgan, 1997). In my work, this rivets attention on the influence of the material on the visitors’ body activities and sensory reactions, while challenging the dichotomy between object and subject (Hazard, 2013). In this view, the anthropology of religion should focus on the complexity of the mutual relations between human beings and the material world—​the interaction between thought and experience, on the one hand, and the layout of the place, its structure, and its articles, on the other. When I was reading these works, I thought they could be a major part of the internal interpretation of the ritual. I focused on a few items that I identified in my observations and photographs as central to the ritualistic form in the sacred places: the dress of Nava Applebaum and the red string at Rachel’s Tomb, the well and the holy water in the Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva, the shrine and objects at the house of Mariam Bawardi, and, finally, the clothes and cleaning artifacts at Miriam the Laundress’s grave. These

Materials of Rituals  73 magical items are part of the shape of female saints’ places, and they have a strong impact on the body-​based and ritualistic experience taking place there. Materiality and body-​based experience reinforce the themes of motherhood and femininity expressed in these shrines. Later in this book, I show that the experience, the architecture, and the sacred objects are among the ways places are appropriated and land is claimed by local minority groups. Because these minorities have fewer skills to influence the political and land economy in formal ways, such as the law, economy, formal politics, and so forth, the visits to sacred places are a platform used to reinforce identity and claim Jewish, Christian, or Muslim lands and territories. I begin with the veneration of magical items at the Tomb of Rachel.

The Language of Magical Items: Rachel as the Traumatic Mother Rituals around objects of Mary, Rachel, Miriam, and others are a central scenario in the shrines. How do they influence rituals? The Tomb of Rachel is packed with Jewish ritualistic and sacred objects, some new and some with a long history. Along with the tomb itself and the body-​based rituals (described in Chapter 2), many of Rachel’s magical items are presented to visitors; among them, the most dominant are the holy key, the red string, and Nava Applebaum’s dress. A key facet of the rite at Rachel’s Tomb is a handful of customs involving a scarlet thread. Just like kissing, crawling, or walking barefoot, magical objects and the practices associated with them deepen the visitor’s bodily intimacy with the shrine. At the site in question, these feelings revolve around the fertility themes and materiality associated with the biblical Rachel. When I was interviewing and talking to central figures at the place, they mentioned another item—​the key to the tomb. I will start with the holy key because of its significance raised in texts and interviews. According to the site’s organizers and visitors, the key to the tomb has a long history and mythological narratives of helping believers, and visitors still consider it important. The themes of holiness and magical powers of keys to places such as synagogues or cemeteries are familiar in Jewish texts and ritualistic practice, especially with relation to womanhood and fertility. Various texts relate the key to the idea of pticha, which in Hebrew denotes an “opening,” and thus to the act of opening the womb, as giving birth to a child. In that respect, texts are associated not only with a specific key but also with the sacred Ark

74  Voices of the Ritual (aron hakodesh) and other sacred objects. Following this logic of opening the body, the key to Rachel’s Tomb has a powerful effect on the idea of fertility centered in this place. I collected many stories discussing the importance of the key, and several of my interviewees mentioned the ritual of the key. I asked various women at the site about the key and its uses; apparently, it is less in use than it used to be. The explanation we found is rather simple: the person who holds the key, Gad Friman, refuses to be part of the dynamics that are taking place at the tomb today. In this case, the key is no longer a central magical item; other objects that have taken its place now have more powerful uses and significance in recent years. As a central element, the key was replaced by the red string that has gained popularity in the last decade. One of the most popular and important magical items at this site is the red string. Different from the magical key to the tomb, the string is in widespread use and it is notable when one enters the place. The colored threads serve as fertility symbols in many cultures. For example, Patai (1983) lists multiple fertility rites that include red strings. These sorts of practices are grounded in the idea that the body is an open receptacle, sometimes a dangerous condition. By tying strings around limbs, devotees seal their body’s orifices off from external attack or prevent the life essence from seeping out. In her work on the tomb during the 1980s, Sered (1991) showed that the practice of wrapping the string around Rachel’s Tomb seven times and then wearing it as a talisman took off during the 1970s and early 1980s. Teman (2008) has studied the use of the red string in Israeli culture and observed that red strings are a growth market. She explains: They are especially prevalent at holy sites, such as Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, where people can be observed measuring the tomb with red string. At the Western Wall and in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, up to half a dozen red string sellers can be seen plying their trade at any one time. In fact, they have spread to every corner of the country, from the Baba Sali’s grave in the south to the many tombs of Jewish “saints” in the north, where secular and religious Israelis make pilgrimages. Rabbis, such as the late venerated Yitzhak Kaduri, hand out red strings to those in need of protection against the evil eye or of medical or psychological help, especially for pain, infertility, or sickness. (2008, p. 29)

For the most part, the string is made out of wool and is worn as a bracelet on the left wrist. Bilu explains how Moroccan-​Jewish folk healers in Israel

Materials of Rituals  75 measured the body using “magical” scarlet thread. Red is the color of blood; accordingly, this string represents God’s ability to both give life and take it away (Bilu, 1978). People who wear the thread are warned not to intentionally break it, lest the life essence spill out from the body. A loose knot is also believed to expose the individual to danger. Conversely, a string that is tied too tightly can block the body and hinder its full capacities (Teman, 2008). In Teman’s estimation, the resurgence of the scarlet thread in Israel during the 1980s is connected to the trauma of the First Lebanon War and the Palestinian uprising. More specifically, it served as a folkloristic salve against the violence and uncertainty weighing on Israeli society. The red string appears in the Jewish canons. However, as I explain in various parts of this book, visitors to the holy sites are usually not aware of this legacy. Only very few visitors I talked to mentioned the biblical story of Tamar as a source of the narrative (Friedman, 1990). One of my interviewees, Alma, a thirty-​ nine-​year-​old Haredi woman I met sitting in the women’s section at Rachel’s Tomb in April 2010, told me the story of Tamar when I asked her about the red string: You see, Tamar gave birth to twin sons [referring to Genesis 38:28]. One of the twins extended his arm over his sibling and through the womb’s opening. The midwife grasped the outstretched hand and tied a scarlet thread around the infant’s wrist . . . this signifying that “this one came out first.” After the infant withdrew his arm into the womb, the other brother came out ahead of him . . . this is the battle of the twins, not only to be first, to be the firstborn, but also to be the heir, the legitimate successor of the family properties.

In this narrative, an explanation of the connection between womb, birth, and the right to the territory can help us understand what my interviewees perceived as a Jewish expression of this narrative and the rituals associated with it. The twin brothers coming from one womb represent two clans pitted in a struggle over the same land. Fertility problems, a closed womb, are associated with territorial struggles. As I discuss below, this birth narrative can be explained as analogous to present-​day conflicts in Israel/​Palestine over lands and belonging. Within this context, fertility objects such as the red string, which keeps the womb safe, constitute links in a chain of memory that reinforce devotees’ belonging, identity, and territory. The red string’s protection of the body also protects against loss and protects the continuity of the

76  Voices of the Ritual clan/​land/​nation. This continuity is related to fertility icons represented in the shrines I have explored, to totem and taboo, belonging and prohibitions, land ownership, and exclusion. But for most visitors I  interviewed, biblical narratives are not a central point of departure, for the ritual is connected with magic, cosmology, and the trauma of infertility or miscarriage. At present, the ritual of the scarlet thread is one of the most prominent activities at the shrine, as Jewish women (religious or secular) who have difficulties conceiving, or those who miscarry, are encouraged to visit the shrine and partake in this custom. Many of the women visitors I spoke with talked about their use of this charm and its significance in their lives. Na’ama was a young Haredi woman who regularly visited the Tomb. Age twenty-​five, pregnant at the time with her fifth child, she was leaning against a wall in a small village near Jerusalem. Na’ama told me that ḥut ha-​shani (Hebrew for the scarlet thread) “wards off the evil eye and other threats” that inflict danger on women’s bodies. By donning this bracelet, she added, “I protect myself and my family.” Phrases like “safeguarding against misfortune” and “talisman” came up in all my field interviews on this subject. Most of the women I spoke to said that they wear the bracelet until it falls off. According to a woman selling the strings, the string should never be deliberately removed because this would “break the chain of luck,” a problem most interviewees related also to their fertility/​infertility. As I explained, it is also a reference to the strong link they wish to emphasize between lands and the Jewish return and owning of lands that are under debate. I asked Shifra, a young Orthodox Jewish woman from Haifa, what was so extraordinary about the scarlet thread. She said, “Women wear the string for good fortune, luck, and for spiritual and physical blessings.” My interviewees then jumped into a general explanation of the Matriarch’s importance: “It was Rachel who felt the trauma of birth pangs until her last breath. This is why she is the perfect mediator for a pregnant woman.” Chana, a young Haredi from Jerusalem who joined us in the conversation, added, “The red string protects me against the evil eye of jealousy, which is essentially capable of destroying my chances of being a mother.” Ruth, a woman from Beit Shemesh, added that “it is an important Jewish custom to tie . . . a long red thread around the burial site of Rachel, because she was a saint. She was the beloved wife of Jacob and they wanted children to keep the dynasty. This is why Rachel, who was such a prodigy, selflessly agreed that her sister marry Jacob first to spare Leah embarrassment and have more children.” She went

Materials of Rituals  77 on to explain that the red thread is a protective segula (talisman): “It calls to mind the great merit of Rachel our Matriarch, reminding us to emulate her modest attributes of consideration, compassion, and selflessness for the benefit of others.” Most of the women I talked to who were visiting the shrine intimated that the scarlet thread ritual complemented their body rituals, the reading of Tehillim (book of Psalms), and kissing the tomb to reinforce fertility, smooth childbirth, and produce successful motherhood, a healthy baby, and other benefits. The belief in the power of this charm was a major issue for these visitors, who indeed discussed this topic among themselves (Berg, 2004). I usually asked them what would happen if the thread failed to deliver. Quite a few said that, in the old days, the next step was to borrow the key to the compound and place it under the supplicant’s pillow for a night. On many of my visits, when we talked about the red thread, women mentioned another item. Shula, an elderly religious woman from Gilo (a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem about a mile from the site) who was a regular visitor to the tomb, told me that, now, visitors also have the wedding dress of Nava Applebaum. Shula took me to the women’s section and told me, “The holy ark is made from the wedding gown of Nava Applebaum—​the young woman who was in a terror attack in a coffee shop in Jerusalem the night before her wedding. Praying at this place produces miracles for women.” The dress has become a sacred magical item of great substance in Rachel’s Tomb. The biblical Rachel’s attributes are fused with Nava’s images. A biblical image is represented with a modern object (El Or, 2012). This representation of a “real” woman killed a day before her wedding allows more women to identify with the place and its rituals and objects. There are various versions of Nava’s story and it contains many details, so what I present here is a short version many women recounted in various visits to the tomb. I have edited his version. Nava Applebaum was a twenty-​year-​old Israeli-​American woman who, together with her father, was killed by a suicide bomber in the Café Hillel in Jerusalem on the evening before her wedding. She was the eldest daughter of David and Debra Applebaum, and the third of their six children. Her father was an emergency room doctor well known for work on methods for assisting suicide-​bombing victims. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and Nava was born in Cleveland, Ohio. The family later moved to Israel, where David became chief of the emergency room and trauma services at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center. As various visitors explained, a

78  Voices of the Ritual

Figure 3.2  The wedding dress of Nava Applebaum in the Tomb of Rachel. Photo by the author.

few hours before the bombing, Nava attended the mikveh, the Jewish sacred ritual bath required by Jewish Halacha for all brides prior to their wedding. Many visitors told me that Nava’s family members, who often come to the tomb, say that her father had decided to take her out for a “father–​daughter” talk before her wedding. According to Israeli media, at around 11:20  p.m., a security guard stationed at a nearby pizza parlor noticed a man walking by with a bulky, square box under his shirt. A few seconds later, the suicide bomber detonated the bomb close to the entrance of Café Hillel, just as Nava and her father were entering the café. Both were killed in the explosion. The next day, Nava was buried beside her father in the Har Ha Menuchot cemetery, in the western part of Jerusalem. Why was Nava’s dress chosen to be presented at the tomb? And why have the two figures of Nava and Rachel been meshed together? As Albera shows

Materials of Rituals  79 in his studies of Marian shrines, mixing of religious ideas, old and new, is a key element of the revival of shrines (Albera, 2005, 2012; Albera & Eade, 2016; Albera & Fliche, 2012). The Applebaums’ tragedy is a well-​known narrative in Israel: a father who takes his daughter out for a talk on her wedding day, an Israeli doctor who cares for terror victims, murdered by a terrorist. The funeral was a national one, with thousands attending, many of them total strangers to the family. Israeli media covered the shivah week, telling of the multitudes who visited the family to console them personally, while many more came just to stand outside their home, and to weep and pray. Many interviews with Devora, Nava’s mother, tell of how she packed all the housewares she had bought for Nava’s new home and had them distributed to the needy. But she always returned to the problem of the dress. No one in the family could even look at Nava’s wedding gown, she said. They asked a family friend to do them the favor of returning the dress to the rental company. Aviva is Devora’s close friend and relative, and her daughter was Nava’s best friend who had grown up with her and been in the same class all the way through school. According to this narrative, during the shivah week, a long-​forgotten memory floated before Aviva’s eyes. Years ago, in a museum in Tzfas, northern Israel, she had seen a parochet1—​a curtain that covers the holy ark containing the Torah scrolls—​sewn by a woman from the bridal gown of her daughter who had been murdered in a pogrom before her wedding. Aviva recalled how she had gazed for a long time at that parochet, shocked by the very thought of a bride murdered on the eve of her wedding. Aviva suggested that the family perpetuate Nava’s holy memory by converting her bridal gown, too, into a sacred article, a parochet. This, she said, “would be an appropriate symbol of Jerusalem’s repeated devastation and its inhabitants’ suffering over its millennia-​long history. Here the dress is starting to be associated with Rachel, the Matriarch.” Aviva added her narrative of the burial of Rachel, comparing it to the death of Nava: The Torah (Bereishis 35:16–​20) relates how our patriarch Yaakov buried his beloved wife outside Bethlehem, after she passed away in childbirth. Tradition tells us he did so by Divine providence so that, many centuries later, she would arouse Divine compassion upon the Jews when their captors brought them past Bethlehem on their way to exile in Babylon.

Nava is connected with Rachel, both suffering from trauma, both unable to fulfill what they wished for: to get married and have children.

80  Voices of the Ritual When the parochet was finally completed, it was decided to dedicate it on Nava’s twenty-​first birthday, the eleventh day of Adar (Thursday, March 4, 2004). This was still within the year of mourning. That year, Purim was on the following Sunday, so that the Fast of Esther (another female Jewish protagonist), usually held on the day before Purim, was observed on that same Thursday. The dedication ceremony took place at Rachel’s Tomb. Because so many visitors wanted to see it, the dress that had been made into a parochet was finally hung in the women’s section, where visitors prayed and wept next to it, stroking it and attaching to it their prayer notes. Because these rituals were becoming increasingly popular, to preserve the dress, it was covered with a thick transparent plastic cover. As I have shown in this section, the sacred items at the tomb receive their meanings via a mixture of popular narratives. Some are based on the canon, but most of them are based on folkloric stories that are connected to the image of Rachel as a suffering, tragic figure. She suffers from infertility, and women who suffer like her are encouraged to pray to her at her tomb. To ensure that the female body is secured, the key was given before and now a red string can be used as a protector of her own body and her fertility. Moreover, with the use of the dress belonging to Nava, who died in a terror attack, the image of Rachel, a Jewish biblical image, grows vivid, being reborn in contemporary events, reliving the trauma of Jewish death before fulfilling Israeli motherhood. This narrative is provided to the visitors at the tomb, making Rachel a mother of not only the Jews but also the Holy Land. Rachel is determined as a female ancestor; devotees, women and men, coming to the tomb are creating a maternal line by performing rituals showing that they belong to the same clan and the same territory.

Maternity, Mythology, and Materiality: The Shrine of Mariam Bawardi The shrine of Mariam Bawardi in the Galilee village of I’billin is another case study from which we learn about the rituals that associate sacred places, female items, and sacred objects. I’billin is a small village that “surrendered” to the Israeli army on July 14, 1948, as part of Operation Dekel (Palm Tree), launched to complete the takeover of the Western Galilee (Pappé, 2006). As the war subsided, Israel imposed martial law on all its Palestinian citizens, which was implemented until 1966. During the war and more so during the

Materials of Rituals  81

Figure 3.3  Depictions of Mariam Bawardi at the entrance to the Catholic church, I’billin, 2010. Photo by the author.

period of martial law, I’billin endured less hardship than other villages in the region, in the sense that it did not experience mass expulsions, and most of its population remained. To date, it has a population of 12,500, of whom 57% are Muslims, while the remaining 43% are Christians belonging to the Greek Orthodox (about 4,500) and Greek Catholic (about 1,110) denominations (Nimrod’s interview with Father Demetrius, February 20, 2017). Thus, the group promoting Mariam’s mythology is the smallest and most fragile in the village. This Christian shrine is an opportunity to show how Christianity is reacting to the growing popularity of Jewish female sacred places, as well as how ritualistic shrines are influenced and imitate one another while flourishing. This imitation is not solely religious; it is also a reaction to the Judaization of sacred sites and the landscape, especially of Jerusalem and Galilee, as well as the fortification of Islamic devotions in Israel/​Palestine, and in the Middle East in general. To understand Mariam Bawardi’s narrative and how it is currently manifest in materiality, I will briefly discuss the mythology of Mariam currently told by local devotees and various books written over the last few years on the saint’s life and work. Formulating the narrative of Mariam Bawardi, especially in the aftermath of her canonization, demands a modicum of caution. The stakes concerning the rights to the saint’s past and to crafting a narrative of her life are

82  Voices of the Ritual

Figure 3.4  Painting by Robert Giacaman representing the saints Mariam Bawardi and Marie Alphonsine Ghattas announcing their canonization, with Courtesy of the artist.

growing. When I  was writing about this mythology, I  realized that it has broad horizons and they go in a certain direction. With this in mind, in the ensuing account, I endeavor to substantiate and subsume as many versions as I can of those provided by the people we interviewed and the oral and textual sources we analyzed. Most accounts tell us that Mariam Bawardi was born in the small village of I’billin (currently part of Israel’s Lower Galilee region) on January

Materials of Rituals  83 (a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 3.5  Marie Alphonsine’s home in the Rosary Sisters’ convent in Ein Karem, 2019. Photos by the author.

5, 1846—​the eve of the Epiphany—​to a Christian family with roots in Damascus.2 Like Mariam herself, the nuclear family is presented as both local and sacred. Her mother, Mariam Shahin, and father, Jirjis (George) Bawardi, were natives of the Galilean villages of Tarshish and Horfesh, respectively.3 As their family name indicates, the Bawardis had been involved in the manufacture of gunpowder (Arabic: Barud), which was typically used

84  Voices of the Ritual for quarrying. Although the family is generally considered Greek Catholic, a handful of sources suggest that her father was a Christian-​Maronite of Lebanese descent. Moreover, Jirjis is frequently described as a poor man who spent time in an Ottoman prison on false charges of murder (Da’ud, 2008, pp. 19–​20). Needless to say, these biographical elements paint him as a martyr. As narrated by Rumia, Mariam was preceded by twelve brothers, but none survived infancy. In an interview, Rumia said, “We know that her family came from Horfesh, and then they moved to I’billin. After all her brothers died her parents went on a pilgrimage (ziyara) to Bethlehem” (interview with Rumia A., January 9, 2016). According to village lore, Mariam’s mother remained optimistic that she would eventually bring a healthy child into the world. Inspired by a vision, she set out on foot for Bethlehem along with her husband to entreat the Virgin Mary for a daughter who would dedicate herself to Christ (Brunot, 1981, p. 36; Da’ud, 2008, p. 22). Upon arriving at the grotto of the Nativity, the couple prayed to the Madonna, who indeed granted their request. When she was two, Mariam’s parents both succumbed to illness, dying within a matter of days. Jirjis’s brother, who also lived in I’billin, took the orphan in. She is often described as a dreamy child who embraced God at a tender age and preferred a life of solitude. In Brunot’s biography (1981, p. 37), the young Mariam is indeed portrayed as a “spirit enveloped by the Virgin”—​a phrase I heard in many of my chats about her with local devotees. Her story goes on to say that when he was struggling to earn a livelihood, Mariam’s uncle moved his family to Egypt, near Alexandria (interview with George, February 28, 2015), when Mariam was eight years old. In this respect, the saint’s mythologization appears to echo that of the members of the Holy Family (Butler & Burns, 1995, p. 263). Consistent with the norms of the time, Mariam was betrothed to her uncle’s in-​law, who resided in Cairo. However, a subsequent religious experience inspired her to pledge a vow of celibacy (Da’ud, 2008, p. 55; Maillard, 2010). Apparently, before shunning the marriage, Mariam beckoned one of her uncle’s Muslim servants to deliver a letter to her brother, Bulus (Arabic pronunciation of Paulus). However, the servant apparently tried to slash her throat (the reason is not clear), and the wounds necessitated a month of convalescence at a local monastery. With a generous patron’s financial help, Mariam relocated to Marseille in 1863, where she worked as a cook for an Arab family. While in France, she decided to enter a religious order. Rejected by the Franciscan monastery of her

Materials of Rituals  85 choice, Mariam was ultimately accepted into the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition in Pau, France (Buzi 1921, 1922b). Soon after joining the cloister, Mariam was imparted with stigmata. According to the most common story, the marks of Christ were impressed on her body at the age of twenty during a vision that came to her while she was praying in the chapel: “She put her hands on the wounds of his [i.e., Jesus’s] Heart and said, ‘My God, give me please all these sufferings but have mercy on sinners’ ” (Brunot, 1981, p. 37). Thereafter, a “nun dressed in blue” picked Mariam up and stitched the wounds before giving her succor in an unidentified grotto. The stigmata are indeed a central theme in both written and oral versions of the saint’s life (e.g., interview with Z., October 28, 2012; interview with R., November 6, 2015). In her analysis of female saints’ veneration in Lebanon, Aubin-​Boltanski (2014) explains that stigmata should be read as a form of criticism addressed to Christian churches still unable to agree on a common liturgical calendar. As in the situations described by Agnès Clerc-​Renaud and Anna Fedele, the stigmatization ritual and its central figures (the Virgin and Christ) are far from being established or definitive (Fedele, 2014). Characterized by their “unfinishedness”/​“uncompletedness” (Clerc-​Renaud, 2014), they are part of a continuous social process. The narratives revolving around them are in part composed of “empty” and “neutral points” (Clerc-​Renaud, 2014). Hence, they are continually reformulated and reshaped according to the events (apparitions, miracles), debates (on their attributes, legitimacy, etc.), and narrators. In 1870, Mariam was a member of the first group of Carmelite Apostolic Sisters to minister in Mangalore, India. Nasrin told us that “she went to India to help the poor, and to teach the sacred books, humility, and obedience. She was against pride” (interview with Nasrin, January 9, 2016). After twenty-​ four months of service, the nun returned to Pau in southwestern France (Da’ud, 2008, p. 58). Three years later, she laid the foundations for the first Carmelite monastery in Bethlehem, where she would live until her death. Throughout her life, Mariam underwent periods of religious ecstasy in which she had visions, received stigmata of the heart, endured suffering, and miraculously recovered. Born and raised in the Galilee, she trod the same ground as Jesus, Mary, and the evangelists. Her own mythology thus reads like a sequel to the Christian canon, in which she assumes the role of Catholic mystic. According to many of the interviews in her “official history” in April 1878, Mariam had a revelation that helped identify the location of Emmaus,

86  Voices of the Ritual the town where, according to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus appeared following his resurrection. As a result, the Carmelite Order purchased and consecrated the land (Buzy 1921, 1922a, 1922b). Soon after, she fell down the monastery’s stairs while bringing drinks to workers. Her arm was broken, and she developed gangrene. A few days later (August 26, 1878), Mariam died at the age of thirty-​three. Again, Mariam is likened to Jesus. The official church website dedicated to Mariam stresses this: “Like her Jesus she died at the age of 33.”4 Launched in 1927, the drawn-​out canonization process culminated with the decree of heroic virtue5 on November 27, 1983. Two years later, Pope John Paul II beatified her as “Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified.” The case for sainthood was bolstered on December 6, 2014, with the documentation of a final miracle. Pursuant to a consistory decision on February 14, 2015, Mariam was duly declared a saint by Pope Francis on May 17, 2015. The shrine and the house of Mariam Bawardi at I’billin are currently under reconstruction. Therefore, the religious experience and its items, objects, and architecture are undergoing a dynamic, spontaneous process and are still in the creative-​charismatic stages. With Nimrod Luz, I have been doing ethnography in the village of I’billin and on the shrine of Mariam since 2011. Ever since we began following the work at the house, the village’s shrine and churches have all been dedicated to Mariam’s life, her miracles, and celebrations. The first steps toward renovation of her memorial site and alleged/​traditional birthplace were launched by Ass’ad Daoud and his family. By and large, Daoud is currently the main force behind the renovation and reconstruction project. The house, as is the entire compound, is all part of the Daoud’s family endowment. Thus, he is the key figure and a memory agent in the recreation and reconstruction of Mariam Bawardi’s compound. The most significant places are her house and shrine in the village of I’billin and the convent of the Carmelite nuns in Bethlehem. The place at I’billin is currently undergoing reconstruction, and the house and shrine are undergoing continual change. When Nimrod and I first arrived at the I’billin shrine in 2011, the materials related to Mariam Bawardi were scattered along with other objects in various places around the compound. Most of the articles, colored posters, and sculptures were broken and distributed without any logical order. The place was in ruins, full of dust, and the shrine was blackened by the candles that had melted there, the only indication of vivid rituals and pilgrimage to the place. Visitors wishing to pray and venerate Miriam were forced to look for a place to perform rituals according to their own

Materials of Rituals  87 understanding. Some chose to pray in front of the shrine, which was in poor condition. Others immersed themselves in the place and performed rituals as they could, but some expressed frustration. These feelings grew following the developments in Rome. The canonization and Bawardi’s increasing popularity were not at all displayed at her place of ritual.

Magical Objects and the Reconstruction of the Shrine The structures and materials of the place give shape to people’s ritualistic experience and behavior at the sacred sites. In I’billin, the driving force behind the shaping and renovation of the Bawardi shrine is, as I mentioned, Ass’ad Daoud, who hails from a local Christian Orthodox community. Daoud reminded us many times that the Daoud family owns the land where the shrine was built and has been living on this property for over 120 years (interview with Daoud, April 14, 2016). Ownership plays an important role in all that concerns the shrine’s material culture. Though Daoud grew up in the local Orthodox community, he neither considers himself to be a practicing Christian nor attributes his involvement in this undertaking to a religious impulse. As he said, he never attends the processions. However, Daoud and his family embrace Mariam’s sainthood and are knowledgeable about all the mythology. Since the site belongs to the family, Daoud has worked out a comprehensive vision for this project: I started to think of restoring the compound when I was an undergraduate architectural student at the Technion [the prestigious Israel Institute of Technology]. This was in the mid-​nineties. At the outset, when these ideas began to germinate [in my head], I envisioned a chapel at her birthplace. My initial plan was to uncover the remains of the original house. It was not until 1998 that we applied for a building permit, but it was only for a chapel. To build a chapel, we were obliged to perform a salvage excavation, which was begun in late 2002. Upon completing the excavations in 2003, I decided not to implement the original idea of the chapel and opted instead to preserve our discoveries at the site. [This stage began] in the summer of 2007. In early 2009, I was approached by a small group of young residents of the village who offered their help. Together, we cleaned the site. We then got a permit from the Israeli Antiquities Authority to expose the house under its supervision. That same year we also received a permit to partially

88  Voices of the Ritual reconstruct the house. Since then, we have continued to work very slowly toward our goal. (Interview with Daoud, October 20, 2012)

After finalizing his plans to “authentically” restore the compound “without ruining its spirit,” as he said, Daoud completed a degree in conservation at the Western Galilee College, where he learned the fundamentals of professional conservation and reconstruction (interview with Daoud, April 22, 2012). “Every piece of stone is important in places like this,” Daoud told me. “And I must be certain about its specific period and the architecture of the time, in order to reconstruct the place according to the different periods, the designs, the materials, and the function of many objects that are scattered around the place” (interview with Daoud, November 23, 2013). While Daoud is committed to his intellectual and professional integrity, other “players” in the village, such as local Christians and priests, are less hesitant to suggest changes that might not fit into any conservation charter but may draw more attention to the site, raise the numbers of pilgrims, and surely turn the shrine into a recurrent theme on the local religious tourism map. To this end, they want a design that accords with local mythological and Holy Land spiritual interpretations of the site and for the work to be completed quickly. These innovations include, among other things, pressuring Daoud to add a decorative roof over the shrine. As with other ideas and innovations suggested to him, Daoud pays no heed, instead remaining loyal to his strict understanding of the most professional and authentic way of reconstructing the shrine (interview, March 15, 2017). Indeed, as he remains the final decision-​maker, the shrine progresses according to his vision and matters are never finalized nor expedited in ways he cannot agree with. The question of ownership is, therefore, crucial in the development of this shrine. Daoud’s role in the compound’s reconstruction should be understood in terms of his own agency and control of the site vis-​à-​vis town and church authorities. One of the most challenging aspects of the reconstruction involved restoring the walls of the room where Mariam Bawardi was purportedly born. Initially relying on written material and photographs taken since 1926, Daoud collaborated with restoration specialists from the Israel Antiquities Authority and other organizations. However, once the work began, he explained that “in the compound itself, there is a great deal of evidence of Mariam and her family’s life that you cannot find anywhere else.” Most of this information, he said, does not “appear in any photo or text; this is why we have to think and imagine the place according to its period and according

Materials of Rituals  89 to the data that we have. Therefore, we cannot do whatever we want; we have a responsibility to the historical truth” (interview with Daoud, November 23, 2013). This meticulous approach is not the only reason for the slow progress. Whereas Jewish shrines in Israel have latterly attracted considerable government funding, the state rarely acknowledges their Christian and Muslim counterparts. In the absence of financial support from the government or state institutions, the Daoud family and other local residents are picking up the appreciable tab on their own. The Bawardi house and shrine are being rebuilt and reconstructed at a deliberate pace. On our first field visit in 2011, Daoud had just begun to advance the project and the site was in complete disarray. The walls of the house were crumbling, the cement was exposed, and the visible structures were littered with graffiti. In addition, visitors were hard-​pressed to find the shrine and, even more so, the improvised altar. Unlike at analogous sites, the organizers did not produce special candles. Instead, pilgrims made do with readily available Jewish Hanukkah candles or even those designated for the tomb of the Baba Sali, a modern Jewish saint buried in southern Israel. Pilgrims and visitors did not care that these were “Jewish” (Hanukkah) candles and used them with much piety. The most common items at the shrine are figurines and statues of the Virgin Mary. These devotional objects come in multiple sizes, colors, and varieties, such as the Madonna holding baby Jesus, or representations of the celestial queen. The same effigies also turn up in Lourdes, Guadalupe, Medjugorje, and many other Marian sites the world over. During our first visits, many of the statues were broken and randomly scattered throughout the area. The same could be said for posters, pictures, and small icons of the Virgin, rosary beads, pendants, talismans, wooden crosses, and even memorial candles. In all likelihood, pilgrims brought these articles and they had been sitting there for quite some time. Since they obviously belonged to the place, they were left untouched. Furthermore, the stone altar was charred by guttering candle flames, leaving pools of wax on the ground; no one had taken the trouble to look after the site. But even against the slow pace of changes over the past few years, the site’s appearance and its material culture have changed considerably. There has been a gradual turnaround at the compound, as order usually reigns and the place is kept clean. The shrine’s floor has been repaired, its altar has been rebuilt, and new ornaments grace the site. Devotees can stand and pray

90  Voices of the Ritual opposite the platform, which now features a cross made of Galilean stones. Statues were installed near the altar, and there is a space for candle lighting. The visitors, in the absence of any fixed or traditional prayers or rituals, are free to behave as they wish. Owing to intensive work between 2014 and 2015, the Bawardi house has also undergone some architectural changes. Besides exposing the building, Daoud has realigned stones in ways based on photographs from the 1920s. The renovations in 2015 centered on the room where the saint, according to local tradition, was ostensibly born. The walls were plastered, and the floor was leveled and artfully paved. Photos and posters of Mariam were hung outside the chamber. Adjacent to the room, an area is reserved for candles and prayers. Bawardi items and materials are not venerated only in the village of I’billin. The Convent of Carmelite Sisters in Bethlehem is dedicated to her, as the nuns claim that she founded the Carmelite Convent in Bethlehem. On August 20, 1875, ten sisters under her leadership left their mother monastery in Pau, France, to start the Carmel community in Bethlehem, the town where Jesus Christ was born. Nowadays, the Carmel community in Bethlehem has approximately fifteen sisters from both local and international backgrounds, but they communicate with each other in French. The sisters live a lifestyle focused on prayer and fellowship, and most of them remain in the monastery each day.6 The sisters operate a pilgrim house for travelers seeking a quiet and spiritual place in Bethlehem. In the convent, many of Mariam’s items are kept, including a sculpture of Mariam very similar to the one found in I’billin, a small piece of bone from her arm in a glass case, and a silver box with decorations around it. These items are venerated daily. Emily wrote in her diary: Around the bone were three pieces of thread indicating the fractures Mariam suffered when she fell—​three days prior to her death. The nun explained to me that, at the age of 33 (the same age as Jesus), Mariam had fallen down while carrying jars of water to the plant she’d brought from India, and the plant’s thorns had pierced the flesh of her arm, resulting in the gangrene that led to her death. The nun goes on to say that when Mariam was in India, God told her to come to Bethlehem and build a church. While searching for a sign in order to fulfill God’s will, she found a flower that had wilted in the ground. She dug it up and replanted it and said that, if it bloomed, she would come to Bethlehem. And this is what happened: the

Materials of Rituals  91 plant survived and she planted it here in Bethlehem after supervising the building of the church. The plant always produced wonderful blooms, except during the last year of Mariam’s life. Then it grew thorns, and because she fell on them and they entered into her bones—​resulting in the gangrene that compounded her suffering from diabetes—​she died.

The nuns at the monastery keep Mariam’s memory alive by observing a small room—​which they call the “Bawardi museum”—​where all Mariam’s possessions are kept, including her bed and her light, her books, a prayer booklet written in French, a strand of her hair kept in a glass case, her rosary, and a cloth on which the letters OJZ appear with a cross above—​which according to the nuns at the monastery mean “I love Jesus” in French. Catholic pilgrims come to visit the museum and venerate these sacred items. However, the convent is not yet a center of pilgrimage; the nuns are not striving to popularize the place, and do nothing to attract more pilgrims, not even after the canonization. The place at I’billin, therefore, as I have mentioned elsewhere, is still the main place to venerate her. While the Bawardi shrine and place of birth undergoes reconstruction, the places of magical items are continually changing. However, these items are crucial, and even though some are not in good condition, they are an immanent part of the place. Most represent female body parts, female representations of Bawardi or other figures. They are scattered around the shrine and taken as ornaments in processions around the village, so everybody—​Christian, Muslim, and Jewish visitors—​can see them. Feminine figures and their narratives alter the place and the landscape, adding female themes, performances, and the feminine choreography of the place.

The Holy Well: Rachel the Wife of Rabbi Akiva The Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva is a newly popular sacred place initiated by Jewish followers in the cemetery of Tiberias (in the north of Israel). Here, amid the effects of sacred and magical items on visitors’ ritualistic experience and sense of place, I decided to concentrate on the well in the center of the compound. Here I analyze the rituals connected to the well and how people react to and talk about the well, its water, mythology, and power. Rituals surrounding wells and holy springs are widespread in female sacred places (Mora, 2007), including, for example, the spring in Lourdes,

92  Voices of the Ritual France, where Bernadette had visions of Mary, or the well of Mary in the village of Ein Karem next to the Church of Visitation. Many other places dedicated to Mary are associated with water, and water rituals are in the center of these shrines (Eade & Sallnow, 1991). The well was only recently found in the vicinity of the tomb. However, visitors’ narration of the mythology surrounding the well is voiced as an ancient story, decorated with various Jewish canonical and legendary attributes (Sprengling, 1923). The existence of water in female sacred places is part of the religious archetype. Springs and wells are dug in many other tombs. To a visitor who walks into Rachel’s Tomb, the well appears to always have been there. When asked about the well, people usually talk about its holy water and their wish to touch it, drink it, or fill a bottle with it, or buy holy water to take with them. Wells are associated with various Jewish sources, especially biblical stories about famous wells and their miraculous and sentimental effects. Visitors and local “gatekeepers” directly associate the well and wellspring with the epic image of Rabbi Akiva and with Jewish texts discussing his lifework. Rabbi Akiva’s attributes are mixed with the image of his wife, Rachel, her life story and theology, and some of the items in the compound. Let me elaborate on these two subjects before extrapolating from the ethnography of the place the way it is currently organized. The Bible contains a great many narratives on wells; in many of the stories, wells provide a spot for a romantic encounter between two protagonists, and thus their coupling as a sign for the continuity of a special dynasty. In that respect, the well represents the magical power of two matched elements that have a promising and important future in maintaining the chain of the Jewish people. This theme is repeated in various biblical narratives. The most important protagonists of the Bible meet at a specific well to find their counterpart and to produce heirs. Robert Alter tells us that a well plays a key role as a biblical type-​scene, a literary convention a narrator uses to articulate a scene by elements known to the readers (Alter, 1978, 1981). In this template, the protagonist arrives alone at a well in a foreign land; the groom or his surrogate encounters the maiden; their special bond forms by the drawing and delivering of the water; the stranger is taken to the family; and they are betrothed (Alter, 1981, p. 51). According to Alter, not only is the well a place of meeting and joining two foreigners, but this matching is connected with feminine symbols, such as motherhood, fertility, and purity (Alter, 1981, p. 52). This pattern can be found many times in the Bible. Just a few examples of this pattern are the stories of Abraham’s servant and Rebekah (Genesis

Materials of Rituals  93 24:10–​61), Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 29:1–​20), and Moses and Zipporah (Exodus 2:15–​21). Hence, the well is related to love, coupling, marriage, and the creation of a dynasty. Following Eliade’s concept of the archetype and its role in the religious dynamics of a sacred place, we can look at Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva’s Tomb as containing all the elements of a female saint’s sacred archetype. As a female character, she suffers from a lack of appearances in Jewish canonical texts. In these cases, just as in the cases of Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Christian canon, or Rachel the Matriarch in the Jewish canon, her rare appearances in the sacred scriptures leave room for vivid imagination and great creativity reflected in speculations, stories, narratives, spontaneous acts, and the arts. In the story of Rachel, the attributes of her life, difficulties, suffering, and personality are merged with Rabbi Akiva’s life details and personality as he is depicted in the Jewish canon. The well of Rachel is connected to the image and life of Rabbi Akiva, and especially his love for the Torah. In this case, the well water is analogous to the Torah; drinking and studying holy water/​words is a strong analogy in this tradition. One of the most famous texts that also appears in the compound cites The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan (Avot De Rabbi Natan, Chapter 6, translated by Judah Goldin, 1955). In this text, we learn that Rabbi Akiva did not undertake studies until he was forty years of age. This text associates Rabbi Akiva, the well, and the Torah (Goldin, 1955, 1990). “Who hollowed out this stone?” he wondered. He was told that “It is the water which falls upon it every day, continually.” It was said to him:  “Akiva, hast thou not heard, The waters wear away the stones?” (Job 14:19). In Rabbi Akiva’s narratives, drinking water from a holy well is analogous to Torah studies. The shrine visitors use this analogy to reinforce a narrative of sacredness of the well in Rachel’s Tomb, and the well’s positioning in the middle of the compound allows them to touch, drink, and take this water/​Torah into their bodies and homes. The well at Rachel’s compound is also related, allegorically and spatially, to another canonical source—​the well of Miriam, the biblical sister of Moses and Aaron. The well of Rachel is explained as the concretization of the well of the biblical Miriam. Rabbi Rafael Cohen, the main impresario of Rachel’s site in Tiberias, claims that the water in the well originates from Miriam’s mythical well itself. According to some Jewish traditions, this was a miraculous well that accompanied the people of Israel in the desert (Numbers 21:16–​22) by the virtue of Miriam (b.Ta’anit 9a), and after their arrival in the

94  Voices of the Ritual land of Israel, the well was hidden in the Sea of Galilee in front of Tiberias (Ketubbot 12:3). According to Ginzberg (1968), Israel received three gifts during their wanderings through the desert: the well, the clouds of glory, and the manna—​the first for the merits of Miriam, the second for those of Aaron, and the third for those of Moses. The legend of Miriam’s (Ginzberg, 1968, p. 53) well tells us that it was in the shape of a sieve-​like rock, out of which water gushes forth as from a spout. It followed them on all their wanderings, up hills and down, and wherever they halted, it halted, too, and it settled opposite the Tabernacle. Then the leaders of the twelve tribes would appear, each with his staff, and chant these words to the well, “Spring up, O well, sing ye unto it; nobles of the people dug it by the direction of the lawgiver with their staves.”

At this point, writes Ginzberg (1968), “the water would gush forth from the depths of the well, and shoot up high as pillars, then discharge itself into great streams that were navigable, and on these rivers the Jews sailed to the ocean, and hauled all the treasures of the world therefrom.” Thus, the waters in Miriam’s well are obviously sacred and miraculous and filled with female attributes. As Ginzberg writes: The water discharged itself beyond the encampment, where it surrounded a great plain, in which grew every conceivable kind of plant and tree; and these trees, owing to the miraculous water, daily bore fresh fruits. This well brought fragrant herbs with it, so that the women had no need of perfumes on the march, for the herbs they gathered served this purpose. This well furthermore threw down soft, fragrant kinds of grass that served as pleasant couches for the poor, who had no pillows or bedclothes. Upon the entrance to the Holy Land this well disappeared and was hidden in a certain spot of the Sea of Tiberias. Standing upon Carmel, and looking over the sea, one can notice there a sieve-​like rock, and that is the well of Miriam. Once upon a time, it happened that a leper bathed at this place of the Sea of Tiberias, and hardly had he come in contact with the waters of Miriam’s well when he was instantly healed. (Ginzberg, 1968, pp. 53–​54)

Following this legacy, the structure of the well in the middle of the compound is a representation of all these mythologies together. In this case, it is no surprise that the well was found and placed in the tomb’s vicinity. Visitors

Materials of Rituals  95 speak of its waters as sacred, purchase bottles of sacred water that are sold there, and ask to touch the water. However, different from the meanings related to Rabbi Akiva and his devotion to the Torah, the water here is connected with female themes related to Rachel: fertility/​infertility, illness/​ health, and barrenness/​motherhood, all associated with biblical Miriam and Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva. The water represents the female body manifested by Rachel and Miriam, and the rituals are related to the womb-​ tomb structure. Women and men enter the compound and pray, and kiss and touch the tomb and other magical items. The ask for fertility, motherhood, and the well-​being of their large families. In a May 7, 2009, article, “Rachel Provides Water to her Sons,” in the journal Yahudat, Sharon Rofe-​Ofir wrote about the importance the well is gaining.7 Rofe-​Ofir discusses the fact that the site has been growing increasingly popular since the founding of the well. The water of a well, she writes, is associated with a quality of healing and the ability to grant wishes and requests. At this site, visitors can pray near the well and also take home bottles full of holy water. Visitors now tell miraculous stories of healing, marvelous pregnancies, and good fortune based on the power of the well and its water. In the same article, Rofe-​Ofir tells of a Jewish person living in the United States who suddenly suffered a paralyzed hand. He traveled especially to Rachel’s Tomb, where he prayed and then took a bottle of water away with him. His friend told everyone that, after a week, his hand was completely healed. On one of the large signs at the tomb compound, there is a special text that relates especially to the well’s mystic powers (segulot). The sign reads: Many people who came back (to the tomb) to show gratitude for the prayers that were fulfilled, for good matches, realized that it is also thanks to the water (of the well). One woman said that she used to apply a little of the water to her children’s forehead before every exam, and they have accomplished great success. A woman from the center (of the country) said that her sister called her crying, telling her that she was diagnosed with a disease. I traveled to her with a bottle of water from the well and asked her to apply the water and ask for a prayer from Rachel, the righteous, and truly, the day after, at the hospital they told her she was totally healthy. A man from Tiberias said that, because of the well’s water, his daughter-​in-​law was finally blessed with a healthy boy. The doctors had told her that the fetus’s leg had a rare deformation, and that she must have an abortion. But

96  Voices of the Ritual thanks to the water she sprinkled on him, the problem disappeared, and the doctors were surprised.

The sign ends with these words: “Remember that the segulot, sacredness of the water, is thanks to the belief in God, and Rachel the righteous may she rest in peace that stands in pray for us, Amen.” If, as I mentioned, visitors wish to take some of the segulot home, they can take bottles of water drawn from the well. There are two kinds of bottles related to the well. The first contains mineral water, with the rabbi’s blessing, as well as his portrait on the bottles. The second is said to be contained in the well’s holy water via a water carrier that is piped straight to the bottles. People at the place explain that these waters are not for drinking, and this is also mentioned on the stickers, along with an explanation that the water’s holiness derives from its being part of Miriam’s well fused with the sacredness of Rachel’s water. Visitors can see the difference and decide on the bottle they prefer according to the stickers it bears. However, it is explained that both types offer the same benefits: wealth, marriage, breadwinning, and especially fertility. As explained through the example of the Tomb of Rachel, the wife of Rabbi Akiva, it is clear that the well is a special construct that is compared with the sacredness of the tombstone. Visitors usually first enter the tomb and pray, touch the tombstone, kiss it, and sit to pray and make various requests. Women usually ask for fertility and health and pray parts of the Book of Psalms. However, most of the time, the experience is complemented with the praying at the sacred well. As we learned in Chapter 2, just like in other womb-​tomb structures, magical female items and the womb architecture of the site create a strong bodily experience that represents the cycle of life. The well placed in the midst of the compound provides another female dimension. Here, the well and its water, symbols of fertility, represent the possibility of life and regeneration.

Fertility Objects: Magical Clothing and Washing Supplies As in other sacred places I have visited, the Tomb of Miriam the Laundress in Jerusalem’s Giv’at Shaul cemetery is surrounded by a great number of female magical items. Who was Miriam the Laundress? Miriam Mizrahi was a poor woman working as a laundress in Haredi homes. Her grave sits

Materials of Rituals  97 among the tens of thousands of tombstones dotting the Mount of Rest (har ha-​menukhot), a cemetery in the West Jerusalem neighborhood of Giv’at Shaul. Devotees consider Miriam Mizrahi, who died in 1966, a pious woman. Popularly, she is known as ha-​koveset (the laundress) and is said to have been a pious miracle worker in the mid-​twentieth century who helped many people suffering from infertility. Her grave is becoming a center of rituals and prayers for fertility. I have visited the place with Lior Chen and Omer Hacker since 2012. In the various interviews we’ve conducted with men and women, they told us that Miriam Mizrahi is mostly responsible for miracles related to fertility and birth. In all the conversations we had with visitors to her tomb, people considered her a main figure with the great gift of being able to solve infertility issues. When I first arrived at the tomb, in the winter of 2012, I was alone at the grave. A little boy followed me with a bucket full of water, and he poured the

Figure 3.6  The grave of Miriam Mizrahi, Giv’at Shaul Cemetery, Jerusalem, 2015. Photo by the author.

98  Voices of the Ritual water on the gravestone and washed it carefully. I thanked him and reached out to give him some money, but he refused it, saying, in Arabic, mara salaha (pure, sacred woman), and pointing to the grave. I stayed there for an hour waiting for visitors, but no one came. I was alone now. The boy had gone and all was quiet. I looked around at the many items that were left on and around the tomb. They are a sign of its popularity and they tell a lot about the place: candles, books, stones, bottles, and pieces of paper with requests in Hebrew and English left on the tombstone. These items are also a voice of the people and their rituals (Weissler, 1999). When I  went down, one of the cemetery workers, dressed as Hasidic, approached me. He asked me if I had found what I was looking for, and why I was visiting the grave of Miriam the Laundress. I told him that I’d heard stories about her. I had studied her story at university, I said, and I was curious to see her grave myself. This worker, Shaul, a fifty-​eight-​year-​old man from Gilo, smiled proudly and began telling me about her. He was happy to talk and sat down with me close to the grave. He told me that Miriam was a modest woman, working hard for her livelihood in the house of Reb Shloimele, the Rebbe of Zevihl zt”l, every week doing the household work and laundry. He told me: Miriam Mizrahi used to work hard, soaking, soaping, scrubbing, and rinsing the clothes. She felt it was an honor to care for the garments of the Rebbe and his good family. I tell you, she was pious, she worked hard, she was modest, she prayed, and fasted every Monday and Thursday. This is not easy when you work so hard. Her only problem in the world was that she was childless.”

I asked him why the rabbi did not help Miriam in her sorrow. He responded: She was very shy, and only when her work was finished did she have the courage to ask the Rebbe to give her his blessing because she was barren, but our Rebbe told her that he could not help her. But he also said that he could give her the blessing that in her suffering and virtue, others could merit having children.

He clapped his hands and looked at me, and said, “Can you believe it? Such a pious woman—​childless!”

Materials of Rituals  99 I asked him if she had succeeded in helping others with this blessing. He shouted: Yes, of course! In 1993, one of Miriam’s friends had a dream about her. She appeared in her dream and said, “I was the laundress in the house of the Admor, Reb Shloimele of Zevihl. I was childless and I asked him for a blessing and for salvation. The Rebbe said, ‘I can’t help you, but I give you my blessing that in your virtue, others should merit having children.’ I ask people to go to my grave and I promise barren women that they will have children.” The day people started to come here, they did not know where her grave was, because there are so many. So we helped them find it and put signs on her grave, so others could find it easily. This year alone, more than thirty women who visited the grave had children. People donated to add candle holders, and places for prayer books. Many people visit her and ask for this pious woman’s blessing.

This visit and long chat was followed by many other visits with my students, Lior and Omer. During one of his visits to the tomb, Omer interviewed Debora, who was praying there, and asked her about Miriam and the veneration at her tomb. Debora told of her own infertility and miraculous fertility, a story we heard from many other devotees. Debora said that, after fifteen years of marriage and two children, she wanted to have another child. She described a process of fertility treatments that she said were “awful and long,” and said that, after two years, she had given up. After a while, she met with her brother; they chatted about life problems and she mentioned her infertility as well as her longing for another child. This was a turning point that we found in many narratives in many places we have visited: the understanding that there is a concrete place to visit, a tomb. Debora went on: “He said, ‘Listen to me and do what I tell you to do. It is soon the hillula of Miriam the Laundress. Go to her tomb and ask her for what you want.’ ” Debora went for her first time with her friend. “I went to [the tomb] and asked and prayed,” said Debora. She continued: A month passed and my period stopped. I thought, this is nothing, and only after three months, I went to the doctor. He told me that by now, I was three months pregnant. I burst into tears. I couldn’t believe it, so I did a test at home, and the results were positive. I did other tests in other places and they were also positive. I went to test my blood, and they called me from

100  Voices of the Ritual the laboratory with a confirmation, and I could not believe it. From this day I took a vow to visit [Miriam’s tomb] every year on her hillula day and thank her.

Another example of Miriam’s success in fertility issues was that of Yohevet, a teacher from Jerusalem, who told us about her mother’s infertility, and Miriam’s blessings: My mother has special relations with her, not via family but deep personal relations. My mother brought me to this world (I am the eldest), eight and a half years after she got married. She did everything to have children. She visited all the holy graves, graves of the righteous all around the country. At that time, we had not heard about “the koveset.” When we found her, we heard that if one visits her during her memorial day and lies down on her grave, Miriam will pray for her until she is pregnant. My mother did it. Going to the grave of this holy woman who suffered so much from her own infertility is from the deepest places of the heart.

As my ethnography in all female sacred places indicates, rituals and themes of fertility, children, and barrenness are not only phenomenological issues that arise in all interviews, formal and informal. A central activity is the placing of different items on or around the tomb, as well as the effect of the tomb and the items on the experience, the place, and its sacredness. The custom of placing items on graves is part of Jewish tradition. Ben Ami (1998, pp. 244, 370) writes of the custom of leaving items on graves and fusing them with sacredness and taking them home: I saw the miracles of R. Hayyim Pinto in Casablanca. I had a son who used to have fits. Sometimes such fits that they would say he was dead. Finally, they told me I had to take him to R. Hayyim Pinto. He was two years old. What did I do? I couldn’t take him, so I took his clothes [and put them on] the shrine. I made a se’udah, a special feast. I dressed him in those clothes and since then he has been healthy. Now he is married and has children. He hasn’t had any fits since then. (Ben Ami, 1998, p. 244)

These customs are also described by Schwartz (1998, p.  67) when she describes the Baba Sali celebration in Netivot village in the south of Israel:  “The ritualistic aspects in front of the tomb involve the placing of

Materials of Rituals  101 clothes on the tombstone, along with candles, baby bottles, bottles of oil and water. The main principle is that every item that touches the sacredness is filled with its holy nature and becomes a magical item.” At this grave one can find children’s clothing spread on the tombstone alongside laundry soap, floor cloths, and floor-​cleaning buckets. These items are related to Miriam’s everyday job as a laundress. Along with the rituals that are performed there, on many of our visits, we found these items were placed and scattered around the tomb and that they were changing all the time. On some of our visits we witnessed people placing children’s clothing on the tombstone. In this practice, the clothing of a little boy or little girl is placed on the tomb, covering it completely. The most common custom, one we saw in many sacred places, is to place notes, letters, and written requests on the tomb. In some places a piece of cloth is left to keep the magic connection between the pious and the person who visited the place. Another option is that of throwing a piece of cloth in the fire in Lag BaOmer. However, placing children’s clothing on the tomb as part of the ritual is probably unique to the grave of Miriam the Laundress. Along with this, people also leave cleaning products and items around the tomb, one of the more popular items being floor soap. Cleaning materials such as rags, floor cloths, washing powder, sponges, plastic bottles of detergent, and other objects associated with cleaning and laundry are also widespread. The visitors bring these items, used especially to clean the tombstone and the surrounding area. The floor-​cleaning bucket is part of the visit to the grave and its rituals. When a couple is walking toward the grave of Miriam, a little boy sometimes follows them with a bucket full of water. When the couple arrive at the tomb, he pours the water on the grave and washes it. In his fieldwork diary (July 28, 2015) Omer writes: When I arrived at the tomb there was a big new floor-​cleaning bottle and nearby, a sponge, both located very close to the book facility. Next to the area where the candles were kept that was full this day, there was also a cleaning rug, and on the floor, there were two cleaning gloves. It looks like someone visited the place with a cleaning kit to put on the grave.

The items scattered there represent Miriam Mizrahi’s devotion to her work, as these are explained in her mythological narrative. These female items are associated with the toil of cleaning and washing in the Haredi houses of Jerusalem, everyday work that Miriam performed with devotion and piety

102  Voices of the Ritual all her life. Visitors to the grave use items that imitate and represent these practices. By doing so, they empathize with Miriam’s work as well as with her longing for her own house, family, children, and fertility. These female items are a central part of the body rituals performed in the place. In her study of the feminization of religion in Portugal, Gemzöe (2009) demonstrates how women are perceived as subdued and dominated by ideas about their sinful nature. I show how the ritual is feminized by injecting female objects and themes into the place (Gemzöe, 2000, 2009). At the Tomb of Miriam, just as in other places discussed in this chapter, female body practices and materiality are mixed together, creating a female space and performance and reinforcing womanhood. *** In this chapter, I describe female material sacred objects as central to rituals at sacred places dedicated to female saints. I ask how these materials affect the ritual and the experience. The analysis of the magical items compels us to take into account not only the phenomenological and inner attributes of the ritual in its own right as Handelman suggested, but also the physical material elements that are part of the site in question: its constituent structures, and the physical objects that are part of its structure. Moreover, looking through objects permits us to understand the complexity of the mutual relations between humans and the material world—​the interaction between thought and experience, on the one hand, and the layout of the place, its structure, and its articles, on the other (Hazard, 2013; Ingold, 2007b; Keane, 2008; Miller, 2005). To develop this understanding, I  have concentrated on a few central materials: the wedding dress at the Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch, the well at Rachel’s shrine in Tiberias, the icon of Mary on the separation wall, cloths and cleaning materials placed on the tomb of Miriam Mizrahi, and so on. All these magical objects and many more are part of the female piety, body rituals, materiality, and female themes emphasized in these shrines. These objects are a part of the female experience and design of the places I have examined. For example, in Rachel the Matriarch’s tomb, the fabric of the wedding dress of Nava, killed a day before her wedding, serves as a fertility object. The death of a woman before her marriage is fused with the narrative of Rachel’s tragedy; both women missed the chance to experience motherhood, and death and infertility are mixed together to fortify the trauma. However, as a coincidentia oppositorum (Eliade, 2005)  archetype, both Rachel and

Materials of Rituals  103 Nava are joined to present a model of female bravery. The attributes of the biblical mother together with those of a woman who dies before becoming a mother become one, expressing an iconic figure of contemporary Jewish womanhood and martyrdom that is brave and sacred. In the shrine of Rachel, the wife of Rabbi Akiva, a well was found whose waters are a holy mixture of Miriam’s well and the water analogous to her husband’s Torah studies. The attributes of the dedicated wife of a Tanna are mixed with an image of the characteristics of biblical Miriam, the sister of Moses. Both are represented as courageous, holy, and dedicated to their families. Mariam Bawardi’s childhood and life are expressed via the holiness of Mary. Her mother gave birth to her after losing her sons, and she experienced a difficult childhood, with stigmata and visions, qualities ascribed to a chain of female sainthood. In the Mariam Bawardi compound, sculptures of various representations of Mary, the mother of Christ, as well as visionary Mary, such as at Lourdes, Fatima, and others, are scattered around the shrine. Female materiality also serves to reinforce these feminine themes, to highlight women’s symbols and images that serve as force of resistance for visitors and local villagers. Female magical items create an atmosphere of piousness that refers to the centrality of the family, fertility, and regeneration, all these symbols created and reinforced within the context of the village and its history, and in response to the politics of Israel/​Palestine, the relations between Christians and Muslims in I’billin, and the violence and war in the Middle East in general. This argument will be the focus of the next chapter. I will use these findings to explain how these attributes of female saints are associated with place, territorial rights, and the appropriation of lands.

Figure 4.1  Haredi man praying in Rachel’s Tomb compound. Photo by Guy Raivitz.

4  Place Rituals as Land Claiming

In this chapter, I wish to add a theory of place to the analysis of female ritualistic experience and materiality of sacredness.In previous chapters, I focused on ritual from the analysis of its internal features and dynamics (Coleman & Collins, 2000; Handelman & Lindquist, 2004; V. W. Turner, 1982, 1985). I follow Handelman’s analysis of the ritual in its own right and add an analysis of the ritual in motion as Coleman, Eade, and others explain it. As my findings show, in the internal ritualistic realm, the body is the center of the experience; it mimics the infant coming out of the womb and other female gestures. The body is in constant motion; the ritual embodied and the experience of the pilgrim is the main goal (Csordas, 1994). Furthermore, the ritual is shaped within the material realm. Objects scattered in sacred shrines influence the experience that takes shape in a particular place (Grimes, 1999, 2011; Rothenbuhler, 1998). Female materials have a unique effect on the place. The ritual becomes a playground for the expressiveness of motherhood and fertility wishes. Red strings, cleaning products, dresses, water springs, sculptures of the female saint, and posters and icons associated with her all provide practices and performances with a feminine look. However, Handelman claims that the ritual phenomena do not exist independently of cultural and social orders. In general terms, Handelman suggests thinking about ritual in its own right through two steps. The first is to separate (to an extent, arbitrarily) the phenomenon from its sociocultural surround, from its “environment,” in order to analyze it in and of itself. This analysis is not an end in itself but is intended to be taken heuristically as far as one can. The second step is to reinsert the ritual into its surround, with the added knowledge of what has been learned about the ritual, taken in and of itself. The first step is more phenomenological, the phenomenon existing in its own right, together with the attempt (necessarily impossible) to exhaust the significance of its forming. The second step is more hermeneutical, including meaning that extends toward Voices of the Ritual. Nurit Stadler, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197501306.001.0001

106  Voices of the Ritual the phenomenon from its surround. These steps illuminate whether—​and, if so, how—​the ritual can be said to have its own interior integrity, and therefore whether it exists more as a representation of sociocultural order or more through its own autonomy from such order. In turn, this may clarify how the ritual as phenomenon relates to sociocultural order, without necessarily slipping into an inherently functionalist understanding (Handelman, 2004). When exploring female sacred places, I decided that my own second step would be to add a theory of place to the analysis of female body-​based rituals and materiality. Place is a basic component in the ritual, as the experience is always shaped and designed within a particular place scheme and its architecture (Casey, 2013; Pred, 1984; Smith, 1992; Wescoat & Ousterhout, 2014). Smith (1987) has already stressed the importance of place for ritualistic performance, especially of constructed ritual environments, to a proper understanding of the ways “empty” actions become rituals. Rituals, poetry, aesthetics, embodiment, identity, and class formation are all expressed in a certain architecture (Bunzel, 2017; Gose, 1994; Joiner, 1971). This is why the forms and meanings of rituals can be both expected and unexpected (Grimes, 1982, 2006). Rituals can create shared experience in one physical context. However, when the place changes, the same ritual can impose exclusion and separation of visitors and pilgrims, creating contestation and rivalry. An entire theoretical agenda has been constructed precisely out of the shattering of the Turnerian image of ritualization as communitas. Eade and Sallnow’s classical edited volume Contesting the Sacred (1991) directly opposes the communitas paradigm, focusing instead on the role of major shrines in hosting and amplifying discrepant discourses among varied groups of pilgrims, thus acting as “empty vessels” that can reflect back visitors’ objectified assumptions in sacralized form (Coleman & Eade, 2004). In his analysis of the centrality of sacred places, Hayden added the dynamic of what he called “antagonistic tolerance” (2002, 2013). Hayden argues that acceptance of others by others in a shared holy place is “a pragmatic adaptation to a situation in which repression of the other group’s practices is not possible” (2002, p. 219). In this situation, the “other community” that shares the site sees the other as a threat that must be prevented as much as possible. From the perspective of the dominant community, if the other cannot be converted or pushed out, it has to be tolerated. In this view, at the very heart of tolerance is a heightened potential for violence. This latent force, a dormant aggressiveness, is always present and can be activated when shifts of power or changes of context occur.

Rituals as Land Claiming  107 In the various female shrines I visited, the ritual is created by and at the same time affected by the politics of the place. In Israel/​Palestine, this is mostly the politics of struggle, conflict, and hostility. The shrines are not characterized by their sharing nature but by the opposite. Places are usually zones of unbearable conflict between two or more groups. In this reality, sacred places are aggressively divided by devotees, sometimes using extremely violent measures. In these rather aggressive circumstances, the Jewish rituals are performed as a ritual of sovereignty, and for Christians and Muslims they are a platform of pushing forward territorial claims, demands justified via the visitors’ own bodies, using symbols of fertility of land/​soil and rituals of nascence and recreation. These actions emphasize the visitors’ belongings and claims to what they see as their “native lands.” Rituals maintain place attachment. It is through ritual performance that environments attain meanings and configurations (Low & Altman, 1992). Sacredness and embodiment are spatialized, and sacred places become a path to the politics of territoriality and the claiming of lands. In Israel/​Palestine, this dynamic of sacred places is becoming central.

Rituals of Femaleness and the Politics of Land Claiming The discussion of the spatialized sacred shrines, their embodied features, and their use as a means of land claiming centers around the ways visitors challenge and resist the accepted social order. When sacredness is spatialized, many forms of identities and national aspirations are fostered by the ritual (Kong & Yeoh, 1997; Tuan, 1991). In this chapter, to analyze these manifestations, I  include observations and analyses from various places,1 extrapolating from my examination of the Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch, Our Lady of the Wall, and the shrine of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva in Tiberias.2

Female Palimpsest in the Midst of Contested Land Ritual is immersed in the contextual power relations of the place (Agnew & Duncan, 2014; Coleman, 2009; Kertzer, 1988). In Chapter 3, I analyzed the body experience of Jewish veneration of Rachel the Matriarch at her tomb. Rachel’s Tomb is a central example of body-​based rituals and venerations

108  Voices of the Ritual as well as female themes and materiality. However, due to its dramatic politics of space, this shrine is a unique example of place dynamic and change in structure and architecture. Rachel’s shrine has been venerated in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions for centuries, and her tomb is a vivid ritualistic center (Avner, 2003; Cox & Ackerman, 2009; Macalister, 1912). The convoluted history of Rachel’s Tomb extends at least 1,700  years (Bloch-​Smith, 1992; Bowman, 2013; Feige, 2002a; Sered, 1986; Stadler, 2015). The matriarch’s burial place is mentioned in Jewish and Christian canonical texts, as well as in various Muslim sources (Arafat, 2013; Friedland & Hecht, 1991), and thus the place is considered sacred to all three religious agents of this unquiet zone. In this respect, the ritualistic characteristics and the need to be close to the stone and its iconography were similar among all visitors: Christians, Muslims, and Jews. However, the dynamic politics of this region have altered all aspects of the mythologies and rituals. The rivalry and violence over the imagined and physical border between Israel and Palestine ended in Israel’s political decision to annex the territory and thus, nowadays, the tomb is an exclusive walled place permitted to Jews only, in the middle of a Christian and Islamic landscape (Graff, 2014). Having acknowledged this, I find that Rachel’s Tomb is a female palimpsest sphere, characterized by dramatic geopolitical effects. For this reason, the shrine and the landscape have changed considerably over the course of the site’s existence. The most recent changes with the most dramatic effects are explained by Israeli agents using narratives concerning growing security needs due to what they term Islamic terror. In 1995, the Israeli architect Yaron Katz was commissioned to restructure the compound in accordance with new security demands and guidelines laid down by the state’s Ministry of Defense. Accordingly, he designed a long stone wall lined with sealed arches. The implementation of this plan enclosed the hitherto unpretentious structure behind a fortified concrete corridor. The new architecture and the surrounding wall gave the shrine the atmosphere of an army bunker, and visitors often describe it as feeling this way. In this reality, according to the Oslo Accords, Rachel’s Tomb was placed under Israeli security control, falling under the designation C territory. Rabin,3 who was prime minister at the time created a plan that called for the site to be fully controlled by the Palestinian Authority (A territory),4 as it was located southeast of Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries at the time. The

Rituals as Land Claiming  109 idea was that it would have free access to Jewish and religious-​Israeli administration. However, following this decision, pressure from several Israeli religious figures5 and political parties meant it was ultimately annexed to the areas under Israeli control (Masalha, 2000; Yiftachel, 2006). These unilateral geopolitical measures, the Judaization and nationalization of Rachel’s Tomb, and Rachel’s depiction as the mother of return have not gone unchallenged. In tandem with the growing geopolitical debate and confrontations between the two sides, Rachel’s Tomb has become a ghetto-​based space (Selwyn, 2009) and one of the most hotly contested places in the Jerusalem–​ Bethlehem region (Feige, 2002a, 2009). In Israeli public debates, the site’s high political profile has made it the subject of disputes between opponents, especially between Muslims who wanted to pass it to Palestine on one side, and mostly Jewish religious and nationalist groups, on the other, who were determined to keep it as Israeli territory at all costs. At a special meeting on September 11, 2002, after a lengthy and heated discussion that included theological argumentation on the importance of Rachel as a holy figure and of the place as sacred land, the Israeli Cabinet decided to change the wall’s proposed route to include the Rachel’s Tomb compound within Israeli territory and place it under direct Israeli control. The official explanation for this measure, published for the Israeli public and the world in general, was not the theological argumentation, but a security-​ based explanation. The cabinet stated the need to increase security at the shrine and prevent infiltration of Islamic extremist terrorists and terrorism into the country. Thus, discussion of the site’s sacredness was merged with a military discourse of elevation of security and the need for a solid physical border to combat radicalization of the region.6 In merging these discourses, religious groups claimed the land back using transcendental-​historical reasoning, and politicians fused this line of thinking with security reasons, with the immediate result being the annexation of lands (Yiftachel, 1999). To this end, a towering twenty-​six-​foot wall was constructed around the compound, along with a maze of security roads and several army posts that are manned at all times. Following the same logic, the civilian route for local Palestinians (Passage 300 or Rachel’s Passage) was moved a few hundred yards due east of the Tomb to prevent local Muslims as well as Christians, or anybody from this side, from approaching the site on foot or by car. A sacred site commemorated for hundreds of years and shared by the three Abrahamic religions became an excluded sacred place open mostly to Jews and tourists

110  Voices of the Ritual coming from the Israeli side of the map. Palestinians did not accept this. The result was disputed by Muslims from different groups who had a local view of the place, and the discourse of it being a sacred Muslim place intensified (Aghazarian, 2010). Since 1996, Palestinians have strengthened their claims to the place and its territories, claiming these lands by reestablishing and reinforcing an Islamic narrative of the site. As a response, in 1995, a yeshiva was established at the compound to enhance Jewish sovereignty on the site of Rachel. This yeshiva was built to strengthen the everyday Jewish presence and add security forces. This provoked strong opposition from local Palestinians. However, the Jewish organization called “The Friends of Rachel’s Tomb” has gathered donations to support the yeshiva and its activities in the place. According to the organization’s website:7 For the first time in more than 150 years, a Jewish building has been erected in Bethlehem, with the approval of Minister of Religious Affairs . . . With the threat of the Palestinian police force entering Bethlehem and taking control of the area, the post-​army students there will ensure a daily Jewish presence at Rachel’s Tomb and in Bethlehem, the city of Rachel, Ruth, and David. If the need arises, the Yeshiva will provide safety for all those wishing to visit the tomb. The Yeshiva is of paramount importance. It reinforces Jewish sovereignty at Rachel’s Tomb and ensures free access to all people who wish to find solace and comfort within its walls.

These findings show that Jewish exclusivity is institutionalized via the sacred space. The Jewish agents use the biblical and heroic motherhood narrative of Rachel to legitimize Jewish state power, including the idea of security for Jewish people to visit the place, the idea of reinforcing sovereignty, and the mythology of Rachel as a special Jewish biblical figure—​as a Matriarch. These agents of organization go on to express a religious nationalistic discourse using Rachel’s image and symbols of barrenness and brave motherhood in the Jewish tradition: During the past 2500 years, the only time in Jewish history that the Tomb of Rachel was isolated from her children was during the years it was under Jordanian occupation from 1948 to 1967. Even during the Roman rule of Israel, when Jews were not allowed near Jerusalem, and during the hundreds of years that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron was forbidden to Jewish worshipers, the Tomb of Rachel remained accessible to the people

Rituals as Land Claiming  111 of Israel. It remained throughout our history a symbol as the one place our people could always go to pour out their hearts in prayer.

To explain why this place is so central in the Jewish view, the organization strengthened biblical images, her femaleness, motherhood, and suffering characteristics. Rachel has been seen for generations as the classic sympathetic Jewish mother: Rachel, the beautiful daughter of Lavan, whose selflessness and goodness led her to give her betrothed to her sister for a husband; Rachel, the favored and beloved wife of Jacob; Rachel, the barren woman whose heart-​wrenching pleas led to the birth of Joseph and Benjamin; Rachel, who died in childbirth and who was buried “along the way” so that she could comfort her children going into exile (Bar, 2008; Frantzman & Bar, 2013); Rachel, the poetic, metaphorical figure who wept and who would not be comforted for her children until she heard the words of Jeremiah, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded . . . and they shall return from the land of the enemy. There is hope for the future,’ says the Lord, ‘and the children will return to their borders.’ ” The biblical myth and local politics have amalgamated to produce the current ritual. Poetic images and symbols of Rachel were emphasized and spatialized: she is a sympathetic mother, a beautiful daughter, a selfless, good, beloved woman. She suffered from infertility, and only her piousness gave her the blessing of sons. She is a Jewish figure of suffering and sacrifice who died giving birth. Moreover, Rachel’s conduct is associated with the return of the Jews to “their borders.” Rachel’s Tomb as it is currently spatialized is not only a metaphorical border but also a physical one. As such, all rituals performed in the place are related to Jewish borders (Lapidoth, 1994). The symbol becomes place. The sacred place that was open for years becomes a physical border between peoples, and the rituals are performances of separation and exclusion. Rachel as the Matriarch, the biblical suffering mother, is a physical representation of the “continuity of the Jewish people,” as an eternal “heavenly mother” and the “Mother of all Israel.” The organization The “Friends of Rachel’s Tomb” goes on to explain: It was only natural that after the Holocaust a menorah (the seven-​lamp (six branches) Jewish lampstand), in memorial of the six million Jews who died, was placed next to her grave. But just as Rachel was the symbol of the broken-​hearted cry for her children who had died, so too she became the

112  Voices of the Ritual inspiration for the rebirth of the Jewish nation, and the reestablishment of the state of Israel.

In this voice, the book of Jeremiah is used to reinforce the legitimacy of the current situation in Israel/​Palestine. The features of the exile connected with the image of Rachel the mother and the Jewish (post)modern nationalism are amalgamated into one discourse and explained as prominence over other values: When the Jewish nation was exiled after the destruction of the Holy Temple, the prophet Jeremiah revealed that God had told the weeping Rachel that one day her children would return to their borders. Eventually, the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled. In 1967, following the liberation of the Kotel (Western Wall) and Jerusalem—​Bethlehem, Hebron, and Shechem, instead of becoming spearheads for the advancing Jordanian army and the planned destruction of the State of Israel, these holy cities fell into the hands of the Israeli army.

The establishment of the yeshiva, the emphasis on Rachel the mother of the Jewish people in their state, the annexation of territory, and the Judaization of the place have together significantly changed the Muslim and Christian approach to Rachel and her Tomb in a very short time. Historically, Palestinians called this place the “Tomb of Rachel.” However, nowadays, activists and religious agents are reinforcing a new religious narrative. Muslim accounts of veneration of the site date from as early as the eleventh century and are consistent with Jewish interpretations. The place is aptly named Qubat Rahil (The Dome of Rachel) in Arabic (Bourmaud, 2008; Graff, 2014; Pringle, 1982; Strickert, 2007). However, in recent years, a new layer of tradition, as part of a discourse of opposition to the Jewish interpretation and conduct, is being produced. In this narrative, Rachel’s site is identified as the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque, in honor of the Prophet Muhammad’s personal companion and former slave (Arafat, 1959, 2013), who is also considered Islam’s first mu’adhdhin (or muezzin, a crier who announces Muslims for prayers).8 These sorts of counterclaims to Israeli/​Jewish narratives of holy places have become a formidable political tool for Palestinians seeking to contest Israel’s hegemonic position and making counterclaims through the land (Macalister, 1912; Meri, 1999; Stadler & Luz, 2015).

Rituals as Land Claiming  113 For example, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the former mufti of Jerusalem, made the following comments in an interview with the Jerusalem Times:9 [The annexation of Rachel’s Tomb] is unacceptable and a violation of our religious rights . . . Israel’s policy of discrimination against the Palestinians, the indigenous people, in every aspect of their lives, could be seen clearly through the annexation . . . We cannot force the Israeli army to cease from carrying out this decision. However, we will continue to cling to our historic and religious rights over all Muslim and Christian sites and shrines in Palestine.

In turn, the recent identification of the shrine with Bilal has been met with counterclaims reinforced by local Jewish voices that emphasize the biblical legacy of Rachel and her sepulcher. These opposing religious and political voices express the tensions and the complex politics of borders in a place where physical borders have not been defined. During interviews I held with Jewish pilgrims at Rachel’s Tomb, the territorial claims expressed by politicians and the yeshiva were buttressed with notions of a divinely chosen and benevolent mother. These interviewees emphasized the credibility of the choice of the present location of her gravesite. Furthermore, many interviewees drew a correlation between the Tomb of Rachel and the Jews’ return to their homeland after a long exile. The religious rituals at the Tomb were fused with nationalist sentiments and geopolitical demands, both of which were translated into concrete barriers and borderlines that serve to deny Arab claims and to exclude Arab access to the site. This viewpoint was expressed by Smadar, an Israeli woman in her forties, a schoolteacher, with whom I spoke at the Tomb in 2009: Rachel’s life was tragic, but we know that throughout her ordeal she remained faithful to God. All the sages declared that Jacob buried Rachel on the roadside, so that she could pray for [her progeny] as they were being led into exile . . . Jeremiah reminded us all that “Rachel weeps for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children who are gone . . .” God’s answer was clear: “Restrain your voice from weeping, your eyes from shedding tears, for there is reward for your labor.” This is why we know that this place belongs to us today and that the Jews will “return from the lands of

114  Voices of the Ritual their enemies to their own country” [Jeremiah 31:14–​15]. These are God’s words to our mother. (Interview with Smadar, 2009)

Shulamit, a thirty-​three-​year-​old Israeli Orthodox woman, enthusiastically explained why she regularly prays at the gravesite of her “eternal mother”:  “It is written in the sacred scriptures that Rachel imainu [our mother] labors on our behalf more than all of our holy fathers put together. While they are all hiding in the cave [i.e., the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron], she constantly reveals herself to us here.” Joining the conversation, a twenty-​five-​year-​old woman named Avigail said that “the inspiration of the divine spirit [shkhinah] is here in our mother’s tomb, and we should all pray for our sake here in her eternal land that is ours.” In essence, Shulamit and Avigail have narrated their story of the place. They describe the politics and the sacredness of the place by mixing biblical phrases and images with current events. Moreover, they mobilize biblical passages for the purpose of portraying Rachel as the eternal mother of the Jewish nation, which is thus the owner of the land. As we learn from the narratives and debates of many at the Tomb, religious mythology mingles with claims to lands and territory and their Jewish ownership. The practices at the Tomb are now becoming rituals of sovereignty. Though the de facto border was established by a highly secularized national apparatus in concert with a professional military, the main impetus behind the border contours was the struggle over the land, a highly political struggle cast in religious terms by all sides. In this respect, the Tomb’s contentious history and its twenty-​first-​century appropriation go hand in hand with the transformation of the holy place of Rachel and her burial place into a national iconic site, and of her tomb into a landmark of territorial ownership. These developments attest to changing dynamics in public spaces, urban landscapes, and determinations of national borders as products of a wide range of often contradicting religious, theological, totemic (social belonging), and territorial claims. Thus, at Rachel’s Tomb, the totemic aspects, religion as belonging, are returning to a central role in reshaping the public sphere. The return to native place is demarcated by female rituals (Berry, 1991). Owing to its female symbols and customs as well as its pilgrims’ imaginations, the rituals at Rachel’s Tomb fall under the category of a “patriotic mother” cult. This popular form of ritual conflates saint veneration with the nationalist sentiments of a dominant group, thereby strengthening the notion that

Rituals as Land Claiming  115 the state is the people’s “motherland” (Mosse, 1985). In addition, these sorts of cults embed correlations between land, fertility, and female imagery in the public consciousness (Yuval-​Davis, 1993, 1997; Yuval-​Davis, Anthias, & Campling, 1989). As a symbol of national vigor and unity, the Israeli version of Rachel may be compared to “national Virgins” in, say, Mexico City (Wolf, 1958); Tinos, Greece (Dubisch, 1990; Håland, 2012); and several cities in Poland (Galbraith, 2000; Glazier, 2009; Oleszkiewicz-​Peralba, 2007). While Rachel is commemorated through biblical memories and religious events, this veneration is fused with current politics and modern conceptions of the land of Israel and the Jewish nation. According to Sered, Rachel began to be called the “mother of the nation” (em ha’uma) even before Israel’s establishment. In the aftermath of World War II, Jews associated the Matriarch with the Holocaust, with their flight from Europe and their return to the Promised Land. In the decades following the country’s declaration of independence, the stress was mostly on the ingathering of the exiles. However, as a mythical figure, Rachel assumed a more assertive disposition when talks over the state’s “final borders” were thrust into the limelight in the early 1990s. Since then, the Tomb of Rachel has been ensnared in political turmoil. More specifically, it has played a lead role in the government’s concerted effort to Judaize-​cum-​Israelize the landscape and extend Jewish authority. Simultaneously, the site has become a major Israeli tourist destination. For example, dozens of the government’s ubiquitous “Heritage Site” signposts point in the Tomb’s direction on the highways leading to and from Jerusalem (Selwyn, 2009). Likewise, the anniversary of the saint’s death has not only been incorporated into the Israeli religious school system’s curriculum but is officially marked on the same date as Yitzchak Rabin Memorial Day (Vinitzky-​Seroussi, 2002, 2010). In other words, the Matriarch who sacrificed herself for the sake of the nation during the biblical epoch is viewed as a protector of the modern state as well (Mosse, 1985, p. 95). It comes as no surprise, then, that an Israeli postage stamp was recently issued featuring Rachel’s Tomb and the saint “weeping for her children.” Chiming into the conversation, an adult yeshiva student, Joseph, offered the following account of the shrine: When we celebrate her death, we celebrate the day when our father Jacob stood here and prophesized thousands of years into the future. He knew that the Jews were going to go through years upon years of exile, that they

116  Voices of the Ritual would have no Temple, no prophet, or altar to revere. However, he knew that they would return; and upon their return, they would need a mother. So he decided to bury Rachel on the side of the road. He buried her for us; he buried our mother Rachel, who is waiting for us between Ephrata and Bethlehem.

I asked Joseph why he comes to the Tomb. “Our mother opens her arms to us,” he replied. “She weeps, she gathers all her children, and brings them hope.” In unfolding their narratives, each of the three pilgrims emphasized the site’s sanctity and political import by commingling biblical phrases with current events, citing from the canon with the aim of depicting and perpetuating Rachel’s role as the iconic mother of the Jewish nation. I follow Mosse’s claim (1985, pp.  17–​18) that national movements present womanhood as the “guardian of the traditional order” as well as “the continuity and immutability of the nation, the embodiment of its respectability.” In the Israel/​ Palestine region, this role is filled by Rachel the Matriarch. Conversely, in her capacity as “mother of minorities,” the Virgin is recruited to challenge and undermine the existing social order that the Jewish saint represents. Notwithstanding the antithetical roles of Mary and Rachel, devotees at both sites venerate these figures as part of their efforts to resist the political order and redraw the landscape.

Place, Motherhood, and Territoriality Mary’s rituals in the Holy Land are also performed in a dynamic political space structure. In Christian lands, Mary gives comfort to many people as well as avenges others, particularly in troubled times (Christian, 1996; Napolitano, 2009b; Orsi, 1985). In the Middle East, where Christians are small minorities, sometimes living in harsh conditions, Mary has taken on a special role. Local Christians have chosen to use Marian veneration to reinforce their identity and minority rights. They do so by reviving sacred places of Mary and her representation, and local visitors redefine and reclaim their lands by spurring on their imagination.10 In this context, the veneration of Mary takes place in what Courcoucli (2012, pp. 1–​2) terms “a post-​ Ottoman space, in which ethnoreligious minorities have been banned from national territories many times over the last hundred years for the purpose of establishing homogeneous national territories” (Couroucli, 2009, 2012;

Rituals as Land Claiming  117 Jansen, 2009). Mary, as a mother, has become a political symbol, the mother of the oppressed, the representative of minorities in all aspects of reality, and thus, sacred places dedicated to Mary are a physical representation of these people’s nativeness and homeland (Louth, 1997). Jansen’s (2009) study on Marian veneration in Jordan shows that the nexus between identity, power, and place is crucial to understanding the kingdom’s predominantly Muslim society. More specifically, she discusses how two local renderings of the Virgin—​a bronze statue and an oil painting of the Pietà scene—​represent a shift in the local distribution of power between Christians and Muslims. In Israel/​Palestine, rituals are performed to, among other things, press for changes against ongoing confrontations between and among various groups (national and religious) struggling over the holding of lands, decisions on physical borders, and contested places (Stadler, 2015). Jansen (2009) suggests that pilgrims at sacred places “do” gender, nationality, and spirituality by generating meaning and realizing identities. Hermkens, Jansen, and Notermans (2009, p. 1) explain that “modernity produces power inequality” between sexes, ethnic groups, religions, and age groups. As a result, people have turned to Mary “to seek help and empowerment” to the point where she has become a female icon—​a veritable twenty-​first-​century megastar worldwide (2009, pp.  2–​13). The question again is:  Why Mary? Why do people turn to female rituals when they’re faced with an unknown situation and crisis concerning lands, territoriality, and physical borders? Building on these scholarly contributions, one can argue that the veneration of Mary in Israel/​Palestine using her rituals, various female images, and manifestations is not only a pious expression but also a manifestation of new political outlooks on the nation and a challenge to the division/​annexation of lands. Moreover, as we learn from my comparative analysis, the three religions affect one another. Jewish groups’ fortification of female places has triggered the region’s Christians and Muslims to reinforce their own sacred places. In recent years, a set of Marian icons, images, and shrines is gaining new interest and relevancy all over the Israel/​Palestine landscape. During l998 in the town of Ramallah, an icon of Mary was found to be streaked with oil, appearing to be shedding tears. Over the years, the oil was collected to heal visitors and pilgrims. During 2009, in the Greek Orthodox Church in the heart of the old town of Ramle, one of the most central depictions of Mary was found to be dripping oil. News of this event spread rapidly in the city and its surroundings and attracted many visitors to the church. Visitors from all around came to see the miracle of Mary weeping

118  Voices of the Ritual oil. Local Orthodox Christians told me the story of this miracle and of how the priest found her, and how they sought and could not find any “rational” explanation for this sudden miracle. At the church where many came to pray with Mary, a local Orthodox teacher named Helena told me that people asked for good health, fertility, and the protection of “her Christian sons and daughters.” In February 2014, people flocked to a private house in Tarshiha, a small town in the north of the country, to view a statue of the Virgin Mary that residents say weeps oil. The family, who said they first witnessed the miracle in their living room, claimed it was most striking when a tear seemed to roll down the statue’s cheek. Osama Khoury said that one Tuesday, his wife, Amira, found the statue covered with oil. Amira said the statue spoke to her and told her not to be afraid. After a neighbor witnessed the oil, word soon spread. Many Christians came to pray in the house and ask for Mary’s help. The statue was soon sent to the Vatican, where it was examined for authenticity.11 These examples mark the moment Mary turned from being an icon of the minority into a ritualistic and performative place for the voice of the oppressed. Mary’s revival and her manifestation are also related to female veneration. A great deal of research has been conducted on the paradoxes of women’s involvement in organized religion. Although most fundamentalist movements are characterized by oppressive patriarchal cultures, women nevertheless manage to exert influence, creativity, and inspiration via rituals and pilgrimage to sacred places. Saba Mahmood (2011) delves into the resurgence of female mosque attendance in Egypt since the 1980s. According to Mahmood, women activists have revised the ground rules for piety and modesty by offering new interpretations of canonical sources. In so doing, they have transformed the nature of everyday female religiosity in Cairo. On the basis of her fieldwork with a pious Shiite community in Beirut, Deeb (2005, pp. 8–​11) avers that the quandary over how to be “modern” in Lebanon has transformed the religiosity, lifestyles (e.g., wardrobes), and politics of her women subjects (Deeb, 2005, 2011). Exploring the symbolic dimension of their belief system, Deeb elaborates on how public piety has become these women’s jihad. In Israel/​Palestine, Mary in female devotions and shrines symbolizes minorities as well as reinforces a political statement of a unique local Christian identity. In exploring these places carefully, we learn how their veneration is connected to land claiming and statements of belonging.

Rituals as Land Claiming  119 For example, as Chapter 2 shows, when pilgrims are visiting Mary’s Tomb in Jerusalem, they employ the grotto’s womblike interior place as a platform for kissing, touching, crawling, bending, and other physical acts that make for a powerful body-​based experience. This mimetic journey of a pilgrim/​ fetus through this womb-​tomb expanse elicits a sense of rebirth, analogous to reclaiming the soil and establishing a “motherly” alternative to the masculine, contested land that is escalating conflict in Israel/​Palestine. Conversely, the emphasis on the figure of the Virgin and its rituals can be understood, in Winter’s (1995, p.  52) turn of phrase, as a “collective solace” from bereavement and sorrow, or a way to commemorate the dead, what is lost, that strengthens the bonds among people who are slowly losing their lands. In Mary’s Tomb, representations of the suffering mother indeed give voice to the hardships of Israel/​Palestine’s Christian Orthodox and Catholics—​two vulnerable groups that are excluded from bases of power and the Israeli public sphere. These groups that have no voice via established elitists’ routes such as the law, the economy, the media, politics, and so forth are using sacred places to voice their identity and claims for land. For George, a Christian visitor to the tomb, there are clear reasons to make this journey: “Mary helps us Christians, as minorities, feel that they are returning to their cultural center. We do this by returning to the true times of the Apostles and . . . Mary’s Assumption.” Leaning on “minority mother” symbols, George imagines a prominent role for his denomination. Other local Christians I spoke to claimed that their minority status has fragmented their identities and selves. From their standpoint, visiting this site is no less than an opportunity to reassemble these shattered pieces by enlisting scriptural and mythical symbols of the Virgin’s maternal qualities and her experiences in Jerusalem to strengthen their ties to the land and imagine a new dispensation. After recuperating from a long illness, Nadia, a sixty-​year-​old Orthodox Christian resident of Jerusalem, told me that she had vowed to make an annual pilgrimage to the Tomb of Mary for the following reasons: [Mary] is a mother; I am not a mother. I do not even know how to be a mother. I go to visit my Mother when I am sick, you know, when I suffer from pain, just like my own mother used to do. Where should I go? I will go to my Mother or to my Father [i.e., Jesus]. I will definitely go to my Mother for help. I will visit her in her cave.

120  Voices of the Ritual To justify her frequent visits, Nadia referred to the devoted care that the Holy Mother is believed to provide as solace to the faithful. By attributing their convalescence to the Virgin, pilgrims forge a new public role for their saint—​ taking care of what is considered their own territories. It is against this backdrop that many Christians in Israel/​Palestine view Mary as a sort of imaginary album stocked with photos from bygone eras. These same pictures are used to strengthen their minority identities and challenge the political, religious, and ethnic status quo. In sum, the images of Mary and Rachel in the greater Jerusalem area are exceedingly nuanced and often contested semiotic resources (Coleman 2009, p. 20) that are mobilized in an effort to lay claim to the lands under debate.

God Is on the Walls: The Woman of the Apocalypse Clothed in the Sun The spatiality of female ritual and its political manifestation is marked all over Israel/​Palestine. One of the most important examples of Christian imagination of land, native territories, and the rituals is Our Lady of the Wall, a product of the border wall (Jones, 2012; Figure 4.2). Let me start with a few words about its background. In April 2002, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon initiated the construction of a barrier between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (Pike 2006). From its inception, this walled barrier, known alternatively as the Wall or the Separation Fence, drew the wrath of local and international human rights organizations, politicians, and numerous others (Lagerquist, 2004) who accused the Israeli government of exploiting a precarious security situation as a pretext for ongoing appropriation and annexation of Palestinian lands. According to state records, when complete, the barrier will wind its way through 430 miles (Watson, 2005) of disputed land between Palestinians and Israelis. It is essentially an intimidating obstacle that combines advanced surveillance means with an elaborate system of physical barriers and security measures. It also includes a variety of openings, such as gates and more elaborate passageways, where Israeli soldiers serve as gatekeepers. One of these passages within the Wall is about halfway between the shrines that serve as our focus of attention and point of entry to explore the connections among borders, sacred sites, and territoriality.

Rituals as Land Claiming  121 This section, called the Jerusalem Envelope, is a 202-​kilometer-​long segment of the barrier that surrounds Jerusalem. These lands were classified as Areas A, B, and C. The Tomb of Rachel that was supposed to be a C place was annexed to be part of Israel and surrounded by a wall. In talking to people of Beit Jala and Bethlehem about territorial issues, my student (at the time a Ph.D. student at the Hebrew University and Bologna), Elisa Farinacci, recorded in her notes that they said the Wall’s presence has produced a variety of different effects on the people of Beit Jala and Bethlehem (Farinacci, 2017). The Wall has separated Palestinian homes from the people’s fields. This expropriation of lands has demarcated a loss of sustenance and income that came from farming and, moreover, deprives future generations who cannot build homes for their new families. Many local Christians reacted to this wall by enhancing a narrative that says that, in difficult times for Christians, they must stay and protect the land, and thus, foremost, guard the holy places and also everyday reality by building a community, schools, hospitals, kindergartens, and university, institutions that serve the whole population of Christians and Muslims from different streams. In that respect, the mission of the Church and ordained priests and nuns is to be a “presence” in the territory, both to guard the holy places, such as the Nativity Church, and to provide help and strength to the community. The Separation Wall has created a new political and territorial reality. Its long surface has become a large canvas that provokes art and expression. Some leave messages there for peace and hope; others are more prosaic and advertise for good restaurants, hotels, or garages. And more famous artists have used the Wall. For example, in December 2007 the well-​known British street artist Banksy initiated “Santa’s Ghetto” and relocated the annual “squat art” concept from London to Bethlehem (Parry, 2011). From the perspective of the places and materiality, the Wall itself has enhanced frustration and conflicts in terms of identity and territorial claims for Christians and Muslims of Beit Jala and Bethlehem. People’s territories and fields were divided according to what the state defines as “security reasons,” a state discourse that cannot be refuted by local agents. In this reality, people found themselves losing their fields, trees, and cattle, and sometimes even living in divided homes. This reality has resulted in a strong religious reaction, the most notable being the creation and reinforcement of new sacred places and rituals that are centered in the idea of the transcendence of the lands that were left to them after annexation took place. As I show, these politics created a unique space of religious grassroots creativity.

122  Voices of the Ritual

Figure 4.2  Our Lady of the Wall, 2010. Photo by the author.

Lodged between the expanding outer limits of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the West Bank village of Beit Jala, this area is home to two shrines: the well-​ established Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch, and Our Lady of the Wall. The former is an ancient, well-​established, and well-​documented monument that is recognized and mutually contested among Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Conversely, Our Lady of the Wall is a new site that centers around a Christian icon painted in 2010 on the Palestinian side of the Separation Wall, next to the Emmanuel Monastery, as a response to the Wall and its limitations. These two places, however different in historical and architectural terms, use matriarchal icons in a religious reaction to borderland politics. Thus, two sacred sites of venerated mothers exist in close proximity on opposite sides of the Wall—​within this highly nationalistic and militarized environment.

Rituals as Land Claiming  123 According to the nuns at the Emmanuel Monastery, it was in response to the request of nuns living near this high wall that a British iconographer painted an icon of Mary on its Palestinian side. This icon, now known to all locals as Our Lady of the Wall, is becoming a site of pilgrimage and veneration. In 2010, the icon was painted less than 550 yards due east of Rachel’s Tomb, on the Palestinian side of the Wall. Given the fact that the age-​old shrine of the Jewish Matriarch is the main reason the Separation Wall runs through that particular location, the relatively new mural can be understood as a reaction to the shrine’s enclosure. Ian Knowles, a British iconographer and former priest, was commissioned by the nuns and local Christians to paint the mural. Nestled among graffiti and new drawings, the icon graces a corner block of the towering gray Wall. All of these visuals construct a political landscape of resistance, and further express the pain and frustration that the Wall has caused local residents and visitors from the Palestinian side. Martha, a monastery nun, explained the disruption caused by the newly constructed Israeli barrier: Here in Bethlehem, the Wall encircles us completely. We face Jerusalem but cannot see it. The view is completely blocked. All around Bethlehem, there is this electric wall, the enclosure. It is dangerous, and no one can leave. We have now been cut off from our retreat house, the town hall, and the university. Entire families have been cut off from one another; it is really like the Berlin Wall. People try to climb the Wall, cross over, leave; the hospitals are full of people who have broken their arms and legs trying to climb over, because, despite everything, they must live. (Cited in Pike, 2006)

Like other people we met, Sister Martha describes the experience of being shut out by the Wall. Since its construction, people can no longer reach places that were integral parts of their daily life—​and not only their work and family life, but also their religious institutions, churches, and sacred places of Jerusalem. “It was the Christians restricted by the Wall who called for the establishment of a new Marian site,” said Martha. According to the local narrative, at first, a picture of Mary was lodged into the crevice between two of the barrier’s concrete slabs, lifting the spirits of the area’s Christians. However, the picture was soon frayed by heavy winter rains (interview with Ian Knowles, October 7, 2011). Visitors to the place usually sing the Salve Regina (Marian hymn) in Latin and everyone joins in, in unison, on the border between Israel and

124  Voices of the Ritual the West Bank municipality of Beit Jala where the Holy Mass is celebrated every Friday, in a clearing among the olive groves, to invoke God’s help in preventing the construction from happening. To cross this passage point one is obliged to pass a gate that can close if the Israeli military decides to close it. The place has a watchtower with military presence 24/​7, with a surveillance camera and bright lights. To cross, a person has to have particular certificates that should be up to date and suitable for the entrance to Jerusalem, a situation that did not exist before the Wall was built. Every Friday, the recitation of the Rosary begins there with a small number of participants, sometimes local Palestinians, people coming to show their support. When I asked why locals do not participate in massive numbers, the answer was that Christians living in the neighborhood are still afraid to come close to the checkpoint. The place is considered dangerous, a liminal zone where every activity can be misinterpreted and result in disaster. The weekly Rosary can also gather a few nuns from different countries around the world (Farinacci, 2016). As Elisa Farinacci writes, Every Friday in the winter time at 17:30 and in the summertime at 18:00 the group of Christians starts reciting the Rosary that on this day of the week remembers the Sorrowful Mysteries. Depending on whether the soldiers are newly assigned to guard the checkpoint or already familiar with this weekly appointment, the arrival of the faithful and pilgrims may go more or less smooth. If the soldiers are not yet aware of this initiative, the nuns reassure them by “unsheathing” their rosaries and explaining that they are going to pray.

The moment of prayer is structured as follows: one person throughout the recitation remembers the Mysteries, while different people taking turns in different languages recite half of the Hail Mary while the rest, each one in their own language, declaims the second half. As the fingers work their way through the ten beads of the wooden rosaries, the group walks back and forth from the checkpoint to the end of the road where the gates of the Greek Catholic convent of the Emmanuel faces the Our Lady of the Wall icon. Using Latourian terms, the particular sacred place was created as a religious response to and as a part of this wall (Latour, 2004). Here, a cement wall that is explained by state agents and authorities as an element of security is transformed into a religious canvas. The wall is a security-​based monument containing watchtowers, barbed wire, iron gates for cars and buses, cameras

Rituals as Land Claiming  125 working all day, lighting fixtures, metal detectors, turnstile entrances, fingerprinting technology, and soldiers who check passports. These materials and structures are all changing the landscape, turning it into a cemented ghetto territory (Selwyn, 2009). Moreover, when visitors face it, a set of bureaucratic rituals is imposed on the crossers, practices that enhance fear, anxiety, and awe among those confronted with state agents, such as soldiers, police forces, and various physical barriers. What happened when the Wall was painted and turned into a sacred, venerated space? Security state barriers were interconnected with Christian imagery, the ritual of the Rosary, recitation and the prayer and beads, all directed to the sacred icon of Our Lady of the Wall. Hail Marys, Salve Regina, songs, and prayers were all directed at achieving the miracle of making the Wall disappear and fall, as many pilgrims explained. The Wall, which is explained as being a guarantee of security to the Israeli inhabitants, is experienced by others as a technology of occupation. However, this is not only about an occupation-​versus-​security narrative. From the perspective of the ritual, the icon of Mary is another form or public space to claim the lands. Rituals are ways to represent a silent voice of what Christians see as native properties that should be returned to the hands of the original owners of the lands—​Palestinian  hands. The iconographic perspective can also help us understand the effect of Our Lady of the Wall on the people and the spatial environment. The mural depicts, above all, the iconography of the pregnant mother in Byzantine art (the colors, the eyes, the head) as it is fused with Western attributes and interpretations of Mary. In this mural, Mary presses her outer garment close to her chest while opening her mantle to serve as a refuge. The idea of locality and nativeness is also amalgamated with the idea of exclusion and being a refugee in one’s own lands. Moreover, the iconographic model of the pregnant mother is also amalgamated with attributes of the Woman of the Apocalypse, both found in the Christian interpretation of the book of Revelation, Chapter 12. The Woman of the Apocalypse is clothed in the sun. The book tells the story of a woman who gives birth to a male child, who will be attacked by a dragon. The child is taken to heaven, and the woman flees into the wilderness, leading to a war in heaven. In this struggle, the angels cast out the dragon. The dragon attacks the woman, who is given wings to escape, and then attacks her again with a flood of water from his mouth that is subsequently swallowed by the Earth. Frustrated by his loss, the dragon initiates war on “the remnant of her seed,” identified as the righteous followers of Christ. The Woman of the

126  Voices of the Ritual Apocalypse is widely identified in the Christian canon, the Roman Catholic Church, and artistic depictions of Mary. The ancient crescent symbol is associated with Ishtar and Diana who both represent female symbols, just as the sun is associated with male attributes. Artemis/​Diana as a virgin goddess is associated with virginity, chastity, and pureness. As we see in the icon of Our Lady of the Wall, the moon is also part of the Roman Catholic tradition and the iconography of the Woman of the Apocalypse with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars, as written in the book of Revelation. This depiction in popular Christianity is the well-​known representation of the Mexican Guadalupe starting in the sixteenth century. However, in the Middle East, the moon has often since medieval times also been used as a Muslim symbol. These associations are also an artistic fusion of symbols that contextualized Mary amid growing Islamization of the region. The icon also contains other symbols that connect the viewer with Jerusalem and the current political situation. First, the three olive trees that are seen from the open door: according to Elijah, a businessman of forty, a visitor from Nazareth whom we encountered at the site, the mural’s three ancient olive trees symbolize the endurance of faith, hope, and charity. In the Israel/​Palestine context, olive trees also represent deep feelings for contested lands, he said. Elijah’s wife, Sophia, age thirty-​eight, offered more details to this interpretation: The olive tree evokes everything for the Palestinians. It means that something can be “old,” like an old olive tree, but it is not dead. This means that when something is old it has not died. The tree is a metaphor for the Palestinians, so often desecrated by the Wall. The tree is scarred by the Wall; it is a desecration of our being.

Elijah added, “You must understand this whole thing is about the land . . . So the olive tree as it endures is very important, as a symbol, to our existence and roots in this land.” In her depiction on the Wall, Mary is drawing her hand close to her ear. When I asked the visitors about this, many explained that, because the aim of the Rosary is to exhort Mary to grant them the miracle of dismantling the Wall, Mary can be assumed to have been painted in a listening attitude, open to her devotees or all other people. Furthermore, underneath the image of

Rituals as Land Claiming  127 Mary, Knowles has painted cracks on the Wall evoking the Virgin’s power to shred this Wall to pieces. As the mother of God, in the future, she can change the political situation. Beneath the image of Mary is depicted an open doorway that offers a distant view of Jerusalem. The Virgin, according to Knowles, stands as “a contrast to violence and injustice, in the hope of peace and reconciliation for all . . . It will [also] ensure that the indigenous Arab Christian icon tradition, now hanging on by a thread, is preserved in a new generation” (interview with Knowles, November 1, 2012). Moreover, the mural depicts a pair of boots hanging over the top of the slab. Knowles explains that they “represent all those who have hung up their boots because they no longer have land of their own on which to walk.” Although the icon is the cynosure of this site, other less formal elements such as graffiti are constantly being thrown into the mix. In 2012 someone painted a large dragon on the Wall some fifty yards due west of the mural. The beast is an allusion to a passage in the book of Revelation (12:1–​5) describing two signs that appeared in heaven: . . . and there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:  And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

Graffiti on the Wall had changed dramatically every time we visited. On November 1, 2012, we noticed a new graffito that said, “Ride into the sun.” These elements reveal the central theme of the nascent site as the Virgin of the apocalypse, her revelation, as well as her call for being involved in peace and rebirth. Its primary audience consists of people who are prohibited from crossing the checkpoint and visiting the established Marian sites in Jerusalem. “Many people here see this wall as the opposition to all that is good,” Knowles postulates. “It has no future, it ghettoizes, cuts you off from your neighbors—​this is what a wall does. You are not free like you used to be” (interview with Knowles, October 7, 2011). For Clemens, a local Catholic woman of sixty-​two from Bethlehem, the icon is mostly about bringing peace:

128  Voices of the Ritual The idea behind painting this icon was to bring peace for both sides . . . if you look at it, you can notice that half of it is here and the other half is on the second block. This is how it unites both sides. To be honest, when they took our lands and built the Wall, we were much affected. We even thought that it is the end of the world for us, because these lands are from our ancestors to the children, and because it is what provides a living for us. So when the lands were taken and we weren’t able to reach them, we became desperate. But with the picture of Mary here, we began to feel that there is someone waiting for us. Mary waits for us, gives us comfort and love, and opens her hands to us . . . So we as people of this neighborhood feel a great relief when we look at her.12

In this narrative, it is readily apparent how Clemens is able to conjoin territorial rights and claims to the figure of Mary and its sacred presence on the Wall. The icon simultaneously assists her in rejecting the Wall and enables her to make peace with it through the figure of Mary: Even if it is not now, one day He will hear the echo of our voices and prayers and will bring the Wall down. Because we—​as Christians—​have the idea that we reject this Wall, first from a political aspect, second from a social aspect, and third, this Wall is creating a wall in our hearts. How can I love people who took my land, stole my dignity, and put me behind this wall like the animals, walls without a roof? That is why we are much influenced. But having Mary on the Wall, our psychology has altered. Furthermore, because the painting is something which a person can sense (see), when we get sick—​of course not only when we are sick—​every time we pass by here we greet her, we (make the sign of the cross on our faces), we say prayers, because she is the mother of Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter what religious background we come from. She is the mother of Jesus.

As the construction of the shrine of the Lady of the Wall shows, local Palestinians resist the building of the Wall by cultivating an alternative Christian female sacred venue that not only castigates the massive border obstacle in their path but is an antithesis to the dominance of the Israeli Jews who confiscated land. This reaction is also manifested by the shrine in the immediate, yet inaccessible, vicinity. More activities are now being revived with the objective of re-​Christianizing places and at the same time feminizing sacredness against violence and militarization.

Rituals as Land Claiming  129 The icon of the Lady of the Wall has also generated an increasing repertoire of popular images. Some are drawn on the Wall, along with other graffiti, and some as internet paintings, Christmas cards, posters, and so forth. In one card allegedly painted by Banksy, we can see Joseph accompanying the pregnant Mary, who cannot give birth in Bethlehem because the Wall blocks their way. This image makes the viewer wonder how dramatic the Wall’s effect on people is, and what would have happened to religious narratives if the Wall had existed in ancient times. Another such example is the vignette of Mary and Joseph being stopped at the checkpoint and searched by Israeli soldiers. This barrier impedes Mary from giving birth to Jesus at the Bethlehem grotto, perhaps hinting at her inability to deliver the baby Jesus, a strong image of blocking Christianity from its birth, as well as an analogy for Palestinian women suffering daily from the Wall blocking their way to hospitals. Our Lady of the Wall demonstrates how sacred places are being shaped by trenchant religious voices that aspire to reclaim the same territory, to Christianize, Judaize, or Islamize the landscape. These opposing, competing narratives are part of the ongoing religious-​political contest that underpins the construction and reconstruction of the shrines and their current reformulation and newly emergent understandings. Moreover, these places, rituals, and narratives speak volumes about the growing impact of religion on the national conflict and the geopolitical struggle. They demonstrate clearly how totemic aspects (social belonging) are being reestablished in central roles as the public sphere is reshaped and state/​municipal borders are redrawn.

Claiming Peripheral Lands: Rituals at the Tomb of Rachel the Wife of Rabbi Akiva In previous chapters, I have analyzed the Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva from the perspective of the ritual of its own right, focusing on the internal dynamics of the ritual, especially the ritualistic body experience and the materiality of shrines. Now, I would add the perspective of place to this analysis. The Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva sits in the old city of Tiberias, a peripheral city of the Galilee. Until the 1990s, the place was still known as a holy Muslim site (Gonen, 1999). The Muslim tradition relates this place

130  Voices of the Ritual to Sitt Sukayna, a Muslim saint. Local Muslims claim that she belongs to a sacred Muslim genealogy, and thus she is considered an aristocrat and a woman of great qualities. The place was central to local Muslims who used to pray, celebrate, and perform processions. However, in 1948, when they had to escape, these rituals stopped (Gonen, 1999). The tomb was neglected for many years until, according to the site’s Jewish agents, Rabbi Rafael Cohen, a Tiberias Kashrut inspector, decided to revive the place. In 1993, Cohen also decided to renovate the place as the Tomb of Rachel. In a December 30, 2014, interview, Cohen explained in detail to Nimrod and Lior his own narrative of the place: I was sitting with Shaul Damri, a member of the town committee. He told me they had found the Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva, but the municipality did not respond to our plea. We asked for shovels, because the place was full of dirt and debris, and it was hard to get there. We completely changed the place.

When Nimrod asked him about the reconstruction work, Cohen explained the story of Rabbi Lerner and the reconstruction: This is a story about a Jewish rabbi from London. His name is Rabbi Lerner. He is a Jew who works and studies, and he follows an organization called Kadmonenu. The aim of this organization is to rebuild all the graves of the righteous (men and women). In their book, they wrote about Rachel. Now this Jew had arrived from London. His parents are from Bnei Brak, and he came with his son and daughter. His daughter could not find a match. She could not find a husband, so he went to the grave of Rachel in Tiberias before the reconstruction. The place was closed and blocked; the Muslims had sealed the place and covered it. When he arrived there, he stood in front of the place and said, “Listen, Rachel, if you take care of my daughter, I will rebuild the place.” While he was praying, his wife called him, telling him that they had found a groom from a good house.

When Lior interviewed him, he explained why and how this place had been “returned” to being Jewish, and not “transformed” as Muslims argue: This place that you see here was built by Jews 1,600 years ago. It has a special holiness. It is divided into two spaces, a men’s room that is bigger, and

Rituals as Land Claiming  131 a women’s room, like all Jewish holy places. The tomb is in the middle, and we can see the twelve windows that represent the twelve tribes of Israel, or the twelve gates of prayer that are part of our belief, the direction of prayer, is in the direction of Jerusalem. You can see that the direction for prayer is Jewish and not Muslim, the Muslims who took over the place, and they are buried around the place. Usually when Muslims take over, they bury their dead, because they know that Jews will never harm tombs. But the Muslims, they bury from the east to the west. However, we (the Jews) bury from the north to the south, so you understand that it is perfectly clear that this building was in the hand of Muslims for a thousand years till the establishment of the state. When the state was established, the Muslims left Tiberias, and the building stayed abandoned for forty-​five years. The ceilings fell down, and it was abandoned and neglected, no signs were posted. We know that the Muslims called the place Sit Sukina, the Muslim . . . I researched it and in Muslim texts it said that this is not the truth about this woman. She is buried in the city of Medina. The Muslims who use the words “the old grandmother,” they’re referring to Rachel, our Rachel, and not to Sukina.

In response to this narrative and the reconstruction of the place, local Muslim leaders have emphasized that the site belongs to them, as it was originally a shrine dedicated to Sitt Sukayna, which, as they explained was the daughter of Hussein, the son of Ali, son of Abu Talib the uncle of Prophet Muhammad. Muslim authorities in the city and around it brought up the appropriation of the tomb in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, but did not pursue a court case. After a long debate between state authorities and the agents of the place it has become a Jewish place, as religious groups and the state have united to facilitate and fund its reconstruction and publicize its restoration. In a 2014 interview by Lior, Ron, a native of Tiberias who was running for city mayor, explained what he understood as a deliberate work of Jewish organizations to annex the place from the Muslims: I have pictures showing the cemetery, the Muslim graves, the compound, now called Rachel’s Tomb. The place was surrounded by tombs. Some were in the shape of an Egyptian pyramid. The Muslims had a unique architecture of graves; that is very clear. Let me teach you something. The Muslims always signed their territories using nature. They used Drimia. They took Drimia tubers and planted them around the tombs. Every place you see

132  Voices of the Ritual Drimia flowers around tombs, you know that these are Muslim graves. If you look around, you’ll find that the place is full of Drimias. Also inside the compound, the Jews have reconstructed the place illegally . . . against the place’s legacy.

This narrative attempts to tell the story of the place from the local Muslims’ point of view. Ron explains that, in his view, the site is indeed a Muslim sacred place, and he gives evidence from history, nature, and religion. We learn from this interview that sacred places were always a way of performing belonging and nativeness. In various interviews, we learn that, since Jewish reconstruction began, with state support and the contribution from London, the place has completely changed. Not only has the mythology of Rachel, with her tomb, well, water, and her relations with Miriam’s well, as Chapter 2 explains, become strong and detailed, but the compound itself has also developed. The place has been reconstructed as a popular Jewish local structure. As Gonen (1998) writes, even a random reference to Rachel in the scriptures was enough to trigger the transformation of a Muslim place into a Jewish sacred place. As part of the refurbishment and Judaization, separate spaces were created around Rachel’s grave for men and women who come to pray and light candles for Rachel. In the 1990s, Jewish agents with the support of the Bnei Mordechai organization renovated the entire building. During this work, all Muslim features were removed, and new signs were added in Hebrew. The place was officially declared the Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva. The Sitt Sukayna sign and other items were removed from the grave and taken to the Degania Kibbutz Beit Gordon museum. Along with the architectural changes, items were added: female images and Hebrew texts related to Rachel, such as the well and her tombstone that I describe in Chapter 3. Thus, the tomb is now a place for Jewish visitors only. In this way, Jewish agents and visitors use female sacredness and spatiality to appropriate the place that is claimed to be Muslim. However, as we learned long ago from Max Weber, the place is also a challenge to the center, to the state and formal religion—​Jerusalem. The local people of Tiberias, a peripheral town in Israel, can be also viewed as minorities struggling to perform their identity in the city. In this case, the tomb is used as an iconic place with a twofold function, to challenge Islam and the center by appropriating the place of Rachel.

Rituals as Land Claiming  133 *** Rituals are embedded in the spatial manifestation—​in the place and its politics. Rituals are resisting forces that are part of the dynamics of the place. Places change according to politics, culture, and—​in the Middle East—​conflicts over lands. As I show in this chapter, female rituals and sanctity are connected with the idea of the place and its structural alteration. Sacred spaces are politicized and filled with ideas of sovereignty and state borders, physical and imagined. Female saints are becoming a central intersection local believers and devotees use to reinforce their indigenousness and their land. The saints are becoming mothers of nations representing the land and the properties of its sons and daughters. The two Rachels are identified with Jewish lands and their borders and, similarly, Christian Marian figures are connected with borders and Palestinian longings for land. Nevertheless, Jewish sacred places are used to perform rituals of sovereignty, and Christian and Muslim shrines are used as platforms for resistance. Here, the case of Mariam Bawardi is also a good example. As I’ve mentioned, the sanctification of Mariam Bawardi took place in May 2014. During this month, President Mahmoud Abbas visited the Vatican, connecting the canonization of Mariam Bawardi, the first Palestinian saint, as she is now called, with signs of the coming state, and as an image of Palestinian nationalism. In this case, in a place of Islamic majority, a Christian saint is used as a national symbol to emphasize Palestinian territories. Christian places I have examined are part of the effort to resist Jewish hegemony and Islamization of sacred sites. In this reality, Christians enhance their own religious identity by turning to reconstructed shrines as outlets for defining and asserting their rights to the land. To widen my explanation, I’d like to return to a discussion of sacred female places and their experience and materiality. Sacred female places, especially womb-​tomb shrines, invigorate ancient knowledge and architecture that is engraved into the very structure of these sites. This knowledge is being physically preserved, refreshed, and swept back into the spotlight. In these places, visitors and pilgrims are observing, modifying, and recreating an assortment of venerable practices that are connected to these places. In so doing, they see themselves as harking back to the genesis of religiosity and primordial inklings of devotion and belonging. More specifically, Christian and Muslim minorities are evoking and transforming elements of what they consider to be their own ancient history and native land. All pilgrims, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, see themselves as minorities who use these sites to reaffirm their sense of belonging and

134  Voices of the Ritual collective identity. Although fertility and well-​being rituals are obviously driven by personal needs, in the female places I have explored in this book, they also constitute forms of resistance against the hegemonic order, the state, and other religions, as they express new forms of indigenousness and land claiming. In this respect, a pilgrimage is inevitably political, for even the most intimate rituals are politicized, such as, for example, the custom of crawling, a ritualistic simulation that can be interpreted as the infant leaving the womb. Rituals at such places allow devotees to vividly express their nativeness by comparing themselves to a deep-​rooted, indigenous plant that has sprung forth from the local soil. Thus, merely entering these sites is akin to restoring a primal state, for it is a metaphor for reuniting a people with its land. As we have seen, all notions of belonging and rejuvenation in the Israel/​Palestine context are inexorably linked to competing territorial claims. Within this framework, the various camps secure the “homeland” with their own bodies. In a similar vein, religious revivals tend to involve the restoration of ancient sites in the face of opposition from multiple factors and trends: adversarial faiths and nationalities; the state; other streams within the same movement; and the group’s own theological doctrines and official institutions. Accordingly, Muslim and Christian Arabs in Israel are contending, above all, with the Jewishness of the majority’s venerated spaces and the Judaization of the landscape. Amid these struggles, female places play a key role in denoting, symbolically and actively, who owns the land. Thus, the tombs’ restorations are part of a general political project of restoring traces of Palestinian identity in the landscape. Furthermore, as I  mentioned earlier, these sacred places represent a unique option to raise claims for land that are not undertaken through the official legal or political systems. The idea of staking one’s claim to a land by reframing customs and symbols turns up in the classic literature on indigenous people. Myerhoff (1976, p. 15) interprets the yearly return of the Huichol to Wirikuta, in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Mountains, as a prototypical ritual—​a journey back to Paradise when the world was created and all was one. Another riveting example is the Mohawk creation legends, which reinforce the tribe’s Native American identity and its claims to vast tracts of the continent’s land. For Mintz (1996), the Creolization of the Caribbean Islands on the part of slaves and their descendants constitutes a form of resistance against the plantation owners of yesteryear and present-​day factors perceived as exploiting the “indigenous” population. In light of the above, scholars are

Rituals as Land Claiming  135 advised to refract the insights from these studies on other minority claims, not least the freighted case of Israel/​Palestine. In the 2017 Kan festival, Miri Regev, the Minister of Culture, wore a dress representing all the Jerusalem sacred places. This dress intensified the debate over the legitimacy of this design and composition. The political use of the iconic figures of the sacred places of Jerusalem created two main responses, one of them an accusation of cynicism and desecration of religious feelings, and a second concerning the nationalization of these icons. However, if we use the lens of my interpretation through this book, Regev can be seen in the same way as Frida Kahlo in Mexico, as an iconic female figure challenging the national order and challenging state borders by embedding symbols and narratives of female sainthood into the public sphere, just as in the cases of Rachel and Mary. Through the production of these spatial manifestations, devotees fantasize over or advance new spatiality of territories, borders, and national identities. These claims are intensified by the extremely militarized, masculine, and often violent environs (Napolitano, Luz, & Stadler, 2015).

Figure 5.1  The Tomb of Rachel, Bethlehem, 2016. Photo by Guy Raivitz.

5 Landscape Ritual and Alternative Order

Female rituals are encrypted in the Holy Land landscape. They are materialized in a specific place and at the same time have an immense effect on the constantly changing landscape. The layers of knowledge embedded in the ritual leave “footprints” or traces that alter the human spaces. Rituals contain political knowledge, territorial demands, and knowledge of the body. They have a long effect on landscapes that are becoming a rich and vivid platform for the performance of popular voices. In previous chapters I demonstrate how, at female saints’ spaces, body rituals in female shrines are associated with the appropriation of lands. We have learned that body rituals are a way of expressing nativeness—​the devotees themselves are like indigenous-​endemic plants rooted deep in the local soil. Entering these sites is a way of symbolically restoring a primal state. Being in the act of ritual is a way of reuniting a people with its land. The debate over ownership of territories is integrated within the discourse of motherhood, fertility, maternal feelings, and intimacy. All the same, ritualistic performances, whether they are encrypted in sacred caves, holy mountains, enchanted forests, life rivers, or nascent trees, mark all their symbolic and physical traces on the landscape (Hirsch & O’Hanlon, 1995; Mitchell, 2002; Schama & Porter, 1995; Turpin, 1992). These ritualistic sacred traces create human sacred maps that pose an alternative order to all other human maps, such as route maps, urban maps, maps of state borders, transportation maps, and other official maps. At the heart of this chapter, then, is the power of rituals to create alternative maps, and the construction of these maps in the landscape, more specifically alternative female sacred maps. *** Almost every day on my way to Jerusalem, I take a turn via the village of Abu Ghosh, a small Muslim village ten kilometers north of Jerusalem. From almost every angle, one can see the large statue of Our Lady carrying the infant Jesus in her arms. The Virgin’s statue is on the roof of the Church of Notre Dame de Voices of the Ritual. Nurit Stadler, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197501306.001.0001

138  Voices of the Ritual l’Arche de l’Alliance (Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant), which was built in 1924 on Byzantine church ruins estimated to be from the fifth century. Steven Kaplan (1993, 2005, 2015) discussed the connection that was drawn early in the history of Christianity between the Ark of the Covenant (the Ark of Zion) and the Virgin Mary. Several authors find traces of this already in the Gospel of Luke and claim that his account of Mary’s visit to Saint Elizabeth (the mother of John the Baptist) draws upon the Old Testament story of David’s encounter with the Ark of the Covenant (Kaplan, 1993; Cohen, 2017).1 On the drive back at night, one sees that the Virgin’s statue is well lit, giving it an aura. Sometimes it looks as though Mary is floating in the open air, every so often suspended between the sky and the clouds. If one asks them on a visit to the church, the local nuns again connect the story of the Ark with Mary. When I visited the place, Dorothy was waiting at the entrance. I asked her about Mary on these hills. She told me that this convent is said to occupy the site of the house of Avinadav, where, according to the scriptures, the Ark of the Covenant rested for twenty years until King David himself took it to Jerusalem. Dorothy said that it was the Covenant “who kept the precious pearl—​the Man-​God—​during his earthly life.” Sister Ann explained the name of the place in detail:  “When telling the story of the Visitation, Saint Luke suggests that the reader who knows the Old Testament compare Mary to the Ark of the Covenant: both make the same kind of journey, both are a source of blessings, both cause reverential fear, and both are liturgical exclamations” (interview, 2015). For many years after its installation, the statue was the highest point in the village, a Christian female icon marking a landscape currently dominated by Muslim and Jewish villages. In 2014, Muslim agents of Abu Ghosh village, with enthusiastic support from the village mayor, founded a massive new four-​minaret mosque. The new mosque was inaugurated on March 23, 2014. The people of Abu Ghosh claim that their mosque is the second largest in Israel, smaller than only Al-​Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem (also known as Haram al-​Sharif). According to the villagers, the government of the Chechen Republic bore most of the mosque’s construction costs, while the lot itself, 3.5 dunams (0.86 acres), was donated by the Israel Land Authority. The unique architecture of the mosque is Ottoman-​Turkish style, and the interior decorations are Chechen-​influenced. With four minarets and a golden dome, it is the only mosque of its kind in Israel. As a gesture, the mosque was named after the first president of Chechnya, Ahmed Hajji Kadyrov. Currently, the mosque is also known as the Mosque of Peace. But

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  139 among locals, other names are in vogue, such as the big mosque, or the new mosque. The Lady of the Ark and the newly constructed mosque of Abu Ghosh village tell of the complex politics of sacred places and landscape that is taking place nowadays in Israel/​Palestine. In the village of Abu Ghosh, the big new mosque was to alter the landscape, replacing the Lady of the Ark and its long Christian legacy and dominance over the region. This process is accompanied by a narration of alternative mythology of sacredness and the association of the place with the Muslim territoriality and history of the region. In creating a new religious institution, the native Abu Ghosh villagers, a small minority with almost no voice in the Israeli public sphere, mark their own historical territoriality using the iconography that allows them to connect their identity to a long chain of history and memory of Islam in their own village. This inclination, to reclaim territories through sacred buildings, local mythologies, and canons, can be found all over the landscape of Israel/​ Palestine. Old, new, and reconstructed sacred places are currently flourishing, thriving on the land, raising questions of territoriality, ownership, and physical borders. In this chapter, I develop the observation that I began to articulate in Chapter 4. In an undefined land, where borders are not fully determined and identities are fragmented, sacred female places with their rituals become strong political vehicles. The people who venerate female sacred places are those who are excluded from other state venues. This grassroots strategy allows people without a voice to transmit knowledge via female sacred places and make themselves visible via the place marking the landscape. *** To perceive the landscape is to imagine, writes Ingold (2007a; Janowski & Ingold, 2016). In Schama’s words, landscape is the work of the mind strata as much as it is built from rocks and other physical substances. Converting this raw material into a vista is a process of imposing design, which is a sedimentation of memory, ratified by convention and transmitted in culture, upon the otherwise chaotic flux of bodily sensation (Schama & Porter, 1995). The ritual is part of this mind-​based imagination of landscape, its physical and symbolic manifestation. Looking through Tilley’s (1994) phenomenology of landscape, ritual can be seen as a methodological tool by which we look at spaces, addressing them as a linkage between the physical and phenomenological dimensions. According to this notion, the landscape is a medium

140  Voices of the Ritual rather than a container for action, something that is involved in constant action and that cannot be divorced from it (1994, p. 10). The landscape is a series of named locales, a set of relational places, linked by paths, movement, and narratives that create different configurations (1994, p. 44). But the landscape is more than just a medium of knowledge transmission and carrying of signs and symbols to subsequent generations. Landscapes are also spaces that are fought over, whose ownership and power are debated among different forces (Appleton, 1996; Ivakhiv, 2006). Looking from the perspective of contested landscape, we can ask: What are the meanings assigned and the symbolization and cultural codes that may be read through ritual? And what marks do the rituals of female shrines encrypt in current landscapes in the Holy Land region? My findings show that landscape is renarrated and redesigned through the prism of female saints’ rituals. Through this means, female themes and perception, feelings, memories from different pasts, and traditions are revived via the ritual. The masculine order comprising conflict, war, terror, and insecurity is altered, and a female option is offered. In this context, women saints and their rituals of fertility, motherhood, and intimate notions come as a reaction to the instability of life, conflicts, and border contestations.

Landscape and Femininity: A Woman Saint as Allegory of the Nation How are lands personified as feminine? How is this manifested through rituals? Historical and archaeological documentation shows that landscape is strongly related to state borders and female imagery. Cole’s (2004, pp. 7–​9) observations on the imagined landscape of the ancient Greeks abounded in female imagery that also provides a lens through which to view these issues. Cole (2004) examines how female goddesses are personified in the landscape. Demeter (the goddess of agriculture) and her daughter Persephone (queen of the underworld) “were complementary figures who united the natural landscape . . . and the realm of the dead” (Cole, 2004, pp. 7–​9). Mosse (1985) goes on to explain how the personification of female figures was/​is attached to the mission of building the nation. He examines how iconic female symbols are used, in modern European countries, as infrastructure for building an imagery of feminine geographies of nations. Accordingly, the personification and creation of a mega-​female image is a reaction to war, occupation, misery,

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  141 and violence (Huyssen, 2003). A representation of the state map and borders by a female saint is a romantic challenge to war and conflict over nation-​state borders. Thus, the personification of the nation-​state as a big, brave mother is a reaction we are likely to see in epochs of war and violence. Let me provide some illustrations before explaining this configuration in the Israel/​Palestine landscape. A number of famous works of art show the allegory of the nation and its personification as a powerful woman saint. The first example is the famous Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People. In this painting, Marianne, a woman personifying the goddess of liberty, leads the people forward over a barricade and across the bodies of the fallen who are holding the French revolutionary flag. Marianne is the symbol of France. The second allegorical painting is Delacroix’s support of the Greeks in their war for independence, the capture of Missolonghi by Turkish forces in 1825 (Figure 5.2). With a restrained

Figure 5.2  Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi. Eugène Delacroix, 1826. Musée des Beaux-​Arts, Bordeaux.

142  Voices of the Ritual palette appropriate to the allegory, Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi depicts a woman in Greek costume with her breasts bared, arms half-​raised in an imploring gesture before the horrible scene: the suicide of the Greeks, who chose to kill themselves and destroy their city rather than surrender to the Turks. A  hand is visible at the bottom, the body having been crushed by rubble. The painting serves as a monument to the people of Missolonghi and to the idea of freedom from tyrannical rule. Another example of this dynamic: Christian Köhler, in his 1849 Erwachende Germania, painted a scene on a rocky mountain slope that is dominated by a female figure in the foreground, Germania, whose long blond hair is crowned by a corona of oak leaves (Figure 5.3). She symbolizes the German nation. The painting shows Germania at the moment when, dressed in the German national colors, black, red, and gold, she resolutely takes up a weapon and stands. Germania’s black dress and strong legs are covered with a predominantly gold coat with a red lining. The cloak, which resembles an imperial

Figure 5.3  Erwachende Germania. Christian Köhler, 1849. New-​York Historical Society, New York.

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  143

Figure 5.4  Neptune Resigning to Britannia the Empire of the Sea. William Dyce, 1847. Royal Collection Trust, London.

coronation coat, red and gold on the outside, possibly brocade, is embellished with a red border adorned with medallions. With her left hand, Germania reaches into the cross of the Reichskrone, the symbol of the Holy Roman Empire. With her right, she seizes the golden handle of a sword, which is placed on a shield of iron. By combining the symbols of Reichskrone and sword, Germania is depicted as a defender of the Roman-​German Empire. The iron plate and sword peep out from under a bearskin, from which Germania is rising after her sleep. Germania’s awakening on the bearskin symbolizes the German nation overcoming its assassination. Germania’s sword-​grip means that the German people are ready to intervene actively in the political process by means of force. William Dyce, have (Figure 5.4) painted Neptune stands astride his three white seahorses holding their reins in his right hand, and passing his crown with the his left hand. The crown is to be transferred by Mercury to the gold-​covered figure of Britannia. Britannia’s entourage is more serious in intent, and includes the lion of England, and figures representing industry, trade, and navigation. Comparing gendered symbolism in the Indian and Irish national movements during the first half of the twentieth century, Thapar-​Björkert

144  Voices of the Ritual and Ryan (2002, p.  302) show that the attendant discourses created symbolic roles for men and women that best served the emergent nation. In parallel, these same movements upended the British colonial imagery of the “feminized” nations, the most prevalent of which were desexualized representations of “Mother India” and “Mother Ireland” (Thapar-​Björkert & Ryan, 2002). With respect to women’s rights, Thapar-​Björkert and Ryan (2002, p. 303) argue that the domestic sphere became a locus of resistance, confrontation, and politicization. Building on these scholarly insights, I deciphered the ways rituals and female images give expression to new political outlooks on the nation and challenge the masculine nature of the Israel/​ Palestine landscape. In the context of Jerusalem, Kaplan claims that there is a frequent association between Jerusalem/​Zion and female figures. As has been extensively documented, the city of Jerusalem is often depicted as “gendered space” in biblical books including the book of Psalms; prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea; and the late biblical book of Lamentations. Moreover, these depictions include such female images as wife, whore, daughter, and, perhaps most interesting for our purposes, mother, “maiden,” or a “virgin.” Kaplan goes on to claim that various narratives from the ancient Near East indicate the personification/​deification of capital cities in Semitic thought. Some have argued that the image of Zion as a woman is to be viewed in the context of, or may even have originated with, the idea of a female partner or consort of a male god. Others have been more skeptical. At the very least, we must acknowledge that the Aksum–​Zion–​Mary complex must be considered within a widespread and venerable tradition of describing cities as female figures. Through my own ethnographic study of Israel/​Palestine rituals, I found that space and landscape are indeed gendered (Massey, 2013) and personi­ fication is complex. I found various uses of female images and a cornucopia of attempts by different agents to personify saintly motherhood by connecting them to state images, minority issues, lands, and the form of nationalism. In this case, different from what I discussed in other chapters of this book that mostly emphasize a resemblance in the ritualistic dynamic of the different sects, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, the association between the ritual and the landscape indicates different outcomes of the rituals. As I will show in the following examples, the powerless have used all rituals I have examined to infiltrate female notions and body gestures to appropriate the place/​land and alter the landscape. However, different associations

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  145 are found between these rituals and the image of the state and its formation. Following the literature, we have learned that female saints are associated with the nation in times of war and conflict (Mosse, 1985). In Israel/​ Palestine, this female personification takes place in times of war and distress. However, the full picture is more complex: while Jewish saints are becoming a personification of the nation, Christian saints serve as icons of solace and contestation. For example, the Jewish Rachel is in the process of becoming personified as the Jewish state, just as we have seen in other histories of nation-​states. However, Christian saints and their rituals are associated with minority claims, and thus Mary, Mariam Bawardi, and other saints represent a proliferation of community demands, not the formation of nations. To show this dynamic, I examine the ritual in public processions. By focusing on these processions, I demonstrate Christian performance and how Mary is conceived and used in Israel/​Palestine. At the end of this chapter, I show how Rachel, in sharp contrast to Mary in the Holy Land, is becoming a state symbol, and I  explore how the rituals associated with Rachel are influencing the landscape.

Landscape Rituals: Mariam Bawardi and Street Processions In the Christian world, people have turned to Mary to “seek help and empowerment,” to the point where she has become a female icon—​a veritable megastar in twenty-​ first-​ century Europe (Aubin-​ Boltanski, 2010; Hermkens, Jansen, & Notermans, 2009, pp. 2–​13). In Israel/​Palestine, Mary is a significant icon but much different from other places worldwide. While in countries such as Poland, Mexico, and France, Mary is the mother of the nation, a personification of the nation-​state, in the place of her birth Mary currently represents the demands of the oppressed and minorities. The case of Mariam Bawardi, the first Palestinian saint to be canonized by the pope, tells this story. *** A few days before the 2011 procession of Mariam Bawardi, Nimrod Luz and I received a semiformal invitation from Father Michel, the priest at the local Greek Catholic church, and Zuheir Huri, the chair of the village Catholic committee and one of the leading organizers of the celebration of Mariam Bawardi.

146  Voices of the Ritual We arrived an hour before the procession, knowing that it was due to begin at the old Greek Catholic church at the village center. But no one was there. There was no one to tell us where to go, and there were no signs to lead us in the right direction. It took us some time to realize that the celebrations had already started at the new church, known also as the Mar Elias complex, on another hill in the village. We saw a car full of excited boys heading in the direction of the other hill. They shouted to us that the celebration would be held there and that we should hurry, and they apologized for not having any room for us in the car. As we ascended the Mar Elias hill, the village revealed itself, its little private houses surrounded by fruit trees, flowerbeds, dogs, chickens, and other farm animals wandering around freely. When we arrived at the new church, it was buzzing with people, and soon the official ceremony began. While the official part of the procession began at the church under the scrutiny and supervision of the clergy, it seemed that most of the “action” was taking place outside. The people inside the church could hear the noise of groups of young people—​members of Christian youth movements—​shouting, laughing, singing, marching, and playing their instruments, preparing for the procession that would soon depart. It was obvious that most of the people in the church were from Ibellin. People knew each other, blessed each other, and immersed themselves in deep conversations. Women came with their children and babies dressed in elegant clothing. Some girls were dressed in costumes of Mary or wore brown Carmelite gowns. Over the years, more and more shirts printed with the icon or photo of Mariam Bawardi appeared on the scene. These were the outcomes of private initiatives, and it was rather clear, at the last procession that took place after Mariam’s canonization, that they represented different (if not opposing) groups within the community. As part of the ceremony, Archbishop Shakur delivered a long homily in both Arabic and English. Later, after the prayer, all devotees in the church stood in a long line for the Eucharist ritual. After a Mass that lasted an hour and a half, we went outside. In contrast to the people taking part in the rigid and highly organized ceremony under the gaze of the clergy, those outside seemed free and vivacious. The yard was teeming with celebrants and small makeshift stands where candles, icons, scarves, and other customary procession paraphernalia were for sale, but few were attracted to these stands. While we were at the church and under the watchful gaze of church officials, things were regimented, but as we entered the big parking lot where the procession was getting ready to go, we heard a resentful, unruly crowd calling out to the longtime head of the local Christian community. These people criticized

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  147 his way of performing rituals, and what they perceived as ignoring Bawardi’s status, especially because, at the time, she was undergoing canonization by the pope. This resentment would surface, for example, at the 2015 cancellation that prompted debates between the people from Ibellin and Shakur. Although Shakur himself was the person who initiated the first procession in 1983 (interview with Ana, October 30, 2015), the villagers demanded different rituals. This explains the various debates on the geography of the procession and its symbols. The villagers claimed that starting the celebrations at the new church had nothing to do with the life of Mariam or anything connected to her memory in the village. Many voiced their discontent that the procession was starting from the big church and not from one of the more traditional churches in the village, or from Bawardi’s shrine. It was clear that most people agreed that this was a problem and wanted the procession to start on the other side of the village. The yard outside the church was full of people: children wearing white bandannas decorated with the icon of Mariam Bawardi; Boy Scouts and other youth groups holding their flags and those of the village of Ibellin, as well as the flags of Israel. An open pickup truck was waiting at the front of the procession, and on it was a platform to carry a large poster. This poster replaced, as we were told, the statue of Mariam (now at the old church), which had nearly fallen during one of the processions and was substituted by the current image. Parents placed their little children beside the image and took pictures. This lasted another thirty minutes as people were leaving the church, until finally they all started moving behind the pickup truck carrying the image of Mariam. It is hard to be precise, but it seemed that over a thousand people were slowly following the truck. As the procession advanced through the streets of Ibellin, many of the onlookers lining the village’s roads joined in. At this stage we noticed teenagers dressed in elegant clothes, playing with their mobile phones, taking pictures, or talking loudly. We noticed that the procession was also an opportunity for youth all over to meet and talk. After an hour of walking, the procession had already lost some participants to food stores and candy stores along the route, and now we began the more strenuous part—​climbing up the hill toward the shrine of Mariam Bawardi and the Catholic church. The procession seemed to run its course with great lightness and vivacity. People strolled and talked freely with no specific rituals imposed on their behavior, and without singing hymns. By and large, activities were uncensored and conducted without the organizers’ intrusion or instructions. When we arrived at the shrine of Mariam, the place was

148  Voices of the Ritual already bursting with people. At this moment, the procession split. Some people stayed at the shrine, their last destination, and others headed toward the Catholic church to pray and to enjoy the sweets offered by the organizers. At the shrine, we noticed mainly women praying and lighting candles. Many had brought their children along to share the blessing as well as to take pictures. The gaiety and lack of rigid laws of conduct seemed to dominate the event, which remained highly unorganized and carefree. While these rituals were taking place at the newly renovated shrine, the old Catholic church was also a focal point of demonstration of devotion. People went to pray at the church or to adorn the icon of Mariam, who, according to Father Michel, was a gift from the Vatican to the people of Ibellin. The icon was placed at the entrance passage to the church close to three pictures of Mariam and decorated with many flowers. After another hour, people began to trickle out of the church and, soon enough, all activities subsided. In our next ethnographies of the procession (2012–​2015) we noticed various nuances and changes:  musical performances (orchestras playing before the start of the procession) and new T-​shirts with different images of Mariam Bawardi. But most of all we began to hear more and more about the upcoming canonization and speculations about what this would do for village life and the local economy. What do these processions mean? How can we look at processions from the landscape point of view? Processions have always been an integral part of everyday religious life and the politics of places (Jaffrelot, 1998). Indeed, processions are among the most visible of religious rituals in public places (Kong, 2005). Their visibility provides a way to study the mundane aspects of life. They are dramatic representations of local cosmologies and demands (Daniels & Cosgrove, 1993). Via processions people voice their belonging to the place, claiming their rights to a city or a village and changing its atmosphere. Scholars have examined this process in various cities. For Italian immigrants walking the streets of Brooklyn, New  York, shouldering their statue of the Virgin, a procession is a way to represent their Italian identity and Catholic way of life in the new nation (Napolitano, 2015; Orsi, 1985). By public rituals and processions, the Italian minority claims its rights and shows its presence in the city of New York. In a similar fashion, Peruvian and Mexican immigrants in Italy carry the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the streets of Rome as a way to exhibit their Catholic culture and make a statement regarding their presence in the city. For Cuban exiles in Miami, the public procession for the Lady of Charity, an important Cuban devotion, is a way to invoke and

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  149 demonstrate their piety in the streets of Miami (Tweed, 1997). For Filipina caregivers in Tel Aviv, who are continually threatened by the Israeli immigration police, the procession of Our Lady of Saint Mary also needs to be understood as a way of reasserting their precarious position in the local landscape (Liebelt, 2010, 2013, 2014). These studies, and many others, show the importance for immigrants and minorities of public street processions, and the way these processions serve as an enactment of belonging and expression of identity. These processions follow a routine and known pace of formalization along which a form, a routine, an order of rituals is being routinized and accepted by the community and the city. Thus, the processions produce a sense of meaning and understanding of the right order of things for all participants. Returning to the concept of landscape, we can now agree with Tilley (1994) that landscape is a medium through which societies and individuals express their uniqueness, aspirations, ideologies, and practical needs. Houses, churches, mosques, synagogues, shrines, roads, and fields as well as other landmarks are constructed for a multitude of reasons and within a particular cultural understanding. Therefore, the construction of landscape is a continuous dialogue and a struggle between different forces. This dialogue is not confined to the time of its creation. Rather, it is a continuous process of provocation and struggle over its meaning (Massey, 2006). Landscapes are ideological, as they can be used to endorse, legitimize, or challenge social and political control (Baker, 1989). Landscape marks constitute a highly complex and intriguing signifying system saturated with signs, symbols, and meanings (Barnes & Duncan, 2013; Duncan, 2004). The city, seen from this perspective, is a text and the rituals are the words and sentences that write the political story of the land (Duncan & Duncan, 1988). As a struggle for meaning and a challenge to the masculine political order, we find rituals and public processions in many more places around Israel/​Palestine: Catholics walk in a procession on May 30 (May is the month of Mary) through the streets of the Old City with Mary’s icon. In the Old City, Orthodox walk with the Icon of the Dormition every August 25. People walk on the streets, in long parades, demonstrating their force and their belonging to lands.

Our Lady the Queen of Palestine: “Reginae Palestinae” The celebrations at Deir Rafat are another example of this phenomenon. Deir Rafat, a Catholic monastery, is also known as the Shrine of Our Lady Queen

150  Voices of the Ritual of Palestine and the Holy Land. Established in 1927 by the Latin patriarch Luigi Barlassina, at its inception the monastery also contained a boarding school, orphanage, and convent. On October 28, 2010, I first visited the celebration of Our Lady Queen of Palestine. On the convent’s façade, there is a Latin inscription: “Reginae Palestinae.” The whole church is dedicated to Mary. On the roof is a huge statue dedicated “to the Queen of Palestine” (Figure 5.5). The gardener told me that the statue of Mary is six meters tall, and that she is “a native queen” ruling the entire region. The weathered verdigris of the statue gives Mary a quality of mediating between worlds, at once earthly and heavenly. From the point of view of the monumental statue, Mary is associated with the land, nature, the sky, heaven, stars, and clouds. Walking inside the church with Sister Jane, a Catholic nun dressed in white, I listened to her explain the ceiling that is decorated with a painting showing angels carrying banners with the first words of the Hail Mary prayer

Figure 5.5  Our Lady of Palestine, 2015. Photo by the author.

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  151 in 280 languages. Sister Jane explained that it was only in 2009 that the order she belonged to, “the monastic family of Bethlehem of the Assumption of the Virgin and of Saint Bruno,” arrived at the monastery. On the day of her celebration, local Catholics arrived at the procession from areas nearby, along with devotees from Galilee, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jaffa, and Jericho. Areej from Bethlehem told me that devotees had received special certificates from the military to cross the Separation Wall. They were obliged to come very early in the morning and wait a long time until permissions were approved. “We learn humility on the road when we wish to celebrate with our Virgin,” she said. “Every year it’s the same story. On the Sunday following October 25, we Christians in the Holy Land wish to celebrate the feast of our local patroness, Our Lady Queen of Palestine in Deir Rafat. We keep this tradition, but the authorities make it hard.” The Mass and procession started with dozens of priests of the Catholic Ordinaries of the Latin and Eastern Rites, and about two thousand pilgrims. The Latin patriarch emeritus, Michel Sabbah, with a special emissary from the pope, presided over the Mass representatives of all the Catholic rites:  Latin, Melkite, Maronite, Armenian, Chaldean, and Syriac Catholic concelebrated at the Mass.2 During the homily, Sabbah said, “The role of Mary is greater nowadays in Christian life, especially among those in the Holy Land . . . She is to be the protector of all activities for dialogue, reconciliation, and peace, the fruits that must be accomplished thanks to her motherly intervention, the gift of peace of her giving birth to, her son, our God.” Pilgrims are filled with excitement when they hear these words during Mass, and the Mass is followed by a procession with the icon and statue of the Virgin carried by pilgrims and locals. During the walk, popular devotion, prayers, songs to Mary, sacraments of reconciliation, and blessings were part of the day’s celebration. When I was walking with Doris, a young Catholic student living in Bethlehem, she explained that this is “an opportunity for God’s people who live in the Holy Land to express their love for the Virgin Mary, a privileged daughter of this Holy Land.” These rituals, sermons, and public processions do not take place without encountering criticism. On April 2, 2014, vandals scrawled hate graffiti on the monastery wall with slogans condemning peace talks with Palestine, along with other graffiti disparaging Jesus and Mary. The Latin patriarch, Fouad Twal, visited the monastery and met with the local nuns. Surveying the damage to the wall, he said, “This is bad for the state of Israel. It is bad

152  Voices of the Ritual for us, it is bad for everybody . . . In this Holy Land, we do not need these actions. Especially these actions against a monastery where we have sisters just praying for peace. They are not involved in any politics, so this really is a bad sign and we regret it very much.”3 Jewish extremists’ vandalism against Christian monuments and practices is not rare. These actions of destruction reflect the ways religion and peace messages are challenging semi-​militant and violent groups from all sides of the conflict. It is exactly such violent acts, militant activities, and incitements to war that the veneration of saints and their personification challenges via questioning the interpretation of place, ownership of territories, and national sentiments.

Mary’s End of May Celebration: Approprating Jerusalem via Street Proces­sions In Chapter 2, I described the Orthodox procession at the Tomb of Mary. In this procession, devotees walk in the streets of Jerusalem, appropriating the place and making it Orthodox with their bodies. Another example of this appropriation is the Catholic procession at the end of May, the month dedicated to Mary. This procession takes place in the Old City of Jerusalem, one of the most contested places in the region. Every last Sunday of May at 5 p.m., a special Mass is held in the church at the Monastery of Saint Saviour, the parish inside the walled Old City of Jerusalem. May 31, the day the Church commemorates the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, marks the close of the Marian festivities. For the closing of the month, in the late afternoon of May 31, the Latin Rite Christians of Jerusalem convene for a long procession in Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter. Youth, families, Scouts, and Franciscans first recite the Rosary, and the Mass follows in the parish church of Saint Saviour. Then the procession moves along to Collège des Frères, the new gate, and the Latin Patriarchate, with girls from the community carrying the statue of the Virgin from the Franciscan convent to the Latin Patriarchate. In my fieldwork in 2008, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, presided over the celebration of the Eucharist and the Rosary procession that followed. The procession of about 1,500 people was accompanied by songs sung amid the loud noises of the old city streets. A group of Catholic high-​school students marched in their uniforms, local Catholics joined us from every corner, and Franciscan nuns marched together, praying the Rosary and singing Marian

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 5.6  The Icon of Mary carried by young Catholic girls, 2000. Photos by Guy Raivitz.

154  Voices of the Ritual hymns in Arabic. The statue of Mary, adorned with flowers, was carried by a group of eight schoolgirls dressed in white and blue, accompanied by an Arab Catholic Scout honor guard, and many other young Scouts, boys and girls, in their uniforms. Some parents carried young girls dressed as the Virgin; some children walked with the crowd, and others were carried by their parents. The procession made its way through the streets of the Old City, past houses, balconies, groceries, and shops, all of them decorated with flags and images of Mary. The pilgrims stopped three times at altars set up especially for the occasion: in the courtyard of De La Salle High School, run by the Brothers of the Christian Schools; in the co-​cathedral of Jerusalem, within the Latin Patriarchate compound; and in a courtyard within Terra Sancta, the Franciscan complex in the Old City. Patriarch Sabbah led the prayers at each stop, concluding the formal procession in the Terra Sancta courtyard. Devotees carrying a cross and censer led the procession, followed by local Catholic Scouts in uniform, and some of the parents carrying young girls dressed as the Virgin. Then the clergy followed, with Patriarch Sabbah bearing an icon of the Mother of God. Behind them, girls dressed in white, with an Arab Catholic Scout honor guard, carried a statue of Mary adorned with flowers. Keeping a watchful eye on the procession were squads of armed Israeli soldiers and police officers of the Old City. When I asked Father Habib, a Franciscan, about the procession, he told me what the processions used to be like: When I was young, the celebrations of Mary were all about meeting the people and enjoying the city. We were the majority, and we felt safe. Now it’s different. Christians in Jerusalem make up only about two percent of its population, the Latin Catholics, only a portion. We are a minority, no doubt. Today we celebrate differently. See, today it seems that all are out to celebrate the Feast of the Visitation; being a minority changed us . . . we celebrate to demonstrate our presence in the city.

Father Rossi told me that the Rosary procession had been suppressed: “During the First Intifada [the Palestinian uprising that began in 1987], it was hard to celebrate in the city and make public processions and Christian rituals. We only reestablished the rituals in 1994 . . . and only then did people return to the streets.” These two priests were proud of their communities returning to public rituals and processions. For them, as members of a Christian minority in

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  155 Jerusalem, the procession of Mary is a way to publicly demonstrate that Christians still own the city, and the Catholic Patriarchate is still a main agent within the city. In all the celebrations I  participated in at the end of each May, I  watched many people walking together through the entire procession, praying, singing, and dressing their girls in Mary’s costumes. As people say, politically, these rituals are not only a Christian ritualization but also a walk that contrasts the Jewish celebrations of their own independence and the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. In 2010, a few days before the event, Israeli citizens celebrated “Jerusalem Day,” the annual commemoration of the Israeli capture of the Old City and East Jerusalem during the 1967 war. In this event, the streets of Jerusalem are filled with Israeli youth groups marching, fireworks, and music celebrating the return of the Jews to the city. The Christian celebrations in the Old City can be analyzed as a reaction to the politics of Jerusalem, a public proclamation of Catholic identity against Jewish claims to the land and each group’s Judaization/​Christianization of the city landscape. As all this cornucopia of rituals shows, spaces are gendered via rituals of female saints (Massey, 1993, 2013). The people of Ibellin follow along after those carrying an outsized photo of Mariam Bawardi, praying and singing at her shrine and churches, the Jerusalem Christians, Catholics and Orthodox, walking with the icon of Mary, infiltrating national identity to the landscape via the image of Mary.

Landscape and the Politics of Motherhood: Rachel and the Jewish Landscape I have explained how processions and the public religiosity of walking on the streets infuse the landscape with new ideas. I show how locals walking with Mary on her soil and using Mary’s images in these processions and rituals is a way of appropriating lands. Christians and Jews alike appropriate the land this way, especially via groups that perceive themselves as minorities: Christians as a minority in a Jewish state, and Jews as minorities in a Muslim Middle Eastern space. Let me return to the image of Rachel as the Jewish Matriarch and her Tomb in the Jewish veneration. In other chapters, I have described the ritual experience and place in great detail. From a political point of view, we see that the biblical Rachel is attracting a great deal of attention in today’s Israeli

156  Voices of the Ritual society. In contrast, local Christians use Mary as the mother of minorities; in the Jewish case, Rachel is translated and materialized as a state iconic figure. The personification of Rachel is clearly a very slow process. Nevertheless, it is being reframed and readjusted in ways that are altogether symbolic and active in Israel’s more formalist sphere. Rachel’s slow process of personification with the state, with Israel and nationalism, is a process we can understand via several landmarks. One of the most dramatic stages was the annexation of the Tomb’s territory by the Israeli government. As a result of the Oslo peace process initiated in the 1990s, and particularly due to Oslo II, the West Bank was subdivided into three jurisdictions: Area A, where the Palestinian Authority possesses full civil and security control; Area B, where the Palestinians retain civil control with a joint Israeli/​Palestinian security control; and Area C, which is under full Israeli civil and security control. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launched the construction of a barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territories in April 2002 (Thein, 2004). From the outset, the Separation Wall attracted outrage from local and international human rights organizations, politicians, and numerous other critics who accuse Israel of exploiting a precarious security situation as a pretext for further usurpation of Palestinian lands. For the most part, the Palestinian side is laced with barbed wire, along with an anti-​vehicle ditch, a patrol road, and an electronic fence. On the Israeli side is a paved road flanked by dirt strips, concertina wire, and myriad alarms and sensors for detecting intrusions. At some locations, there is a twenty-​six-​foot-​high concrete wall. It also includes a variety of openings, such as gates and more elaborate passageways, where Israeli soldiers man either permanent or temporary lookouts (Yiftachel, 1999). When authorities reached an agreement to leave Rachel’s Tomb in the Palestinian territories, the decision became subject to criticism, especially among agents of religion. In a special Israeli cabinet meeting on September 11, 2002, after a lengthy and heated discussion rife with theological argumentation, the cabinet decided to include the compound inside the Wall,4 even though it was east of the Green Line (the pre-​1967 border).5 The official explanation for this was the need to “increase security” at the shrine “and prevent infiltration of terrorists.”6 Likewise, the civilian route for local Palestinians (Passage 300 or Rachel’s Passage) was moved a few hundred yards south of the Tomb to prevent them from approaching the site (on foot

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  157 or by car). Since then, as I explain in Chapter 4, Rachel’s Tomb has become a central shrine for veneration as, in addition, it is in the process of becoming a Jewish national symbol. The decision to annex this territory changed the landscape tremendously with respect to imagery and territoriality. Moreover, the preparation of corpses according to Muslim law used to be done in the room built by Montefiore (see Chapter  4). The tomb and the cemetery were considered sacred for local Muslims, who used to call it Rachel’s Tomb. However, the one-​sided geopolitical measures have not gone unchallenged. Since 1996, Palestinians have strengthened their claims to the shrine. This time we see that Muslims are using a new religious narrative to name the place (Rehuveni, 2017). Nowadays, many call this place the Mosque of Bilal Ibn Rabah7 (Bartal, 2012). In other words, the site is named in honor of the Prophet Muhammad’s personal companion and former slave, who is also considered the first mu’adhdhin in Islam (Arafath, 2016; Johnson, 1999). Similarly, Muslim activists from Bethlehem promote the site as Bilal’s actual grave site, even though Muslim traditions place it in Damascus, Darayyā, the city of Aleppo, and some in Amman, Jordan (Bartal, 2012). These counterclaims to Israeli/​Jewish narratives of holy places have become a political tool for Palestinians seeking to contest Israel’s hegemonic position in the land and landscape (Luz, 2002). The cult of tombs is central to the Muslim history of this place (Luz, 2002; Talmon-​ Heller, 2007; Talmon-​Heller, 2007). According to local Muslim tradition, Bilal was born in Mecca in 580 ad; he was one of Muhammad’s most trusted and loyal companions and the first muezzin chosen by Muhammad himself. His father, Rabah, was an Arab slave from the clan of Banu Jumah, and his mother, Hamamah, was a former princess of Abyssinia (modern-​day Ethiopia) who was captured into slavery. Being born into slavery, Bilal had no other option but to work for his master Khalaf. Through hard work, Bilal became recognized as a good slave and was entrusted with the keys to the Idols of Arabia (Arafat, 2013). Chen Reuveni, in his work on Muslim views of the Tomb of Rachel (2015), interviewed Muslims in Bethlehem, asking them about the mosque of Bilal and Rachel’s Tomb. They told him that, according to local Palestinian views after the Muslim army victory with the caliph Omar Ibn Al-​Khattab in Jerusalem, Bilal called his fellow men to pray at the Tomb of Rachel, and this is why the Tomb is identified with his legend. Nowadays, as Reuveni demonstrates in his work, local Muslims use the image of Bilal as a warrior

158  Voices of the Ritual of Jerusalem and use the mosque as an iconic Muslim place. The idea of a Muslim saint and the sacred place is a new way of Islamizing this place and a new way of creating a Muslim landscape. The Islamization of the place and the challenge posed by the Bilal Mosque have only emphasized the current divisions between Jews, Muslims, and Christians in this zone. These divisions are imprinted in the current landscape. The Wall divides Israel and Palestine, employing the newest security measures. The Tomb of Rachel is currently visited only by Jewish devotees, and even the number of tourists visiting the site is declining. Access to the Tomb is secured all day, a mission carried out by the Israeli army. Muslims no longer enter the Tomb, not only because they are banned, but also because they have changed their attitudes, memories, and religious sentiments toward the place. As I mentioned before, they prefer to call it the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque. Bilal and Rachel are two saints whose presence dominates the landscape. The mosque is on one side of the Wall and the Tomb is on the other side. At Rachel’s Tomb, Jewish devotees react in huge celebrations of Rachel. Devotees define her as the mother of the nation and the state. This change in position as a national symbol is reflected in two more examples. The first is the positioning of Rachel’s celebration in the very act of fusing it to the state calendar, as well as merging it with the day the people commemorate the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The second is the October 2013 issue of a stamp depicting Rachel. On the Israeli post office’s website, we can read about the image of Rachel:8 There are two aspects to the collective Jewish memory of Rachel our Matriarch—​personal and national. The first is the tragic and sad story of her life as described in the Book of Genesis, which serves as the basis for personal identification with her character. The second is Jeremiah’s prophecy of comfort, which described Rachel our Matriarch as a mother weeping over her sons and as one whose cries tore open the Gates of Heaven and which would subsequently lead the way to Redemption, to the ingathering of the exiles and to the return of the people to Israel to their land.

In this view, Rachel is the image, personification, and materialization of the return of the Jews to the land of Israel. Nowadays on the stamp, very differently from the postal stamp from the British Mandate time that represents the tomb itself, her face is located above the tomb. Her image is of a young biblical mother looking down with a sad expression, thinking about her lost

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  159 sons. At the bottom of the stamp is a quotation from Jeremiah 31:14: “Rachel is weeping for her children.” This is a saying that is nationalized, as her face personalizes the Jewish nation. *** Female saints’ sacred places are unique, open, informal spaces for creativity that challenge the social order through the means of female expressions. Via female rituals, Holy Land spaces are filled with symbols, themes, and female materials of everyday activities, such as symbols of fertility, female sainthood, and heroic motherhood. This ritualization and femininity of Holy Land spaces can be seen as an alternative suggested by religious devotees to the political situation and vagueness of security and borders. As I show, the rituals of appropriation and land claiming in female spaces are all performed by subjects who have no voice in the formal state venues. These rituals and practices are invented in the context of the geopolitical situation of Israel/​Palestine, where mythical and physical borders are continually under renarration and debate. In the beginning of this chapter, I  used Tilley’s observation on spaces by addressing them as a linkage between the physical and the imaginary dimensions. The ritual is part of this mind-​based reimagination of landscape, its physical and symbolic manifestation. According to this notion, the landscape is a medium rather than a container for action, something that is involved in constant action and that cannot be divorced from it. Looking at the rituals, especially processions, from the perspective of the alteration of landscapes raises a question about the meanings assigned and the symbolization and cultural codes that may be read through ritual. The cases I have described in this chapter illustrate how a landscape can be renarrated and redesigned through female saints’ rituals. As I show, female notions are infiltrated into the landscape. Femininity is represented as an alternative to the current Middle Eastern masculine order, and as an alternative to conflict, war, terror, and insecurity. As in other times of history, female saints and their fertility rituals serve as a reaction to instability. Feminine figures acting as mothers who provide sanctuary and consolation are presented as goddesses who can save men and women from disasters. These deities are personifications of the state as a mother who can take care of her sons and daughters. By showing this process via the rituals, especially street processions, I  demonstrated the linkage between the physical and phenomenological dimensions of landscapes. Walking on the streets with icons, photos, and objects left “footprints” on spaces, a praxis and lived experience of

160  Voices of the Ritual the landscape. Here the case of the spatial dynamics of Rachel’s Tomb and Our Lady of the Wall reveals how religious symbols, materials, discourse, theology, and rituals are employed to recreate and alter space and, by extension, impact municipal/​state borders. The fortifications of Rachel’s Tomb and the exclusion of Palestinians are indeed premised on this sort of threat. In the end, these same arguments led to the placement of the national border in response to the threat and with consideration of the site. Put bluntly, the sacred becomes a factor in shaping the landscape and, in turn, people’s identity, rather than the other way around. Through the reappropriation and feminization of this expanse, devotees empower Jewish/​Israeli belonging. On the other hand, Christian minorities struggle to express themselves against the overwhelming power of Israel’s state apparatus and struggle to find solace through the (highly politicized) religious female spaces. Thus, local Christians reconstruct their own narrative of the place and challenge the unilateral establishment of the de facto border at this shrine by cultivating a competing feminine-​matriarchal site. In the case study of Our Lady of the Wall lies a female claim for peace. In making this claim, those on both sides of the dispute not only inject religious ideas into public spaces and political debates but determine how boundaries are negotiated and decided upon. Moreover, we have seen how these places provide an opportunity to challenge the existing social order. Against the backdrop of militarization, violence, and sequestration, symbols of fertility and pious motherhood reinforce an alternative outlook toward the land and its borders. The metaphor of palimpsest (de Certeau, 1984; Huyssen, 2003) can again help me explain the relation between how each particular venue is imagined and its venerated female figure (Callan, 2008; Mosse, 1985a). Commensurate with its standing in Israel/​Palestine, each group possesses unique narratives of the land, its dispensation, and national identity, as well as of the character and image of the saint. For instance, whereas Rachel, as I mention above, is considered the eternal mother of the Jewish nation, Mary is cast in the role of the mother of minorities. The fertility of these holy saints is equated with the holiness of the land. The mimetic rituals of these sacred places reinforce the worshipers’ fertility and thus connect the pilgrims and the lands. This is especially true for women, but not only women; I show that this association is made at these places for men as well. Thus, mimetic rituals intended to enable fertility, as well as other rituals of the human life cycle, are no less claims to the natural connection between devotees and the land. Here I am

Landscape: Ritual and Alternative Order  161 returning to Handelman’s suggestion when interpreting the ritual to add the “interior” interpretation of the rituals at these female saints’ shrines with the “exterior” claims to lands and the landscape (Handelman & Lindquist, 2004). What I show is that these intimate, female, body rituals performed by the people with no voice are used as “external” requests, as land claims, and in making these requests, they alter the Israeli/​Palestinian landscapes.

Conclusion People have long venerated female deities, whether in Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Old Europe, or the pre-​Colombian Americas. The worship of these deities contains paradoxical features. On the one hand, the veneration of goddesses such as Ishtar, Isis, Venus, and Aphrodite was, and still is, related to motherhood, the origin of life, fertility, and reproduction; and on the other, their worship is associated with war, death, the creation of cultural restrictions, taboos, and the rise and fall of civilizations. As I argued in this book, in contemporary society, the veneration of female saints is growing worldwide. As we learn from the ethnography, current veneration still contains these same features. However, now, femininity, reproduction, and fertility are associated with the modern state and national demands. The growing popularity of the cult of the Virgin Mary that is expanding rapidly worldwide is a central example of this trend (Canals, 2017). In Mexico, Poland, Romania, France, Greece, Spain, and other Christian states, Mary has become a personification of the state and its values. Guadalupe, Medjugorje, Fatima, Our Lady of Tinos, and others are associated with national sentiments and state shapes and borders. For this reason, the growing popularity of sacred shrines dedicated to female deities such as Rachel, Mary, and Miriam, and their burgeoning veneration all around Israel/​Palestine over the last few years, strikes me as calling for anthropological understanding. In this book, I have analyzed the dynamic of female sacred spaces from the perspective of ritual, questioning the internal dynamic of these rituals, especially the format of the experience, and the human negotiation with materiality, space, and landscape. Looking into these rituals, I discovered that, in a region that agonizes over long conflicts, war, violence, and lack of physical borders, minorities, Christians, Jews, and Muslims use these rituals to voice their own claims to lands and spaces and to ask for a change in the social order. I demonstrated that shrines dedicated to female deities are crucial venues. These shrines represent symbols of motherhood, the longing for fertility, human nascence, and the cycle of life. These themes are concretized and embodied via the rituals, while they are politicized in the landscape and Voices of the Ritual. Nurit Stadler, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197501306.001.0001

164  Voices of the Ritual on the Israel/​Palestine borders. Men and women who lack power and cultural habitus, agents who are excluded from the cultural, economic, and political center, have found a new venue for voice. In the places I analyzed, devotees from different groups are usually, though not always, citizens who, because they are not affiliated with the dominant culture, cannot participate in and influence politics, the economy, the legal system, the media, and state institutions. They are usually excluded from the core of decisions and often choose not to take part in important Israeli institutions such as the army or mainstream Israeli educational institutions. By looking at these subjects through the lens of the ritual, we learn that rituals are not only vessels of devotional piety and expression of transcendental wishes, but they also serve as places where those with silent voices can express their wishes, needs, and claims. My ethnography demonstrated four themes of ritualistic manifestation:  the experience, materiality, place, and landscape. The ritualistic experience and its dynamic disclose a set of choreographies, mimicking and materializing the cycle of human life. The bodies of devotees visiting these shrines imitate the seed growing in the soil, the act of entering the womb, and are representations of fertilization and fertility. The body represents the tomb/​fetus symbols and the regeneration of life; the soil has feminine as well as masculine aspects. When using body gestures, such as kissing and crawling, they enhance the intimacy with the place, the aspects of maternity, and rebirth and thus the feminine features of the soil and the land. These embodied rituals are designed in the place according to its primordial structure, making use of the site’s natural features and the sacred human architecture of the shrines. These platforms enable pilgrims and visitors to infiltrate two contradicting sets of themes into the place:  themes of the suffering mother and the burden of virginity and infertility, and of miracles of fertility, fruitfulness, and recreation. Christian, Jewish, and, as I show, Muslim devotees visit these places regularly and perform similar practices, asking the saints for similar assistance in matters of birth, good health, and family. All these change the platform and alter its masculine features. With the analysis of materiality scattered at female sacred shrines, my aim is to examine female themes and how they materialize in space through objects. As we have seen, when in these female sacred places, one always finds that, alongside the ritualistic experience, female materials and magical objects are scattered there. The special architecture helps to enhance a specific sensation and feminine experience. Methodologically, these features

Conclusion  165 of the ritual and the places themselves open an opportunity to explore the intertwined and dialectical relationships between people and things, the human and the material, pilgrimage and sacred objects, as they are experienced in the holy place itself. To highlight this, I focus on the many sacred objects I  found scattered in these particular shrines—​the dress of Nava Applebaum, the red string at Rachel’s Tomb, the well and its holy water at the Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva, the shrine and objects at the house of Mariam Bawardi, and the cloths and cleaning artifacts at the grave of Miriam the Laundress. These magical items are part of the character of all female saints’ places, and they have a strong impact on the body-​based experience and the ritualistic experience at these places. The rituals in constant motion give rise to the place that becomes a center designed as a womanly formation, a female space. This is why I have also looked at the place as a ritualistic platform. These shrines dedicated to rituals of female deities and their materiality are also located in particular places—​and they are not where they are by chance. All aspects of the rituals are contextualized and politicized. Locals perform the rituals not only as a way to further fertility and the regeneration of their existence, but also as a way to claim their own lands. Using their own body experience, they voice territorial frustrations and aspirations. Embodiment is amalgamated with a discourse of yearning for novel identity and belonging to what they see as native lands. In this reality, sacredness and embodiment are spatialized, and female deities, with their mythologies and materiality, become paths to claim land. Rituals carried out in sacred spaces influence the landscape. Looking at the multivalence of landscape is a way to explain the roles of artifacts, icons, and landmarks as spatial metaphors—​female ideas and sensations experienced across geographic spaces. Looking at the landscape of ritual shows how the adoration of female saints challenges current landscapes in the region. The claims to lands via so many female places at the same time is an illustration of the ways claims for lands are covered in a feminine canopy. This set of shrines and rituals, when analyzed together, creates an opportunity to look at a panorama of female artifacts, symbols, and narratives that challenge the contested landscape. These rituals challenge the current makeup of the landscape. The renaissance of sacred shrines dedicated to female saints is transpiring in masculine settings. One assumes that in this masculine environment, devotees, both men and women, hope to transform the current social order by enhancing feminine ideas as central political agendas.

166  Voices of the Ritual The comparative look via a large number of ethnographic sites viewed through a broadly similar analytical lens simultaneously provides us with a wider understanding and theorization. I would like to emphasize four theoretical junctions.

The Sound of Silence: Rituals in Female Shrines and the Voicing of Minority Rights Rudolf Otto claimed that “we usually get silent in the presence of the holy.” When people go to a synagogue, a church, a temple, or a mosque, or are in a religious sphere in general, they tend to be quieter. From this perspective, piety is very much a practice of silence and awe, of falling silent in the presence of the holy (Otto, 1958, p. 8). My own observations in the female sacred places that I have analyzed in this book prove a different variation of the phenomenology of silence in the presence of the holy. In places I have visited, silence

Figure C.2  Mary’s procession, Jerusalem, 2009. Photo by Guy Raivitz.

Conclusion  167

Figure C.3  A young boy wearing a T-​shirt that says “Nothing Is Impossible With God” and features a drawing of Mariam Bawardi, at her procession. Photo by Guy Raivitz.

is indeed loud, as it represents frustration and uncertainty. This frustration is performed via the very long and lively body practices carried out in a specific place under contestation. In female shrines, whether they are dedicated to a popular or marginal saint, the devotion is performed by men and women who cannot easily voice their wishes via the formal state and society venues. These people generally are excluded from all dominant venues of power, state rulings, and formal institutions. They cannot—​or are unaware of ways they might—​voice their needs and aspirations via the media, write a letter to the newspaper, or be interviewed on public television. Some do not even have access to or knowledge of the great many platforms available in popular new media. For them, these venues are unavailable. But by performing rituals in sacred places and in their female deities, these devotees find a vibrant new platform for voicing their most profound needs, aspirations, and critiques of central issues: their family, lands, and identity. The ritual itself, a familiar practice that is habitual, and most important, accessible, provides

168  Voices of the Ritual these people, whether they are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, an opportunity to participate in the wider public sphere, and to create counter-​public spaces for addressing issues of economic rights, territorial issues, and their own political representation. The use of ritual is unique: it is not only a space to perform a strong piety, devotion, or contestation but also a public space to perform counter-​ideologies—​to claim lands and territorial rights. One of the best examples is the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem. The compound and its rituals, materials, and architecture are all constructed and used according to narratives and mythologies of fertility and recreation, just as in all other places such as the Tomb of Rachel the wife of Rabbi Akiva, the Tomb of Mary, or the shrine of Mariam Bawardi. The political voice at the Tomb of Rachel is a voice of the land. In this case, the place that was first decided to be part of Palestine was annexed after a long religious-​political discussion. What changed the territorial decision was the voices of the people in the place itself. Their voices and their claims have altered the real physical borders between Israel and Palestine. In this dynamic reality, the rituals of devotion to Rachel became iconic border markers in the real landscape of the Holy Land.

Rituals, Mimesis, and Segregation in Hostile Venues Following Hayden’s notion of antagonistic tolerance, the acceptance of others in a shared holy place is “a pragmatic adaptation to a situation in which repression of the other group’s practices may not be possible” (Hayden, 2002, p. 219; Hayden, 2013). Hayden goes on to claim that, in these circumstances, the “other community” that shares the site sees it as a threat they must counter as much as possible. From the perspective of the dominant community, if the other cannot be converted or pushed out, it has to be tolerated. In this view, at the very heart of tolerance is a heightened potential for violence. This latent force, a dormant aggressiveness, is always present and can be activated when shifts of power or changes of context occur. I am not opposing this explanation. It is relevant to many places, as Hayden explains. In Israel/​ Palestine, and perhaps in Middle Eastern sacred places, this explanation was probably much more appropriate in the Ottoman period, as Barkey shows in her work. This can be explained by the absence of a clear system to segregate and categorize the empire’s colonial subjects into racial, ethno-​religious, and tribal groupings. Within this system, the subjects were excluded from

Conclusion  169 the spoils of power and from equal membership in the political community (Barkey, 2014, pp. 33–​35; United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, 1949). The Ottoman empire was more inclined to promote a hegemonic Islamic position at sacred shared spaces. Nevertheless, it maintained a delicate status quo that allowed for all denominations and forms of venerations to coexist and effectively share sacred sites in the Holy Land. However, this delicate equilibrium changed as national sentiment sweeping over the world from the eighteenth century onward reached the region and altered the perception of territory and belonging in the Middle East. These developments contributed to a dramatic transformation in the interfaith dialogue among the different groups in the Holy Land. Earlier interfaith dialogues, precarious as they sometimes were, were increasingly replaced by an adversarial approach, confrontation, and surely the politicization of the sacred (United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestin, 1949, p. 7). At the time of nation-​state building, the holistic perspective and perception of the Holy Land as an imaginative world that was dominant during the Ottoman empire was fragmented. The holy was no longer a space of order and stability but a space fused with conflictual tendencies. It is no coincidence that the first armed and violent conflict between Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land was sparked by confrontations over control in the vicinity of the Temple Mount/​Haram al-​Sharif in Jerusalem in 1928–​1929 (Cohen, 2015). This escalation and growing interreligious animosity was only exacerbated following the 1948 war and Israel’s creation as the Jewish state, and the ensuing war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The geopolitical changes that trailed the 1948 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors fragmented the Holy Land into several territories and directly affected developments in formerly shared sites and, indeed, in the sacred realm at large. As local communities (hitherto defined along religious lines) started to cultivate national identities and began working ceaselessly toward the ultimate goal of an independent national state, interfaith tolerance lessened considerably, along with the communities’ capacity to share the same territory and religious landmarks. The combat toward statehood that necessitated concrete borders turned religious affiliation into a concrete-​pragmatic political tool. In this context, religious sites in the Holy Land turned holistic spatialities into particularistic ones. Each country, group, or clan promoted sacred places as part of their mythology and national heritage. Sacred shrines were soon to become the heart of conflict in the Holy Land. In particular, the lingering

170  Voices of the Ritual conflict between the Arab-​ Palestinian and Jewish-​ Zionist movements transformed previously shared sites into contested areas, and at times literally into battlefields. These three radical changes of space and dominance over space have completely changed sacred places and the rituals performed there. Sacred places are not only spaces for experiencing religious sensations or identity, but they are icons of land. In that respect, my findings recorded in this book, which differ from Hayden’s findings, indicate that this latent potential opposition has another dynamic. The question is this: What happens to mimesis in hostile environments? In the various shrines I have explored, segregation, exclusion, separation, and discrimination are the main forces that characterize these rituals. These forces are reflected in terms of space, gender, ethnicity, religion, and citizenship. I believe most holy shrines in the Middle East are currently not shared, even those with a long history of shared worship. On the contrary, they are places of conflict and segregation. Looking into their dynamic, I have found a mimetic force embedded in these shrines. Mimesis is generally regarded as being related to order, and not to separation. It is a form of replication of body gestures and emotions within a dynamic space. But as I have shown elsewhere in the discussion of body-​based rituals, this mimetic force also contains an inclination not to imitate the other, a way of seeking resemblance or reproducing the other in the same space, but to challenge the social order. This is a vibrant force rooted in ritual. I showed this mimetic inclination of the rituals when describing the ceremonies at the Tomb of Mary. These rituals contain a force of mimesis that enables a sense of order in a chaotic state/​space. The ritual contains a strong inclination toward resemblance and similarity, but it is also a way for Christian pilgrims to both declare their belonging and resist the current state of affairs. Unlike Hayden’s findings, I show that similarity of the rituals does not reinforce tolerance or even acceptance of the other; on the contrary, segregation, antagonism, and hostility to the other is the basic experience. Even if people perform the rituals in close proximity to each other, they do not share the place, but they contest and reclaim it. Very differently from Hayden, I show that adaptation cannot work in the cases I have analyzed. I  show a dynamic of imitation and segregation, replication and hostility. This dynamic of replication and hostility can be understood as a dynamic of contradictory forces that is embedded in the ritual. The imitation of forms, practices, and objects and their replication do not encourage the sharing of a sacred place in Holy Land spaces. It is much the opposite: rituals

Conclusion  171 produce separation, limitations, and prohibitions being related to taboo-​ making and border-​marking. These rituals enhance prohibitions such as gender restrictions, clothing limitations, ethnicity segregations, and national separations. For example, in both Rachel’s Tombs, women and men are segregated, and no Muslims are allowed, even though the places in Bethlehem and Tiberias were originally built by Muslims and shared. In Bethlehem, the army issues visitors’ permits and checks visitors at the shrine’s entrance. At the Tomb of Mary, the Orthodox walk with the Icon of the Theotokos during the Dormition celebrations, and Catholics celebrate Mary’s Assumption separately. Both celebrations are held in high-​security circumstances, with the army and the police present to protect the participants and to enforce the gatekeepers’ rules. In front of the icon of Our Lady of the Wall, Christians pray to Mary and her places that are walled off. In all these sacred places, these two features are fused: on the one hand, rituals of mimesis are in constant motion; on the other hand, separation and segregation are constantly reproduced.

Female Sainthood in a Belligerent Militaristic Landscape In his War on Sacred Grounds, Hassner (2009) follows Rudolf Otto’s (1958) ideas concerning the holy. Hassner claims that sacred places contain features that are at once awesome and dreadful. Looking into my ethnographic accounts, I can say that this is a truthful way to describe Holy Land shrines and their veneration in Holy Land grounds. These places encompass oxymoronic features: they are holy and tremendous, tempting and repellant. They are beautiful and ugly at the same time. The female shrines I have described through the book are no different; they all contain these fundamental characteristics. While they are spaces for devotion and piety, attitudes that are central and important to the Abrahamic religions, they are also battlegrounds of different religious actors, of identity and nationalistic contestation; in some places, these spaces actually dictate physical borders. As I argue in this book, a complex cultural dynamic is revealed when we look at these spaces and their features from the point of view of ritual. The ritual poses an opportunity not only to look at the contextual explanation, but also to look deep into the dynamics of the ritual itself. Here the importance of the female saint is crucial. The veneration of a female saint gives the ritual a unique flavor. Motherhood, fertility, and reproduction are its main

172  Voices of the Ritual themes. Nevertheless, these characteristics that are embedded in the rituals are associated with the creation of the universe, the land, and the state. Bearing this in mind, it is important to recognize that, via this female cosmology, visitors, both men and women, challenge the belligerent militaristic nature of the current Middle East. This notion is part of a historical movement embedded in the veneration of female deities in most cultures, and in the Holy Land in particular. The veneration of female deities such as Inanna (The Mesopotamian goddess), Isis, Aphrodite, and others is an aspect of worship long connected with regional mega-​politics, and with the questions of the axis mundi and civilizations (Perdibon, 2019). In this veneration, people approach the feminine side of goodness represented by fertility, motherhood, reproduction, life, and regeneration. This is also a powerful tool to use concerning questions of life, survival, and the appropriation of spaces and lands. In modern times, the veneration of female deities is associated with the nation-​state and its borders. To show this, in Chapter 5 I followed Mosse’s (1985) argument concerning how the personification of female figures was—​and is—​attached to the mission of nation-​building. Mosse examines how iconic female symbols are used, especially in European countries, as infrastructure for building an imagery of feminine geographies of nations. Accordingly, the personification and creation of a female mega-​image is a reaction to war, occupation, misery, and violence of the people. A female saint representing the nation state is a romantic challenge to war and conflict. Thus, the personification of the nation-​state as a big, courageous mother figure is a reaction we are likely to see in epochs of war and violence. Through my own ethnographic study of Israel/​Palestine rituals, I found that space and landscape are indeed gendered (Massey, 2013). I found various uses of female images and a cornucopia of attempts by different agents to personify saintly motherhood by connecting them to state images, minority issues, lands, and the form of nationalism. The powerless use the rituals I have examined to infiltrate female notions to the landscape. However, I found different associations between these rituals and the image of the state and its formation. Following the literature, we have learned that female saints are associated with the nation (Mosse, 1985). However, while Jewish saints are becoming a personification of the nation, Christian saints represent minorities and serve as icons of solace. In discussing the Jewish places, we learn that the personification of the state and its borders is not only a romantic reaction but a concrete force. Rachel is not only a matriarch of the Jews; she is a

Conclusion  173 mega-​symbol, in many ways adjusted to the state. Thus, her tomb is not shared by Muslims and Christians as it was in earlier times. Instead, now it is an exclusive, closed, ghettoized place only for Jews. In tandem with the growing geopolitical debate and confrontations between the two sides, Rachel’s Tomb has become the most hotly contested place in the Jerusalem–​Bethlehem region. The site’s high profile has also made it the subject of many political disputes and debates between opponents who want to pass it to Palestine, on one side, and those determined to keep it as Israeli territory at all costs. To this end, as I show in Chapter 5, a towering, twenty-​six-​foot-​high wall was constructed around the compound, along with a maze of security roads and several army posts that are manned at all times. Following the same logic, the civilian route for local Palestinians (Passage 300 or Rachel’s Passage) was moved a few hundred yards due east of the Tomb to prevent Palestinians from approaching the site on foot or by car. Rachel’s Tomb fortifications, the place annexation, and the exclusion of Muslims and Palestinians as well as other participants from taking part in Rachel’s veneration has resulted in the place becoming exclusive and set apart. The result is that Rachel’s Tomb is today a place that symbolizes the national border. Put bluntly, the sacred, represented by a female saint, has become a factor in shaping state boundaries and borders. The process of territorialization—​a fundamental role of the modern nation-​state—​was advanced by religious narratives and agents that coopted the state apparatus. State borders were decided via the female deity and its personification. By reinforcing rituals and memories at Rachel’s Tomb, Jewish devotees reinforce and mobilize narratives and symbols of the saint for the purpose of strengthening their grip over a site that they believe to be at risk of falling into the hands of their rivals. Through the reappropriation and feminization of this expanse, they empower Jewish/​Israeli belonging. On the other hand, as I show in the example of Our Lady of the Wall, this process is dynamic. Christian minorities struggle to express themselves against the overwhelming power of Israel’s state apparatus and to find solace through the (highly politicized) religious sphere. Thus, local Christians reconstruct their own narrative of the place and challenge the unilateral establishment of the de facto border at this shrine by cultivating a competing feminine-​ matriarchal site. At the heart of Our Lady of the Wall stands a female claim for peace and the reappropriation of lands. Mary’s icon, painted on the Wall, represents a counter-​voice. In reconstructing the narrative, both sides of the dispute not only inject religious ideas into public spaces and political debates but determine how boundaries are negotiated and decided upon.

Notes Introduction 1. The Midrash is a corpus of homiletic exegeses on the Bible. 2. Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque is located in the city of Sayyidah Zaynab, Damascus, Syria. According to Shia tradition, the mosque contains the grave of Zaynab, who, according to traditional narratives, is the daughter of Ali and Fatima and, as such, the granddaughter of Muhammad. According to the Sunni Muslim tradition, the tomb is located in Cairo. See Szanto (2014). 3. https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Palestinians (accessed September 13, 2016). 4. https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Passover_​massacre (accessed February 28, 2015).

Chapter 1 1. http://​www.custodia.org/​default.asp?id=433 (accessed January 11, 2017). 2. http:// ​ w ww.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ ​ israel- ​ protection- ​ of- ​ holy- ​ places- ​ l aw- ​ 1 967 (accessed February 11, 2017).

Chapter 2 1. The singular form is hillula. 2. He is considered the author of Sefer ha-​Zohar (the Book of Splendor—​the crown jewel in the corpus of Jewish occult wisdom) and thus a member of the kabbalah pantheon. Located on Mount Meron, the saint’s tomb attracts pilgrims throughout the entire year. Furthermore, the anniversary of his passing, which falls on the festival of Lag BaOmer, is probably the largest annual gathering in all of Israel. 3. The only public line that reaches the site is the 163 bus, which departs from the Jerusalem Central Bus Station approximately six times a day. 4. The Protevangelium of James is one of the earliest known accounts of the Virgin’s life (see Cormack, 1985, p. 169; Shoemaker, 2002, p. 29). While this particular name dates back to the sixteenth century, the proto-​Gospel was probably composed in Syria or Egypt before 150 ce. By the sixth century, it was classified as an “apocryphal” text, namely a hidden and unrecognized part of the canonized tradition (Rubin, 2010). 5. Metoxion is the Greek word for priory, a small monastery that is often dependent on and the offshoot of an abbey. 6. The proskínima includes lighting a candle, kissing the central and other icons, crossing oneself, and genuflection.

176 Notes 7. A taphos (the symbol of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher) is usually engraved on the entrance of Greek Orthodox churches. 8. During the Middle Ages, these sorts of tombs indeed attracted a fair share of pilgrims (Limor, 2007), who also performed attendant body-​based rituals. 9. In 1923, the Armenians sought to replace a pair of old, dilapidated icons next to the St. Stephanos Altar. The Syrians protested that the Armenians had no right to implement such changes because the altar belonged to the former. However, the Armenians proved that the icons had Armenian inscriptions on them, and the British authorities allowed them to proceed (Cust, 1929, p. 36). 10. The panoply of icons and gilded paintings that are scattered throughout the church are showered with kisses throughout the day, but the main object of the pilgrim’s attention is the Dormition Icon. 11. The feud between the laity and the ecclesiastical hosts over the crawling ritual hit a nadir in 2003. Some of the Greek Orthodox organizers unilaterally decided to prevent the faithful from crawling, with the stated objective of easing the gridlock in the room. With this in mind, they began to disperse the crowd from the chamber but encountered stiff resistance: dozens of women forced their way into the area and performed the ritual. The following year, Palestinian and foreign women launched an effort to ensure that all the devotees could partake in the crawling ritual in an orderly fashion. Since 2006, an Arabic-​speaking Greek nun has been stationed by the icon. Although she looks weary and uninterested, the nun helps maintain a relatively decorous line and anybody who wants to can participate in the ritual.

Chapter 3 1. The parochet or paroches, from the Aramaic parokta, meaning “curtain” or “screen,” is the curtain that covers the Torah Ark, containing Torah scrolls, in every synagogue. The parochet symbolizes the curtain that covered the Ark of the Covenant. According to Exodus 40:21, “He brought the ark into the Tabernacle and placed the screening dividing curtain so that it formed a protective covering before the Ark.” 2. http://​w ww.mysticsofthechurch.com/​2010/​07/​blessed-​mariam-​baouardy-​little-​ arab-​and.html, the official site of Mariam Bawardi (accessed January 19, 2016). 3. http://​w ww.mysticsofthechurch.com/​2010/​07/​blessed-​mariam-​baouardy-​little-​ arab-​and.html, the official site of Mariam Bawardi (accessed January 19, 2016). 4. http://​w ww.mysticsofthechurch.com/​2010/​07/​blessed-​mariam-​baouardy-​little-​ arab-​and.html (accessed November 16, 2010). 5. Two miraculous famous events gave Mariam Bawardi her hallmark and her choice for the beatification took place in December 1929. First, it was determined that she saved the life of a child who was born in Italy and suffered from a serious illness. In that instance, friends of his parents—​who had experienced a spiritual encounter with Mariam during a pilgrimage to Israel—​had prayed for his welfare (http://​www. haaretz.com/​israel-​news/​.premium-​1.655933). The second took place in the small town of Shefamr in the Galilee. A girl who, until the age of three and half, remained

Notes  177 fragile and unable to walk was cured after several months during which the picture of Mariam was hung on a wall in the family’s house. After her aunt prayed for Mariam to help for a few days during Easter 1929 the young girl stood up, crying joyfully to her grandmother, “Grandma, look. My feet are walking!” The miracle that opened the way for canonization of Mariam was the healing of an infant born of Augusta, in Syracuse, Sicily, on April 18, 2009. Apparently, the baby was transferred to a hospital in critical condition. Having diagnosed the infant with heart failure, the medical staff lost hope of resuscitating him. However, once a relic of Mariam Bawardi was brought before the dying baby, he was healed without any medical intervention. This cure, sudden and total, was attributed to the intercession of Blessed Mariam of Jesus Crucified. Pope Francis approved the “decree” on the miracle of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on December 6, 2014. 6. http://​ w ww.travelujah.com/ ​ b logs/ ​ e ntry/ ​ C onvent- ​ o f- ​ C armelite- ​ S isters- ​ i n-​ Bethlehem (entrance 15 July 2016) 7. Rahel Mashka et Baniha http://​www.ynet.co.il/​articles/​0,7340,L-​3712193,00.html, checked 9/​8/​2015

Chapter 4 1. I am indebted to Lior Chen, Emily Katan, Chen Reuveni, and Cyrine Sakas for their research assistance and collaboration on various aspects of the work presented in this chapter. 2. Mariam Bawardi was a nineteenth-​century Carmelite nun who was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2015. 3. Rabin was prime minister until the evening of November 4, 1995 when he was assassinated by Yigal Amir a right wing Jewish extremist. 4. Area B regions are under Palestinian civic jurisdiction but joint Israeli/​Palestinian security control. 5. Among those who lobbied for the site’s annexation were notables like Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau; Hanan Porat, minister of religion (2001–​2003); Asher Ohana; and the serving chief rabbis, Eliyahu Bakshi Doron (2002) and Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch. 6. https://​ecf.org.il/​media_​items/​663 (accessed January 31, 2020). 7. http://​www.keverrachel.com/​content.asp?lang=he&pageid=2 (accessed January 31, 2020). 8. In 2010, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared that Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque/​Rachel’s Tomb is an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories and that any unilateral action by the Israeli authorities should be viewed as a violation of international law. 9. The Jerusalem Times is an independent Palestinian weekly news publication. Parts of this interview can be read here: http://​www.la.utexas.edu/​users/​chenry/​aip/​Class%20 materials/​israel_​state_​of_​israel_​part_​3-​8.29.2000.html, (accessed January 31, 2020). 10. According to Stewart (2012), villagers on the Greek island of Naxos have long reported having dreams in which saints direct them to buried objects. He interprets

178 Notes these dreams as existential expressions of the struggle for agency over and perception of their daily activities. 11. See https://​www.youtube.com/​watch?v=XmJ6TcuQslI and http://​www.dailymail. co.uk/​news/​article-​2557380/​Thousands-​C hristian-​worshippers-​f lock-​miracle-​ statue-​Virgin-​Mary-​begins-​weep-​oil.html (accessed July 10, 2016). 12. This interview was conducted by Emily Kattan on September 22, 2013.

Chapter 5 1. Kaplan (2015) show that Cardinal Ratzinger, the later Pope Benedict, was somewhat cautious about this interpretation. There is no denying that the connection between Mary and the Ark existed by the third century. As Gregory Thaumaturgus (c.213–​ c.270) wrote: “For the Holy Virgin is in truth an ark, wrought with gold both within and without, that has received the whole treasury of the sanctuary” (Homily on the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary). Saint Jerome wrote in the late fourth century, “The Bride of the Christ is the Ark of the Testament within and without made of gold, keeper of the law of the Lord” (Letter 22 to Eustochium). In the fifth century, Chysippus of Jerusalem wrote, “The truly royal Ark, the ever precious Ark, was the ever Virgin, Theotokos.” 2. Fieldwork diary, 2010. 3. https://​www.rt.com/​news/​catholic-​jerusalem-​monastery-​vandalism-​773/​ (last accessed June 25, 2017). 4. According to the protocols and media accounts of this cabinet meeting, some of Israel’s most prominent leaders and ministers adopted exceedingly postsecular language while addressing this sensitive issue. 5. More generally, the Green Line refers to the demarcation line that was hammered out in the 1949 armistice between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria in the aftermath of the 1948 war. 6. See the page on the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s website about the barrier, Israel’s Security Fence:  https://​mfa.gov.il/​mfa/​foreignpolicy/​faq/​pages/​saving%20lives-​ %20israel-​s%20anti-​terrorist%20fence%20-​%20answ.aspx (last accessed January 31, 2020). 7. In 2010, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared that Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque/​Rachel’s Tomb is an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories and that any unilateral action by the Israeli authorities should be viewed as a violation of international law. 8. http://​w ww.israelpost.co.il/​mall.nsf/​prodsbycode/​752?OpenDocument&L=EN (accessed October 2017).

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Index Figures are indicated by f following the page number. For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Abbas, Mahmoud, 133 Abigail (wife of King David), veneration of, 26 Abrahamic religions. See also specific religions Holy Land as crucial territory, 32, 35–​36 incorporation of sacred textual events into rituals,  31–​32 revival of religion and rituals, 38–​39 view Rachel with regeneration and fertility,  50–​51 Abuhatzeira, Yisrael (Baba Sali) burial site, Netivot, 41, 54, 100–​1 Afterlife architecture, 50–​51, 68–​69 Akiva, Rabbi, 22, 41, 47–​48, 92, 93. See also Tomb of Rachel wife of Rabbi Akiva Aksum–​Zion–​Mary complex,  144 Al-​Aqsa mosque. See Mecca Mosque to the Farthest Mosque (Ar. Al-​Aqsa) Albera, Dionigi, 78–​79 Al-​Hamawi, Yaqut,  129–​30 Altar of St. Bartholomew. See Tomb of the Virgin Mary Altar of St. Stephanos. See Tomb of the Virgin Mary Alter, Robert, 92 Ancient Greece, female goddesses, 140–​41, 163, 172 Antagonistic tolerance (Hayden), 2, 106,  168–​69 Applebaum, David, 77–​79 Applebaum, Debra, 77–​78, 79 Applebaum, Nava, 12, 77–​79. See also Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch Archetypes Eliade on, 29, 93, 102–​3 as models of practice in religious life, 29 relations between canonical text and performance,  47–​49 Armenian Catholics, 31–​32, 64 Aubin-​Boltanski, E., 85

Baba Sali. See Abuhatzeira, Yisrael (Baba Sali) burial site Bajc, V., 31–​32 Banksy, 121, 129 Barkey, K., 168–​69 Barlassina, Luigi, 24, 149–​50 Barrenness, 45–​46, 50 Basilica of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 39–​40 Bawardi, Jirjis (George), 82–​84 Bawardi, Mariam. See St. Mariam Bawardi home/​shrine, Ibellin Bawardi, Mariam Shahin, 82–​84 Bell, C., 12–​13 Ben Akashia, R. Hananiah burial site, 46f Benjamin, Walter, 67–​68 Ben Joseph, Akiva. See Akiva, Rabbi Berger, P., 49 Bible,  54–​55 Ark of the Covenant, 137–​38, 178n1 Book of Genesis, 158 Book of Revelation, Woman of the Apocalypse, 125–​26, 127 Deuteronomy 12:5, 30 Genesis 38:28 and story of Tamar, 74–​76 Jeremiah 31:14, 158–59 narratives on holy wells, 92–​94 Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque, Bethlehem, 112–​13, 157, 178n7 Bilhah (concubine of Jacob the Patriarch), veneration of, 26 Bilu, Yoram, 13, 41, 47–​48, 74–​75 Black March (2002), 15 Bnei Mordechai, 132 Body-​based rituals, 11 Body in motion. See Rituals Body rituals: the experience, 45–​69 barrenness as fertility and Jewish Rachel, 50–​55 body-​based womb-​tomb shrines,  49–​50 comments by pilgrims, 65–​66

196 Index Body rituals: the experience (cont.) devotional kiss ritual, 55–​57 fetus emerging from the womb ritual in Mary’s Tomb, 62–​69 geopolitical tensions underlying, 46–​47 relations between canonical text and performance,  47–​49 summary conclusion, 164 Book of Maccabees, 26, 30 Book of Psalms, 54–​56 Book of Splendor, 41 Book of Wisdom, 30 Border disputes. See also Oslo Accords (1993/​ 1995); Rituals: as land claiming and theory of place; State, religion, and contested borders; West Bank Wall Green Line, 156–57, 178n5 Israel/​Palestine and, 6–​7, 33–​34, 156,  169–​70 Bowman, G., 31–​32 Brunot, A., 84    Carmelite Order, 85–​87, 90–​91 Carroll, M. P., 15–​16 Cave of Hanna, Safad fertility rituals, 26 selection as study site, 26 as womb-​tomb structure, 26 Cave of the Patriarchs, 54 Ceremonies. See also specific ceremonies and festivals on anniversaries of saints’ deaths, 47–​48 Charismatic movements, 39 Chechen Republic, contribution to mosque in Israel,  138–​39 Chen, Lior, 22, 23–​24, 97–​98, 130 Christianity and Christians. See also Virgin Mary: veneration of; specific sacred places exclusion from Israeli public sphere, 119 exclusion from Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch,  108–​10 female saints in, 144–​45 historical laws on status quo of Holy Land sacred places, 36–​37 kissing rituals, 55 lack of state funding for Holy Land sacred places, 38, 89 as minority in Jerusalem, 60, 154 perspective on biblical events in Holy Land,  30–​31 reactions to West Bank Wall, 121, 123–​24, 128 restrictions on access to certain shrines,  52–​53

Church of the Annunciation, Madonna of Tinos, 49, 66–​67 Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem, 28f, 44f Gethsemane Church monastery adjacent to,  58–​59 shared ownership and rights to, 31–​32, 36–​37 as site of crucifixion and burial of Jesus,  47–​48 Clerc-​Renaud, Agnès, 85 Cohen, Rafael, 22, 93–​94, 130–​31 Cole, S. G., 140–​41 Coleman, Simon, 10, 11, 49, 56–​57, 67 Communitas paradigm, 10, 39–​40, 106 Contesting the Sacred (Eade and Sallnow), 106 Contextualization. See State, religion, and contested borders Copts, 31–​32, 36 Crawling rituals, 48, 56–​57, 66, 176n11 Cult of the Virgin Mary, The (Carroll), 15–​16 Cult of Virgin Mary, 39–​40, 163. See also Virgin Mary: veneration of Cults. See Fertility cults Custodia Terrae Sanctae (website), 36–​37 Daoud, Ass’ad, 25, 86, 87–​89, 90 Deeb, L., 118 Degania Kibbutz Beit Gordon museum, 132 Deir Rafat Monastery. See Shrine of Our Lady Queen of Palestine and the Holy Land, Deir Rafat Monastery Delacroix, Eugène, 141–​42 Devotional kiss ritual, 55–​57, 60–​61, 64 Dormition Feast ceremony fetus emerging from the womb ritual, 62–​69 procession with Icon of the Dormition, 57–​62 Driessen, H., 2–​3 Dubisch, J., 49, 66–​67 Dyce, William, 143f    Eade, J., 2–​3, 10, 11, 49, 67, 106 Eliade, M., 29, 30, 45–​46, 68, 93 Elisheba (wife of Aaron the Priest), veneration of, 26 Elsner, J., 11 Embodied female knowledge, 49 Emmanuel Monastery, 23 Erwachende Germania (painting), 142f,  142–​43 Eshkol, Levi, 38 Ethiopian Christians, 31–​32, 36    Farinacci, Elisa, 121, 124 Fathers according to Rabbi Natha, The (Goldin), 93

Index  197 Feast of Our Lady of Palestine, 24 Fedele, Anna, 5, 85 Feldman, J., 31–​32 Female magical objects and sensation, 71 clothing and washing supplies, Miriam the Laundress, 96–​97 the holy well, Rachel wife of Rabbi Akiva,  91–​96 language of magical items, Rachel as traumatic mother, 73–​80 maternity and mythology, Bawardi shrine,  80–​87 reconstruction of Bawardi shrine, 87–​91 summary conclusion, 102 womb-​tomb shrines and, 71 Female sacred places, conclusion, 163–​73. See also Ritual, landscape and alternative order; specific sacred places female sainthood in militaristic landscape,  171–​73 rituals, mimesis, and segregation in hostile venues,  168–​71 voicing of minority rights, 166–​68 Female saints, worldwide veneration of, 5 Feminine materiality. See also Female magical objects and sensation; specific sacred places at female sacred shrines, 2–​3 land claims and, 2–​3, 5, 8–​9 summary conclusion, 164–​65 Fertility and productivity, 50. See also Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch fertility and productivity, 50 motherhood, 50 prayers at female saint shrines, 22, 23–​24,  26 rites involving red threads, 74–​75 virginity, 45–​46, 50 virginity and barrenness, 50–​55 Fertility cults, 41 First haircut (halaka) ceremony, 41 Francis, Pope, 86 Franciscans, 36–​37,  152–​54 Friends of Rachel’s Tomb, The, 109–​12 Friman, Gad, 73–​74 Fundamentalist movements, 39, 118    Garden Tomb, 31–​32 Geertz, Clifford, 71–​72 Gemzöe, L., 101–​2 Gender comparison of land claims via saint spaces,  8–​9 separation at sacred places, 54

Gethsemane Church, Jerusalem. See also Tomb of the Virgin Mary Dormition Feast ceremony, 61 Grotto of the Agony, 61 monastery,  58–​59 Ginzberg, L., 93–​94 Gittin of the Babylonian Talmud, 26 Gonen, R., 132 Gordon, Charles George, 31–​32 Graffiti at sacred places, 81, 123, 127, 129,  151–​52 Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi (painting), 141f,  141–​42 Greek Catholic Church, 36 in Ibellin, 80–​81 Greek Orthodox Church in Ibellin, 80–​81 Mary icon, Ramle, 117–​18 struggle for control of Holy Sepulcher, 31–​32,  36–​37 Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 20–​21, 36,  46–​47 Dormition Feast ceremony, 57–​64 Icon of the Theotokos, 62f,  170–​71 rights to Tomb of the Virgin Mary, 64 Grimes, Ronald, 29 Grotto of the Nativity, 36–​37    Hacker, Omer, 23–​24, 97–​98, 99, 101 Håland, E. J., 49, 66–​67 Handelman, D., 160–61 on analysis of rituals, 27 on theory of ritual “in its own right,” 2–​3, 9, 11, 45–​46, 71–​72,  105–​6 Haram al-​Sharif. See Mecca Mosque to the Farthest Mosque (Ar. Al-​Aqsa) Hassner, R. E., 171 Hayden, R. M., 2, 10, 106, 168–​69, 170–​71 Hermkens, A.-​K., 117 Holocaust, 33–​34, 51–​52, 111–​12, 115 Holy Jewish Temple, and biblical figures, 30 Holy key. See Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch Holy Land, biblical citations of, 30 Holy well. See Tomb of Rachel wife of Rabbi Akiva Hulda/​St. Pelagia/​Sit’ Raba’a al-​Aduwiyyeh tomb,  19–​20 Huri, Zuheir, 145–​46    Icon of Mary, 70f Icon of the Dormition. See Tomb of the Virgin Mary IDF Shayetet 13, 15

198 Index Ingold, T., 139–​40 Islam and Muslims. See also specific sacred places custom of planting Drimia flowers around tombs,  131–​32 erection of Mosque of Peace in Abu Ghosh,  138–​39 exclusion from Rachel’s Tomb, 108–​10, 112–​13, 156–​57, 170–​71,  172–​73 history of Tiberias sacred places, 129–​32 Holy Land as place of veneration, 32 in Ibellin, 80–​81 impact on Judeo-​Christian ritual, 48 lack of state funding for Holy Land sacred places, 38 prohibited access to certain shrines, 52–​53 public piety as women’s jihad, 118 Rachel’s site as Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque, 112–​13, 157–​58,  178n7 reactions to West Bank Wall, 121 rise in female mosque attendance, 118 symbol of moon, Our Lady of the Wall, 125–​26 Temple Mount and, 36 use of womb-​tomb shrines, 49–​50 Israeli government. See also Oslo Accords (1993/​1995); West Bank Wall Antiquities Authority, 88–​89 army as security guards at sacred places/​ events, 52–​53, 55–​56, 60, 108–​10, 120, 124–​25, 152–​54, 156, 158 Defense Ministry, 108 funding for preservation of sacred places, 52f, 52–​53,  89 independence (1948), 33–​34, 35–​36 Land Authority, 138–​39 law on custody of sacred places (1967), 36,  37–​38 Six-​Day War, 34 Tourism Ministry, 38 Israel/​Palestine (Holy Land). See also Rituals: as land claiming and theory of place; specific governments; specific towns, cities, sacred places border disputes and, 6–​7, 33–​34, 156–57,  169–​70 female sainthood in militaristic landscape,  171–​73 geopolitical tensions underlying body rituals,  46–​47 historical laws on status quo of sacred places in,  36–​37 map of holy sites, 18f revival of religion and rituals, 38–​42 during Second Intifada, 7, 15–​16

Jansen, W., 117 Jerusalem. See also specific sacred places as biblical Mount of Moria, 30 as capital of Israel, 38 four quarters of, 36 historical laws on status quo of sacred places in,  36–​37 regulation of sixteen Jewish sacred places, 38 selection as study site, 1, 15–​16, 19–​20, 21, 25 Jerusalem Altar, 30 Jerusalem Day, 154–​55 Jewish Bible Zechariah 2:16, 30 Jews. See Judaism and Jews Jochebed (mother of Moses), 26 John Paul II, Pope, 86 Judaism and Jews. See also specific sacred places custom of leaving items on graves, 100 female saints in, 144–​45 first haircut ceremony, kabbalistic tradition, 41 Holy Land as promised land, 30, 33–​34 kissing rituals, 55 taboo against intermingling of sexes in sacred places, 54 Judaization of the landscape, 38, 81, 154–​55. See also Rituals: as land claiming and theory of place    Kadmonenu, 130 Kadyrov, Ahmed Hajji, 138–​39 Kan festival, 135 Kaplan, Steven, 137–​38, 144 Katz, Yaron, 52–​53, 108 Khoury, Osama, 118 Kissing rituals. See Devotional kiss ritual; specific sacred places Knowles, Ian, 23, 123, 127 Kobi, Ron, 131–​32 Köhler, Christian, 142–​43    Lag BaOmer festival, 41, 101, 175n2 Lamentations Rabbah, 26 Land claims. See also Rituals: as land claiming and theory of place feminine materiality and, 2–​3, 5, 8–​9 to Jerusalem, 13–​14 sacred places and, 13–​14 womb-​related rituals and, 8–​9 Landscapes. See also Ritual, landscape and alternative order Christian perspective on Holy Land as,  30–​31 feminine themes in via ritual, 2–​3

Index  199 rituals as embodied in, 14 Schama on, 139–​40 Tilley on, 139–​40, 149 Latour, B., 48 Lepirion, Segula, 26 Lévi-​Strauss, Claude, 9 Liberty Leading the People (painting), 141–​42 Life cycles of nature, 67–​68 rituals as symbols of, 71 of saints, 42, 67 Limor, Ora, 19–​20, 21, 47–​48 Lindquist, G., 9 Luz, Nimrod, 17, 22, 86, 130    Madonna of Tinos. See Church of the Annunciation Magical objects. See Female magical objects and sensation Mahmood, Saba, 118 Markus, R. A., 47–​48 Mass worship, 39 Materiality, 71–​72. See also Female magical objects and sensation; Feminine materiality in anthropology ritual objects and interactions, 12 Mecca Mosque to the Farthest Mosque (Ar. Al-​Aqsa), Old City of Jerusalem Qur’an reference to, 32 rise in pilgrimage to, 40 Methodology comparative analysis and methods, 7,  15–​27 contextualization, 29 findings,  10–​11 interview topics, 27 overview,  1–​11 scope of sites and events, 6, 8, 15–​19, 18f Second Intifada timeframe, 7, 15 Midrash, on Matriarch Rachel, 5–​6, 30 Milk Grotto of the Virgin Mary, Bethlehem, 5–​6, 30, 31–​32, 41 Mimesis Benjamin on, 67–​68 body-​based rituals and, 56–​57 Coleman on, 56–​57 kissing rituals as, 55 segregation in hostile venues and, 168–​71 Minority rights, voicing of, 166–​68 Mintz, S. W., 134–​35 Miraculous powers of Icon of the Dormition, 59–​60 of Tomb of the Virgin Mary, 65–​66

Miriam (biblical sister of Moses and Aaron), 93–​95,  96 Miriam the Laundress. See Mizrahi, Miriam “Miriam the Laundress” burial site Mizrahi, Miriam “Miriam the Laundress” burial site, Jerusalem, 97f clothing and washing supplies as magical objects, 96–​97 comments by pilgrims, 99–​100 comments by site caretakers, 98–​99 fertility rituals and prayers, 23–​24, 96–​97,  99–​100 Mount of Rest cemetery, 23–​24 sacred clothes and cleaning artifacts, 12 selection as study site, 12, 23–​24 Monastery of Saint Saviour, Jerusalem, 152 Monasticism,  57–​58 Montefiore, Moses, 20, 51–​52, 157 Mosque of Peace, Abu Ghosh, 138–​39 Mosse, G. L., 116, 140–​41, 172 Motherhood. See Fertility and productivity; specific female sacred places Mount Meron, Israel. See Shimon Bar Yohai burial site, Mount Meron Mount of Rest cemetery. See Mizrahi, Miriam “Miriam the Laundress” burial site Muhammad, Prophet, 157 Muslims. See Islam and Muslims Myerhoff, B. G., 134–​35 Mythology, and coincidence of opposites, 68    Neptune Resigning to Britannia the Empire of the Sea (painting), 143f New Age movements, 38–​39 New Testament, Garden of Gethsemane as site of crucifixion of Jesus, 47–​48 Night Procession of the Theotokos, 62f Notermans, C., 117    Oslo Accords (1993/​1995), 34, 108–​9, 156 Osman II, 35 Otto, Rudolf, 166–​68, 171 Ottoman Empire, 35, 168–​70 Our Lady of Palestine Church (Reginae Palestina), near Jerusalem, 24–​25 Our Lady of Tarshiha, Virgin Mary statue, Tarshiha, 26, 118 Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant, Abu Ghosh,  137–​39 comments by nuns, 138 Virgin Mary statue, 137–​39 Our Lady of the Wall, Bethlehem, 122f, 170–​71,  172–​73

200 Index Our Lady of the Wall, Bethlehem (cont.) comments by pilgrims, 126, 127–​28 iconography of, 125–​27 rituals as land claiming, 120–​29 selection as study site, 23 Weekly Rosary, 124–​25 Our Lady of Walsingham, England, 49, 56–​57    Pagan worship, 49 Palestinian Authority. See also West Bank Wall Christian residents, 60 counterclaims to jurisdiction over Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque/​Rachel’s Tomb, 157–​58 impact of Oslo Accords on, 34, 108–​10 West Bank zones and, 34 Palimpsest: metaphor of, 14, 150. See also Rituals: as land claiming and theory of place; Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch Panagia Iersolymitissa (Panayia the Jerusalemite) icon, 64–​65 Patai, R., 74 Patriotic mother cult. See Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch Philomenos, Father, 61 Pilgrimage Markus on, 47–​48 to tombs of the righteous (kivrai tzadikim),  47–​48 Turner and Turner on, 39–​40 Pio, Padre shrine, Italy, 39–​40 Place, sense of, 12–​14 defined, 48 Practices. See Rituals Processions. See Ritual, landscape and alternative order Proskínima (rituals upon entering), 59–​60, 66–​67,  175n6 Protestantism and Protestants on Garden Tomb as burial site of Jesus,  31–​32 visits to Holy Land, 31–​32 Protevangelium of James, 57–​58, 175n4    Qur’an, mentions of Holy Land in, 32    Rabin, Yitzhak, 108–​9, 158 “Rachel Provides Water to her Sons” (Rofe-​Ofir),  95 Rachel the Matriarch: veneration of. See also Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch fused with politics, 114–​15 return from exile concept and, 13–​14, 52–​53, 111, 112, 158–59

as state iconic figure and politics of motherhood, 4, 156–​61 Red thread. See Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch Regev, Miri, 135 Reginae Palestinae. See Shrine of Our Lady Queen of Palestine and the Holy Land, Deir Rafat Monastery Reuveni, Chen, 157–58 Ritual, landscape and alternative order, 137–​61 Our Lady Queen of Palestine (Reginae Palestinae), 149–​52, 150f Rachel as state iconic figure, 156–​61 St. Bawardi and street processions as landscape rituals, 145–​49, 167f summary conclusion, 159–​61, 165 Tomb of the Virgin Mary and street processions as landscape rituals, 152–​55, 153f, 166f woman saint as allegory of nation, 140–​45, 141f, 142f, 143f Ritual in motion, 10, 65–​66, 67 Ritual objects, 12. See also Female magical objects and sensation Rituals, 2–​3. See also specific sites and practices Bell on ritual as platform of daily social influences,  12–​13 belonging and, 10–​11 body-​based,  11 Coleman and Eade on body in motion in rituals, 2–​3, 5, 10, 11, 45 Eade and Sallnow on contesting the sacred, 10 as embodied in the landscapes, 14 function of, 2 gender differences, 8–​9 Handelman on theory of “in its own right,” 2–​3, 9, 11, 45–​46, 71–​72, 105–​6 Hayden on competitive sharing, 10 internal dynamic effects and impacts, 10–​11 Lévi-​Strauss on, 9 near wells and holy springs, 91–​92 sense of place and, 12–​14 unique aspects of Holy Land rituals, 8–​9 Rituals: as land claiming and theory of place,  105–​35 Our Lady of the Wall, 120–​29, 122f summary conclusion, 133–​35, 165, 166–​68 Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch, 107–​16 Tomb of Rachel wife of Rabbi Akiva, 129–​35 Virgin Mary veneration, 116–​20 Rofe-​Ofir, Sharon,  95–​96 Roman Catholic Church in Miami Cuban community, 148–​49

Index  201 in New York, 148–​49 rights to Church of the Holy Sepulcher, 31–​32 rights to Tomb of the Virgin Mary, 64 in South America, 148–​49 struggle for control of Holy Sepulcher, 36–​37 Rubin, Uri, 32 Ryan, L., 143–​44    Sabbah, Michel, 151, 152–​54 Sabri, Ikrima, 113 Sacred places. See also Rituals; specific sacred places commodification of by minority groups, 13 defined, 2, 32 Hayden on antagonistic tolerance of, 2, 106,  168–​69 idea of the Jewish state and, 35–​38 land claims and, 13 as leverage between adversarial groups, 13 study of, 2 Sallnow, M. J., 2, 10, 106 Samuel the Prophet burial site, near Jerusalem, 53 Scarlet thread. See Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch Schama, S., 139–​40 Sefer ha-​Zohar. See Book of Splendor Separation Fence. See West Bank Wall Sered, Susan, 5–​6, 30, 31–​32, 41, 50–​51, 74, 115 Sharon, Ariel, 15, 120, 156 Shazar, Shneur Zalman, 38 Shimon Bar Yohai burial site, Mount Meron, 41, 47–​48,  175n2 Shimon Hatzadik Cave, Jerusalem, 38, 41 Shrine of Our Lady Queen of Palestine and the Holy Land, Deir Rafat Monastery, 24, 149–​52,  150f comments by nuns/​priests, 150–​51, 154 comments by pilgrims, 151 Shrines, as reflective empty vessels, 10, 106 Silent people, use of term, 10–​11, 42, 166–​68 Sisters of Saint Dorothy, 24 Sit Sakina (Muslim saint), 129–​32 Six-​Day War, 34 Smith, Jonathan, 106 State, religion, and contested borders, 29–​42 revival of religion and rituals in Israel/​ Palestine,  38–​42 sacred maps and physical borders, 33–​35 sacred places and idea of the Jewish state,  35–​38 texts and lands as sacred Holy Land archetypes,  29–​32

Stations of the Cross, 60–​61 St. George, 25 Stigmatization ritual, 85 St. Mariam Bawardi home/​shrine, Ibellin, 81f, 82f canonization, 133, 146–​47, 176–​77n5 comments by pilgrims, 84 experience of stigmata, 84–​86 maternity, mythology and magical objects,  80–​87 reconstruction of shrine, 87–​91 sacred objects, 12 selection as study site, 25 street processions as landscape rituals, 145–​49,  167f St. Marie Alphonsine Ghattas, Ein Karem, 82f, 83f Suicide bombings, 15 Sukayna, Sitt, 22 Symbols and social ferment, 39–​40 Syriac Orthodox Church, 64 rights to Church of the Holy Sepulcher, 31–​32    Taboos, Jewish, 54 Tatiana, Sister, 64–​65 Teman, E., 74–​75 Temple Mount, Jerusalem, 15, 36, 169–​70. See also Mecca Mosque to the Farthest Mosque (Ar. Al-​Aqsa) Territorial claims. See Land claims; Rituals: as land claiming and theory of place Thapar-​Björkert, S.,  143–​44 Theory of place. See Rituals: as land claiming and theory of place Tilley, C., 139–​40, 149, 159 Tomb of Hulda, Jerusalem, 49–​50 Tomb of Nachman of Breslov, Ukraine, 40 Tomb of Ovadia of Bartenura, Jerusalem, 38 Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch, Bethlehem, 104f, 122, 168 body-​based rituals and barrenness as fertility,  50–​55 border disputes and, 156–57 celebration of death of, 50–​51, 51f comments by pilgrims, 53–​54, 55, 56, 74–​75, 76–​77, 113–​14,  115–​16 construction phases of, 51–​52, 52f fertility rituals, 54–​55, 68–​69 history of, 20 holy key, 73–​74, 77 as hotly contested place, 172–​73 kissing rituals, 55–​57 location of, 18f, 20, 21

202 Index Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch, Bethlehem (cont.) magical objects and Rachel as traumatic mother,  73–​80 prayers for marriage, pregnancy, and childbirth, 30 Rachel as traumatic mother, 76–​77 rituals as land claiming, 107–​16 sacred covering of N. Applebaum’s dress, 73 sacredness of N. Applebaum’s dress, 12, 73, 77, 78f,  78–​80 sacred red string, 12, 73–​77 selection as study site, 15–​17, 20, 21, 41 Sered’s study of, 5–​6, 30, 31–​32, 50–​51 as womb-​tomb structure, 20, 56–​57 Tomb of Rachel wife of Rabbi Akiva, Tiberias, 50 fertility rituals, 22 the holy well as magical object, 12, 91–​96 kissing rituals, 55 location of, 22 as Muslim shrine to Lady Sakina, 22 previously as Muslim saint site, 129–​32 rituals as land claiming, 129–​35 selection as study site, 22 as womb-​tomb structure, 22 Tomb of the Virgin Mary, Jerusalem, 15–​17, 153f Altar of St. Bartholomew, 64 Altar of St. Stephanos, 64 cleaning rituals, 65–​66 comments by Greek Orthodox priests, 58–​59 comments by pilgrims, 63, 67, 119–​20 crawling rituals, 56–​57, 66 end-​of-​May street processions as landscape rituals, 152–​55, 153f, 166f entrance, 57f fertility rituals, 67, 68–​69, 170–​71 fetus emerging from the womb ritual, 62–​69 health and healing prayers, 66–​67 Icon of the Dormition, 55, 58f, 58–​62, 63, 64–​65, 66–​67,  149 inter-​church struggle for control of, 36–​37 kissing rituals, 55, 56–​57, 64, 65–​66, 67 land claims and, 13–​14 location of, 20–​21 map of, 18f Panagia Iersolymitissa (Panayia the Jerusalemite) rituals, 64–​65 procession with Icon of the Dormition, 57–​62 selection as study site, 21 symbols of death and regeneration, 67 Tombs of Joachim and Anne, 63–​64 as womb-​tomb structure, 20, 56–​57, 62–​63,  119

Tomb of Zecharia, Jerusalem, 38 Tombs of the Sanhedrin, Jerusalem, 38 Turner, Edith, 39–​40 Turner, Victor, 39–​40 Twal, Fouad, 151–​52    United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), on jurisdiction of Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque/​ Rachel’s Tomb, 177n7, 178n7    Violence, due to border disputes, 33–​34 Violent extremist groups, 39 Virginity. See Fertility and productivity Virgin Mary icon, Ramallah, 117–​18 Virgin Mary icon, Ramle, 117–​18 Virgin Mary: veneration of. See also Tomb of the Virgin Mary; specific sacred places author’s childhood experiences of, 3–​4 in Israel/​Palestine, 4 in Jerusalem, 3–​4, 15–​16, 30–​31 life cycle of, 47–​48 as mega symbol, 4–​5, 145, 151 as mother of minorities, 4 as national icon, 4 rituals as land claiming, 116–​20 as undermining of Rachel, 116 worldwide veneration of, 3–​4, 125–​26, 148–​49,  163    Warhaftig, Zerach, 38 War on Sacred Grounds (Hassner), 171 Weber, Max, 2, 132 Weeping Mary shrine, St. Georgios Church, Ramla, 25 West Bank Wall, 23, 38, 54, 120–​25. See also Our Lady of the Wall security features, 124–​25, 156 zones of, 34, 156, 158 Womb-​related rituals, and land claims, 8–​9 Womb-​tomb shrines, 19–​20. See also Cave of Hanna; Tomb of Rachel the Matriarch; Tomb of Rachel wife of Rabbi Akiva; Tomb of the Virgin Mary body-​based rituals, 49–​50, 71 persistence of amidst religious change, 49    Yad Avshalom place, Jerusalem, 38    Zilpah (concubine of Jacob the Patriarch), veneration of, 26 Zionist movement, 33–​34, 35–​36, 144, 169–​70 Zipporah (wife of Moses), veneration of, 26