Religion, Culture and Gender Guides

Transcription

1 Religion, Culture and Gender Guides The purpose of the Guides is to showcase the work of Manchester students on the theme of Religion, Culture and Gender in Britain, and provide creative, informative and critically informed resources on this theme.

2 SOURCE: A WIDER BRIDGE (AWIDERBRIDGE.ORG/OUT-AND-PROUD-TRANS- JEW/) BEING TRANSGENDER IN THE ORTHODOX JEWISH COMMUNITY A Guide ABSTRACT This guide aims to introduce the reader to the issues a transgender Jew may face within the Orthodox Jewish community. It will outline various responses to transgender people from Orthodox Judaism, and explore some underlying issues as a route in to providing better pastoral support for transgender Orthodox Jews accessing support outside the community. Sam Cresswell Religion, Culture & Gender

3 Case Study The experience of Chav Doherty exemplifies a number of underlying issues within Orthodox Judaism that relate to transgender identities. Chav s family converted to Orthodoxy when he was five, and as such this was the only identity he knew when growing up. After studying at an Orthodox Jewish college, Chav transitioned from living as a woman to living as a man. Chav found that his transition created conflicts between his identity as a transgender man, and as a Jew. The laws of kashrut deal in separate, binary categories, such as clean and unclean, and the categories of male and female are, within Orthodoxy, mutually exclusive and immutable. Chav has, since his transition, felt unwelcome in the Jewish community. He feels that his identity as both a convert and a transgender person is trayf contaminated flesh. This is a difficulty that Chav is still working through, and though he has found places within the wider Jewish community, he is yet to find a welcome back to Orthodoxy if he is open about his identity. SOURCE: DOHERTY, CHAV. THE TRAYF JEW. Context: Orthodoxy Orthodox Judaism is an umbrella term for a number of Jewish communities. They can be split into two broad categories: Modern Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox. The Modern Orthodox tradition is a response to the movement by some in the Jewish community to reform Judaism in the spirit of the times. Modern Orthodoxy affirms the strict observance of halakhah, the Jewish legal tradition. Modern Orthodox communities are prevalent in North America, and to some extent in the UK. They see value in engaging with secular society and education, and are therefore not an entirely insular community. However, in some Modern Orthodox communities there is emphasis on separating themselves from outsiders, including other Jewish traditions, and so in practicality some will not often mix with those outside their own tradition. The Ultra-Orthodox tradition represents communities who adhere to the strictest interpretations of halakhah. They limit contact with the secular and non-orthodox world as much as possible in order to follow halakhah to the greatest extent. Some in this community refer to themselves as Haredi, tremblers (in the sense of trembling before God). The movement developed in response to the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment. The vast majority of this community was murdered in the Holocaust/Shoah, but they managed to reconstitute themselves and currently comprise significant parts of the Jewish population in the USA and Britain, particularly in Manchester and London (Baskin, 2011). When engaging with Orthodox Jewish service users, it is important to bear in mind the significance of their religious background. Since many of these communities have limited interaction with the secular world, the service user s engagement may be a secret to their community, and confidentiality will be important. Those with extremely limited external interaction may feel uneasy with some secular social customs, and may have particular issues with regards to food SOURCE: THE TELEGRAPH (TELEGRAPH.CO.UK/NEWS/RELIGION/ /INSIDE-THE-PRIVATE-WORLD-OF- and the mixing of different genders, among others. These sensitivities should be born in mind when finding an appropriate staff member to support them, and inviting them to events, offering refreshments etc.

4 Context: Gender Gender, in the Orthodox tradition, is significant in determining the roles and responsibilities a person has. The gender of a person is determined, as in Western society, by observing the physical sex appearance of the child at birth and assigning them a gender role based on this. The majority of the Torah s 613 mitzvot (commandments) apply to men. The man therefore has greater legal responsibility in ensuring that each of these commandments is kept completely. An Orthodox Jewish man, particularly in the Ultra-Orthodox community, will typically devote his life to study of Torah, Talmud and Mishnah. The woman s role is primarily to keep the home kosher and to raise the children according to Jewish custom. She is expected to take responsibility for as much domestic labour as possible, in order to free the man to devote as much of his time to study as possible. In the past century, education for Orthodox women has improved greatly, and the vast majority of Orthodox women receive a Jewish education up to age 18, as required by UK law. This often takes place in gender segregated Jewish schools, or in mixed gender schools, dependent on the location of the family and on their level of practice. In the Synagogue, genders are traditionally separated in a binary fashion. Men will sit at the front, and women at the back. In some cases, a mechitzot is used, separating the genders to each side. Women do not traditionally play a role in religious services. ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEWISH WOMEN WITH CHILDREN DURING THE FESTIVAL OF PURIM. THESE WOMEN COVER THEMSELVES AS PART OF THEIR RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT TO MODESTY. SOURCE: VOS IS NEIAS ( KICKS-OFF-WITH-READING-OF-MEGILLAH-PHOTOS/)

5 Responses: Rejection The most often publicised response to transgender Jews in Orthodoxy is rejection by the community. Chav Doherty explains: a complicated identity is viewed as trayf. Trayf literally means out of place, but it has connotations of sinfulness and non-jewishness (2010, p. 12). In order to understand why this sense of being out of place is particularly interesting in the Orthodox Jewish context, you must understand what constitutes being in or out within Orthodox Judaism. The primary Western conception of religion is that it is a belief a system of beliefs, faiths or dogmas. Judaism, particularly Orthodoxy, is not so interested in belief as in practice. Orthodoxy as a label is quite oxymoronic, as orthodox means right belief, whereas orthopraxy, right practice, might be more appropriate. The reason that one would be out of place within the Orthodox community would (or so Orthodox tradition tells us) be failure to practise Orthodoxy correctly. Feelings about one s gender are unimportant it is halakhically fine to feel transgender, but in terms of gender variant practice it is quite a different story. Sex-change operations involving the surgical removal of sexual organs are clearly forbidden on the basis of the explicit biblical prohibition, "And that which is mauled or crushed or torn or cut you shall not offer unto the Lord; nor should you do this in your land" (Leviticus 22: 24). Sterilization of women is also prohibited as recorded in Even ha-ezer 5: 11 (Bleich, 1974, p. 94). All but two published responsa from poskim generally conclude that sex reassignment surgery is not an acceptable course of action for the Orthodox Jew. There is some debate as to whether someone who has undergone this surgery should be considered a man, a woman, or something else in Jewish law. It is notable that the vast majority of responsa on the topic are concerned with external genitalia and fertility. There is relatively little material addressing issues of transgender people in the community in general. In the experience of Chav Doherty, above, he does not make reference to his genitalia when discussing his rejection by his community. Neither does the community seem to mention this, or be concerned with which gender he is supposed to represent in the halakhic context, as a justification for rejecting him. In the discussion of theories, below, the question will be asked as to whether the rejection stems from halakhic law, or from cultural prejudice. THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD, A SOURCE FOR HALAKHAH SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA (

6 Responses: Acceptance For some transgender Orthodox Jews, however, there has been a more positive response to their transition from their community. Joy Ladin, a transgender woman teaching at an Orthodox university in the USA, transitioned in 2007 after she gained tenure. Although she got off to a rocky start, she remains a professor there to this day, and has (albeit begrudgingly by some) been accepted as a woman professor within the university. Ladin s transition has proven useful for academics and others looking for halakhic rulings on transgender issues, as it sparked off a flurry of responsa from various rabbanim declaring it anything from a massive violation of Torah (Ladin, 2010, p. 51) to true halakhic gender (Wiznitzer, 2008, p. 16). Two rulings stand out as implicitly or explicitly affirming of transgender people s gender identities. Rabbi Yehuda Waldenberg was a renowned rabbi in the field of Jewish healthcare law. He addresses the issue of having sex reassignment surgery, declaring that the external organs which can be seen by the naked eye are the determinant in Jewish law (Waldenberg Eliezer, , p. 712). As such, the transgender person s halakhic sex will be male if the person has a penis and testicles, and female if they have a vulva. Their internal organs are irrelevant to determination of halakhic sex. Waldenberg addresses at length the issue of genitalia that conform to neither norm, so he is taking into account the wide variety of genital presentations that occur across humankind, but this is not relevant to this guide. The more explicitly affirming ruling comes from Rabbi Hillel Yisraeli, another Orthodox Rabbi currently serving in the Jewish community of Gothenburg, Sweden. He argues from Kabbalistic sources, that a person s true halakhic gender is contained in their neshamah and that the genitals serve only as signs of what the true gender is (Wiznitzer, 2008, p. 17). For Yisraeli, the gender of a person depends not upon their externality, but their neshamah. JOY LADIN SOURCE: CLARKSVILLE ONLINE ( G/APSU-OFFICE-OF-ACADEMIC-AFFAIRS/)

7 Theories The intention of this guide is not to pass judgement upon the varying views and practices within Orthodoxy, but to examine them with an analytical eye which will provide the reader with a better understanding of the issue and a greater ability to see alternatives to the status quo. The academic theories in this section are a collection of ideas, or lenses, with which to view the above information. They may or may not prove useful in particular situations with service users. Biological Essentialism (King, 1995, p. 4) There is a strong sense of biological essentialism throughout the more and less affirming responsa. Biological essentialism is the reduction of gender to its essential the conception that gender is defined only and entirely by genitalia (and perhaps other physical sex characteristics). The responsa are almost solely concerned with the genitalia of the transgender person. The conception that physicality alone defines gender is prevalent across many cultures, although some argue that it contains inconsistencies. The existence of intersex people, under the conceptions of biological essentialism, must mean that they either have no gender, or a third gender that is neither man nor woman. Noting this, it is rare to find biologically essentialist works which address intersex issues, as the vast majority appear to subscribe to the existence of only two genders, and intersex conditions create a paradox which some find irresolvable. To the credit of Orthodox Judaism, much work has been done and is still taking place giving halakhic rulings on the genders of people with intersex conditions. Since there is very little in the Torah regarding what defines gender, it is important to consider where the notion of biological essentialism comes from. Some would argue that it is implicit within Torah that there are two genders, defined by two physical states. Others would suggest that the biologically essentialist ideas have come from surrounding culture. Gender Polarisation (King, p. 4) Gender polarisation is the prevalent concept that there exist two mutually exclusive genders, which are absolutely opposite to one another. In the Torah, the concept that there are two genders is affirmed in Genesis 1:27, male and female he created them. That these two genders are opposite to each other and mutually exclusive is not explicitly said, making it again possible that the extra definitions of male and female are not necessarily scriptural so much as cultural. Androcentrism (King, p. 4) Androcentrism defines when the male or masculine experience or perspective is taken as the norm, and/or when this experience or perspective is assumed to hold true for all genders. When this lens is applied to transgender issues it takes on a more complex form if there appears to be heavier focus on trans women, should this be taken as an example of androcentrism? Notwithstanding discussions on whether trans women are real women, the significantly higher focus on trans women as opposed to trans men in the halakhic rulings on transgender issues suggest possible androcentrism based on halakhic biological essentialism those who have a penis and testicles are men, and therefore are of interest to halakhic scholars. Transmisogyny Transmisogyny is the intersectional interaction between transgender status (bringing transphobia with it) and womanhood (bringing misogyny with it) (Zimmer, 2014, p. 41). Linking in well with androcentrism above, the literature available on transgender issues in Judaism have a significantly disproportionate focus on trans women. One could argue that this is due to men (as defined by halakhah) being required to follow the mitzvot to a far greater degree than women, and as such the question of whether trans women are men halakhically would be crucial. Why there does not

8 exist the same focus on whether trans men are now required to follow the mitzvot would then be brought into question, though. Those who would advocate that this focus is transmisogynistic would suggest that the majority of published Orthodox literature is negative about trans women, affirming their manhood and inability to be a woman. This would support the notion that the literature does not seek simply to find halakhic truth, but to denigrate trans women so that they cease to come out or live within the Orthodox community, thus ending the threat trans women pose to the status of men within Orthodoxy. If gender can change within Judaism, the heavily gendered role structure within Orthodoxy becomes deeply unstable.

9 Conclusion This conclusion focuses more on the omissions of this guide than its content. The focus of the research was wholly binary in terms of gender this is partly due to limitations on available resources, but also on space. There is some further information in Dzmura, below. There is some attention given to the experiences of different gender transitions, in that trans women appear to experience greater scrutiny than trans men. It is for the reader to decide why this may be, amidst the possible complex causes suggested above. Unlike Christianity, there is never a single solution within Judaism. The tradition survives and thrives in debate amongst rabbanim, with greater focus on the discussion process than the resolution (if any). The contradictory rulings on transition made by different rabbanim therefore reflect the Jewish tradition well. This may be a point of solace for the transgender Jew should one rabbi reject them, another may do the opposite.

10 Glossary Halakhah A cover all term for the Jewish legal tradition. Stems from the Hebrew verb meaning to go. To follow halakhah is to walk the correct path Haskalah The Jewish enlightenment Kabbalah/Kabbalistic A tradition of Jewish mysticism. Practice dropped significantly after the Holocaust/Shoah Kashrut Laws about kosher particularly relating to food Kosher A state of being in which all mitzvot and halakhic rulings have been followed. Literally translated as clean Mishnah Also known as oral Torah. The first collection of the Jewish legal and spiritual traditions written down, c. 217CE. Second only to Torah in importance Mitzvot The 613 commandments found within the Torah Neshamah One s soul, or spirit. Usually used in Kabbalistic traditions Poskim Learned rabbanim who offer halakhic guidance on all aspects of day-to-day life Rabbi/Rabbanim A Jewish spiritual leader(s), an expert on scripture Synagogue Jewish place of worship and study Talmud Two large corpuses of text written across many centuries. They contain reflections and discussions on a huge range of issues relating to Jewish life and practice. Second only to the Torah and Mishnah in terms of importance Torah Technically the first 5 books of the Bible. In practice, the term often refers to the full Hebrew Bible Trayf Yiddish word for out of place, carrying connotations of being unclean cleanliness and kosher are significant in Orthodoxy

11 Annotated Bibliography Sources denoted here by author only, see bibliography below for full references. Baskin This work is an excellent resource compiled by a leading scholar of Jewish studies. It operates more as an encyclopaedia than a dictionary, and is useful to consult for a basic understanding of almost any unfamiliar term in Judaism. A world-leading academic publisher helps to ensure this source is accurate. Doherty Though the piece is brief it gives some insight into what transition as an Orthodox Jew can entail. The collection as a whole is also extremely enlightening for both transgender Jews and those supporting them. Recommended for Orthodox Jews attempting to reconcile transition with faith is Oren s Judaism and Gender Issues, pp , which examines halakhic rulings in depth. Since this source is compiled by and contributed to by transgender Jews, it approaches the issue from an ideal of transgender inclusion. King A helpful introduction to issues surrounding the intersection of religion and gender. The introduction introduces some key theories with which to analyse the interactions of these two phenomena, such as Bem s Lenses of Gender (see theories above). Ladin Prof. Ladin s work is of great use and encouragement for many transgender Jews. Ladin transitioned in an Orthodox environment and continues to practise to date. She offers both descriptions of her community s varying responses to her, and also analyses of why their responses occurred in those ways. For an Orthodox Jew coming to terms with their non-normative gender identity, her positive style of writing may prove affirming. Her status as a well-respected academic lends weight to her analyses and justifications of gender transition within Orthodoxy. Waldenburg I include this entry in the annotations to give an idea of how the Jewish halakhic tradition works. This multi-volume set is a collection of the responsa and rulings of one rabbi. The set represents a minute sample of the vast works created over the last two millennia on understanding Jewish law and interpreting Torah. New works are constantly being produced, with new situations examined and old rulings re-examined. In halakhic tradition, there is never a final answer a useful reality for transgender Jews. Wiznitzer A useful overview of various halakhic responses to transgender Jews. Whilst it makes some effort to air all viewpoints, it gives significantly greater space to a particular rabbi, R. Bleich, who is strongly against transition. It is worth noting that the author attends the same university that Bleich teaches at, and has authored other works with him. Therefore, whilst this is an excellent introduction to various points of view, the tone with which it portrays different responses should be viewed with some suspicion.

12 Bibliography Baskin, J. R., The Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bleich, J. D., Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature. Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, 14(3), pp Doherty, C., The Trayf Jew. In: N. Dzmura, ed. Balancing the Mechitza. Berkeley: North Atlantic Book, pp King, U., Introduction. In: U. King, ed. Religion and Gender. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp Ladin, J., A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Stern College: Gender Transition and Jewish Ethics. Tikkun, 25(4), pp Waldenberg Eliezer, R. Y., Responsa Tzitz Eliezer. Jerusalem: Salomon Press. Wiznitzer, O., Transitioning: The Halakhic Ramifications. The Observer: The Student Newspaper of Yeshiva University, 3 December, pp Zimmer, B., Among the New Words. American Speech, 89(4), pp