Contemporary Experiences of Mikvah Immersion: One of two reflexive sessions on the increasing interest in mikvah among individuals, communities, and academics, Part 2

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

Curiosity and engagement with mikvah has been increasing since the mid-twentieth century, and expanding beyond Orthodox Jewish communities since the late 1990s. Since the 1990’s, academic interest has grown in mikvah-adjacent subjects: Jewish concepts of body, purity and Niddah observance. Very recently academic scholarship on mikvah has begun expanding upon earlier historical descriptions and questioning established assumptions about mikvah. This pair of transdisciplinary roundtables surveys current research on historical and contemporary issues surrounding mikvah with the collective goal of revealing the complexity of contemporary mikvah interest at individual, communal, regional, and even national levels. Collectively these roundtables demonstrate the richness of mikvah as a subject for exploring Jewish (and by contrast non-Jewish) concepts of temporality, social identities and relationships, and even practice politics of embodiment and body-politics.

This roundtable session orients us to ethnographies mikvah in our contemporary period. Cara Rock-Singer’s argues that the Modern Mikveh Movement leverages the mikvah tradition into a ritual technology for a Jewish feminist ethics of care that innovates new religious tradition and new forms of social connection centered within the lived, felt experience of water immersion. Liza Bernstein and Isobel-Marie Johnston both worked with Orthodox and non-Orthodox interlocutors to understand the intersections of mikvah and Niddah (Liza) and mikvah with concepts of self, wellbeing, and experiences of healing (Isobel). Bernstein’s work brings forward the ways that mikvah provides both cisgender and genderqueer immersers with opportunities to cultivate their relationships with their bodies and gender identities. Johnston’s work brings forward that the phenomenon of mikvah healing reflects the restoration of wellbeing through feelings of “peace, wholeness, and lightening” that recenter a self discombobulated by suffering.

Sub Unit

• Modern Jewish History in Europe, Asia, Israel, and Other Communities

Moderator

• Orit Avishai, Fordham University

Discussants

• Cara Rock-Singer, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• Liza Bernstein, Northwestern University

• Isobel-Marie Johnston, 6520 S McAllister Ave

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 10