Elisheva Ash

My dissertation research is an ethnographic study of participants in a liberal, observant Jewish congregation in the Boston area. The congregation is a partnership minyan, an innovation that provides for limited participation by women within the perceived constraints of Orthodox Jewish law. My interlocutors value and enact both codified Jewish law (halakha) and the more diffuse, but equally powerful, norms of contemporary social liberalism. They keep kosher and regret that their children have few non-Jewish friends; they observe sexual purity laws and celebrate same-sex marriages.

My project deals with the ways members of this community combine disciplined practice and respect for canonical texts with liberal socio-political views and unorthodox concepts of God.   Like similar communities in other religions, my participants challenge the dichotomy between “conservative” and “liberal” religion.  I argue that this community is shaped by a liberal religious tradition from which they inherit values of personal autonomy and choice and a disenchanted, scientific cosmology. However, they also often affirm transcendence and defend the value of religious obligation, enacting a disciplined, tradition-oriented version of liberal religious culture. I explore their negotiations at the level of day-to-day interaction, examining how ordinary people relate to Jewish law through texts, living religious authorities, and each other. Ultimately, I’m interested in what this case can show about how people engage with authority and individualism under the conditions of modernity. I argue that for my interlocutors, individual choice is a fact of life, and the decentralized nature of Jewish religious authority allows them to choose (and occasionally create) religious interpretations that align with progressive values and lifestyles.