Susan Starr Sered

Pregnant dreaming: Search for a typology of a proposed dream genre

Dreams during pregnancy were collected from post-partum women on the maternity ward of an Israeli hospital. Our data indicate that primipara women and women with complicated obstetrical histories were more likely to report increased dreaming during pregnancy. The collected dream corpus suggests that dreams during pregnancy can be viewed as a distinct dream genre. This paper develops a tentative typology of that genre. In addition, the authors argue that the context of disclosure was highly relevant to the sorts of manifest contents that were reported.

Leisure participation and satisfaction in two European communities.

This paper compares participation in leisure activities in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg and Thionville, France. Factors associated with participation in different types of leisure activities, including health, status, household structure, attitudes towards leisure, and perceptions about leisure facilities are examined for the two communities. The study also compares the contribution of participation in different activities to satisfaction in the two countries. Data are based on a questionnaire distributed to a random sample of 95 elderly individuals living in Luxembourgs urban areas and 100 in Thionville. In general, differences in factors associated with participation are greater between the two countries than among different activities within each country. The study concludes that elderly individuals derive different meaning from participation in leisure activities in Thionville and Luxembourg.

Religious Rituals and Secular Rituals: Interpenetrating Models of Childbirth in a Modern, Israeli Context*

LA. etudie linteraction des rituels religieux et laiques au moment de la naissance a Jerusalem, dans le contexte dune societe moderne et pluraliste. Lanalyse sappuie sur une enquete menee en 1989 dans la section maternite dun hopital de Jerusalem, aupres de femmes enceintes ou ayant recemment accouche. LA. montre que la fecondite des femmes en Israel saccompagne de nombreux rituels, religieux ou non, qui contribuent a produire une multiplicite de modeles lies a la fecondite et a la naissance

Rachel's tomb: Societal liminality and the revitalization of a shrine

An examination of records left by pilgrims visiting Rachels Tomb in Bethlehem reveals flourishing themes and rituals during the 1940s. These years were also a time of major cultural upheaval for the Jewish community of Palestine. The author suggests that an increase in pilgrimage to shrines of saints can be seen as an attempt to make sense out of current reality by linking it to sacred history. An important impetus for the development of a pilgrimage site may be the perceived convergence of aspects of the saints biography with current political and social conditions.

IDEOLOGY, AUTONOMY, AND SISTERHOOD An Analysis of the Secular Consequences of Women's Religions

All known womens religions provide transient help for specific women. Some womens religions also affect, or at least work toward, permanent and structural advantages to women as a group. A variety of factors explain these two models. Those womens religions that offer long-term collective betterment for women tend to be situated in societies in which women form ongoing “sisterhoods,” in which women have autonomy regarding their own sexuality and fertility, and in which women control significant economic resources. Moreover, these religions tend to elaborate and institutionalize gender as a cultural category. Womens religions that provide only short-term and individual assistance tend to attract women through illness and to emphasize spirit possession rituals.

Conflict, Complement, and Control: Family and Religion among Middle Eastern Jewish Women in Jerusalem

This article presents a cross-cultural exploration of the interaction between religion and family in the lives of women. It focuses on elderly Middle Eastern Jewish women who, during the course of their life spans, moved from a conflicting to a complementary experience of family and religion. The author argues that opposition between religion and family seldom arises for women who control their own time or resources, or who control a domestic sphere they themselves see as sacred. Women who wish to conduct their religious lives in the public sphere, especially in the context of an extrafamilial hierarchy or as religious professionals, are likely to come into conflict with their families over issues of competition for their time or allegiance. Official religious doctrines are not likely to determine how particular women experience family and religion; even women who maneuver within the same theological framework may experience the relationship between family and religion in very different ways.

The liberation of widowhood

This article examines an important aspect of the religious world of a group of elderly, pious, Kurdish Jewish women in Jerusalem. While previous scholars have stressed the connection between menopause (with the resultant loss in fertility and so menstrual pollution) and the increased religious inolvement of old women, I argue that the broadening of the religious lives that these women have experienced in old age has been above all connected to widowhood. The women of this study see old age (and more specifically widowhood) as a time for deepening and expanding their religious lives. Now that they are no longer busy with the demands of husbands and small children, they can devote increased time and energy to religious pursuits. Specifically, the focus of their religious world has shifted from the domestic to the public sphere. The synagogue, senior citizens day center, cemeteries, and holy tombs are the most important public, sacred spaces frequented by the women.