Community Event: Lihi Ben Shitrit: Women and the Holy City- The Struggle Over Jerusalem's Sacred Space

Jerusalem’s Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif is the holiest place in the world for Jews, the third-holiest place for Muslims and a constant feature in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Yet the gendered dimensions of inter-communal disputes over sacred space in Jerusalem, as well as in other holy places around the world, have been largely neglected, as have women’s roles in these site-specific conflicts. An implicit association of women with peaceful politics and syncretic religious practices has obscured the fact that women are often key actors in inter-communal contestation of holy places. In this book talk, Prof. Lihi Ben Shitrit studies three contemporary women’s movements across the religious divide, to shed further light onto the intersections of religion, gender, and politics regarding access to this sacred space.