Religious-Zionism developed in Israel as an attempt to combine halakhic commitment with the values of modernity, two networks of meaning not easily reconciled. This book presents a study of the discourse on the body and sexuality within religious-Zionism as it has developed in recent decades, including in cyberspace, and considers such issues as homosexuality, lesbianism, masturbation, and the relationships between the sexes. It also analyzes the shift to a pastoral discourse and alternative religious perspectives dealing with this discourse together with its far wider social and cultural implications, offering a new paradigm for reading religious cultures.

Religious-Zionism developed in Israel as an attempt to combine halakhic commitment with the values of modernity, two networks of meaning not easily reconciled. This book presents a study of the discourse on the body and sexuality within religious-Zionism as it has developed in recent decades, including in cyberspace, and considers such issues as homosexuality, lesbianism, masturbation, and the relationships between the sexes. It also analyzes the shift to a pastoral discourse and alternative religious perspectives dealing with this discourse together with its far wider social and cultural implications, offering a new paradigm for reading religious cultures.

Acknowledgments 8 Introduction 9 Chapter 1. The New Religious-Zionist Halakhah: A Conceptual Outline 18 Chapter 2. The Shift in the Discourse: Autarchic Male Sexuality 26 Mapping Reactions 34 The Pastoral Discourse 52 A Haredi Alternative 70 Chapter 3. The Shift in the Discourse: Autarchic Female Sexuality 78 Female Sexuality: Masturbation and Lesbianism 79 Mapping Reactions 85 The Effects of the Value Discourse on Halakhic Rulings 93 Chapter 4. Real and Imagined Women 120 Defining Women 123 The Conflict Discourse 135 Excluding Real Women 166 The Female Refusal 180 On Female Sexuality 183 Chapter 5. The Other Voice 193 Attitudes toward Homosexuality and Lesbianism in the New Discourse 194 The Haredi Responsum 200 The Religious Protest 206 Looking Back 214 Chapter 6. Concluding Reflections: From a Realist Disposition to an Imagined Realm 231 Appendix. The Discourse on Sexuality, Metaphysics, and Messianism 243 Bibliography 276 Index 293