"קבלות שבת שלום כיתה א'": הכרה במגדר ובאימהוּת בריטואל רפורמי ישראלי

The Shabbat service is one of the most popular practices in the Jewish liturgy, and over the years it has reflected various social and cultural changes. The service is not only textual prayer but also a performative act, including bodily gestures and using sacred objects and space.In this article, based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Yuval Reform congregation located in Gedera, I analyze special Shabbat services for the first day of school. I argue that the ceremony is constructed by the women in the congregation as a gender performance advocating gender equality and motherhood experiences. Every year, they create a new prayer book, which includes prayers honoring the activities of teachers and mothers, and creatively perform physical rituals by using sacred symbols charged with new interpretations.Thus the congregants are not only undermining both Orthodox rules and the structure of Reform Shabbat services; they are also rejecting patriarchal norms and expressions in the religious space. Although the Reform congregation thereby positions itself as a gender-safe zone, the ethnographic analysis also exposes resistance and tensions – reflecting the difficulty of abolishing heteronormative gender norms and Jewish traditional perceptions in Israeli society.