Halakhicniddahconsultants and the Orthodox Women’s Movement in Israel

This article takes a critical look at the story of enlightened progress that has informed analyses of Israeli Orthodoxy in recent years. Celebrating the successes of Orthodox reformists, this narrative brands resistance to challenges to traditional institutions, authority structures and cultural norms as unenlightened fundamentalism, patriarchal backlash or unreflexive apologetics. The article offers a more nuanced interpretation through an analysis of the training of women as halakhic niddah consultants and the context in which this profession emerged. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data and content analysis, the author considers the training and certification of halakhic consultants; their pathways into training; their multiple roles and venues of operation; the legal advice they provide; and the sensibilities and interpretative strategies that shape their reading of the Halakha. At each juncture, it is demonstrated that halakhic consultants bear concurrent traditionalist and reformist potentialities. Contextualizing the emergence of women halakhic consultants within other changes in the social organization of niddah, it is argued that halakhic consultants are more appropriately understood as part of a conversation about niddah within the Orthodox community. The article concludes that religious change is not produced by renegade mavericks, but is rather the product of negotiations between a range of voices as they respond to and attempt to accommodate internal and external pressures and challenges.