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Cover JAJ 10 3 2019

Abstract:

Karin Hügel, "Jewish Legal Interpretations of Female Homoeroticism".

In the Hebrew Bible there is no prohibition of female homoeroticism. In the Mishnah and the Tosefta legal interpretations of it cannot be found either. Later Jewish legal positions concerning female homoeroticism can be captured under three headings, viz. (1) "Sifra Acharei Mot on Lev 18:3 (no marriage of female and male homoerotic couples)"; (2) "Talmudic sayings about female homoeroticism in the Palestinian Talmud Gittin 8:10,49c (a controversy about whether female homoeroticism is a sexual offence or not) and in the tractates of the Babylonian Talmud Yebamoth 76a (female homoeroticism is mere obscenity) and Shabbath 65a-b (reservations about sisters sleeping together)"; and (3) "Maimonides: different views on female homoeroticism in Mishneh Torah, Sefer Kedushah, Hilkhot Issurei Biah 21:8 and Commentary on the Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:4". These Halakhic texts are read queerly in order to sustain Jewish lesbian women and other queer persons of today.

  • Karin Hügel, "Jüdische gesetzliche Auslegungen zu weiblicher Homoerotik", in: Journal of Ancient Judaism, Volume 10, Number 3, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2019, 416-454.

    Journal of Ancient Judaism 10,3 2019
    ISSN: 1869-3296,
    eISSN: 2196-7954,
    EUR 38,00.

    I gave lectures in English on "Jewish Legal Interpretations of Female Homoeroticism" at the 1st European Lesbian* Conference "Lesbians in Europe: Connect, Reflect, Act, Transform" on October 7, 2017 in Brotfabrik in Vienna, Austria; at the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, on July 4, 2019 at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy and at the Annual Conference of the European Association of Biblical Studies on August 14, 2019 at the University of Warsaw, Poland having won the travel grant of the European Association of Biblical Studies.

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