Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse

“In this exciting new book Yakir Englander and Avi Sagi break new ground in treating contemporary religious-Zionism in Israel as a community with particular religious and spiritual inclinations and a complex relationship to modernity. Focusing on religious and halakhic questions around the body and in particular sexual ethics, and including an important discussion of how the Internet has changed halakhic adjudication, Englander and Sagi argue that this community has integrated a personalistic dimension to sexual practices and approaches to the body.” -- Shaul Magid, Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Chair in Jewish Studies, Indiana University
“Numerous studies have shown how secular Zionism undertook a revolution with respect to sexuality and the body. But until now, no systematic work has examined religious-Zionism on these questions. Sagi and Englander’s book not only reveals the dynamic way that religious-Zionism has created its own bodily revolution, but also how much contemporary religious discourse around sexuality owes to “virtual Halakhah” on the Internet. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the world of Orthodox Judaism today.” -- David Biale, Emanuel Ringelblum Professor of Jewish History, Chair, Department of History, University of California, Davis
The questions raised by the volume are important. … Yakir Englander and Avi Sagi have made a substantive contribution to what is now unabashedly called ‘Israel studies,’ an area of study bounded not only by geography but also by mindset. -- Sander Gilman, author of The Jew’s Body * Studies in Contemporary Jewry *