Mikveh Project
Waters of Contention
The Mikveh Project; Photographs by Janice Rubin, Text by Leah Lax
For many modern Jewish women there is no more contentious image than the waters of the mikveh. The ‘ritual bath' is fraught with notions of uncleanliness, impurity and inferiority that traditional male dominated Judaism has imposed upon Jewish women. The curse cast upon menstrual blood is seen as a primitive and punitive denigration of the female body.