Who Is the Woman Who Desires Life? Israeli Female Religious Leaders Craft Liturgy for Jewish–Arab Peace in Wartime

Abstract

The Israel–Hamas War, which erupted with the horrifying events of 7 October 2023, stands as one of the pivotal breaking points in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict since its inception. Both sides have been left battered, pained, and devoid of any trust or hope for peace. Among the local immediate social grassroots responses to repairing the fractured relationship was the production of a special prayer booklet focused on coexistence and shared life liturgy produced by the Reform Movement in Israel, a non-Orthodox Jewish community. In this article, I analyze four prayers for peace included in this booklet, written by Israeli female religious leaders. I examine how these women crafted prayers to promote a message of peace. The texts establish a maternal dialogue to foster a space of trust and security, aiming to replace the exclusive focus on the God of Israel with a deity encompassing all nations. Through these liturgical creations, the authors challenge both the Israeli Orthodox establishment, which excludes non-Orthodox identities and expressions, and the hegemonic national order, which suppresses discussions of coexistence during times of conflict and marginalizes women’s political involvement. Therefore, I conclude that the creators of these prayers emerge as significant gendered political actors in an era marked by distrust, anger, hostility, and fear. They demonstrate that a message of coexistence can resonate within the religious sphere.

1. Introduction

“Women have the ability to hold onto brokenness, to speak, to cry, and society needs that. We have a responsibility as women leaders to provide and give this to society as a whole… Religious female leadership is very much needed now—unfortunately, throughout history, we women leaders often feel that we don’t have a place, and so many men are leading this moment. It’s important for us to raise this voice, the maternal voice that holds loyalty to so many things at once, and above all, to the sanctity of life.”

(Rabbi Tamar Appelbaum-Elad, June 2024)

On the morning of 7 October 2023, a new and devastating chapter in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict began (Roskies 2024). On that Shabbat and Simchat Torah, a surprise attack started with a massive barrage of rockets and mortar shells targeting large areas of Israel, especially southern and central Israel. Under cover of this assault, approximately 4000 terrorists launched a multi-front invasion into Israel, attacking IDF bases, engaging in firefights, and infiltrating civilian areas. This attack resulted in more than a thousand deaths, which were mostly civilians. The massacre at the “Nova” festival near Kibbutz Re’im became the largest single terrorist attack in Israel’s history. Many civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, were murdered or abducted and then subjected to severe abuse. A total of 251 people, including foreigners, Israelis, and IDF soldiers, were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, while significant damage was inflicted on communities in the Gaza envelope and other areas.

In response to the deep crisis that emerged, there was a growing sense of distrust among the Israeli Jewish public towards the Arab community, and this sentiment has led to a more widespread loss of recognition that there is a chance for peace between the two peoples. Reminiscent of past historical traumas (Feingold et al. 2024), the events of 7 October have contributed to an erosion of social cohesion in Israel, manifested in intensified social tensions, incitement against Arab communities on social media, and extreme rhetoric voiced by politicians across various media platforms.1 Arab citizens were perceived by those who voiced racist and inciting statements as supporters of the Palestinian cause and even of Hamas rather than as individuals demonstrating empathy and solidarity with the immense pain experienced by the nation.

Organizations dedicated to promoting civil society and coexistence have been and are still forced to justify their existence in light of these difficult times.2 This is in addition to grassroots social initiatives, such as in Nof Hagalil, a mixed Jewish–Arab community in northern Israel, where dozens of Jewish and Arab volunteers initiated joint security patrols,3 and in the Bedouin settlement of Rahat in southern Israel, where a Jewish–Arab emergency response team was established to distribute food packages to Jewish and Arab individuals, who had to evacuate their homes due to the war.4

Amidst the war, the Israeli Reform Jewish movement, a liberal non-Orthodox religious community, released a collection of prayers and poems in Hebrew and Arabic aimed at promoting coexistence—entitled “Who is the Man Who Desires Life” (see Appendix A)5. The booklet included texts primarily written by female non-Orthodox religious leaders, along with quotations from the Torah and poems by Israeli and Arab poets. In Israel, the Reform movement is an excluded denomination and subject to delegitimization and discrimination by institutionalized Orthodoxy, which rejects any non-Orthodox Jewish performance, identity or discourse (Cohen and Susser 2010). As a result, the Reform movement, which is based on a religious pluralistic liberal agenda, works to intersect with other excluded groups in Israeli society to promote civil rights, gender equality and social justice (Kamir 2022).

This study focuses on four prayers, which are included in the booklet, and presents a qualitative analysis of liturgies for promoting coexistence and establishing Israeli–Palestinian peace that were used and distributed during the war by Israeli women serving as religious leaders in the public sphere in Israel, three of them Reform rabbis. Through qualitative analysis, including textual analysis of the prayers and semi-structured interviews with their authors, I examine the meaning these women assigned to writing the prayers; their social, political, and spiritual interpretations and motivations; their sources of inspiration; and their centers of faith.

These prayers demonstrate that religious language and rhetoric can facilitate interfaith dialogue rather than merely preserving Jewish exclusivity or a victim consciousness that is deeply rooted in historiography and Jewish historical narratives. I argue that these prayers present a subversive message in a reality where discourse on coexistence and peace is marginalized and receives exclusion and condemnation. In the realm of gender, religious responses and ritual creativity remain largely controlled by Orthodox men; likewise, political arenas continue to marginalize women by excluding them from key diplomatic processes. In a reality where the rift is so deep and conflict has escalated, women’s liturgical writing has emerged as a potential solution.

I suggest that this particular liturgy written by non-Orthodox women may also be read in continuity with a much longer tradition of Jewish women’s prayer, beginning with the biblical figure of Hannah. Rabbinic literature famously identifies Hannah’s silent, embodied, and emotionally charged supplication (1 Samuel 1) as a foundational model for Jewish prayer, with the Talmud (TB Berakhot 31a) deriving central legal and theological principles of worship from her act of prayer. Hannah’s prayer establishes a paradigm in which personal anguish, voiced from a position of marginality, becomes a legitimate and authoritative mode of religious expression. Read in this light, the peace-oriented prayers composed by contemporary women rabbis do not represent a rupture from Jewish tradition but rather an expansion of this early female template. Like Hannah’s prayer, these modern liturgical texts foreground subjectivity, moral urgency, and ethical vulnerability, while rearticulating Jewish prayer as a space in which women’s voices shape communal norms and theological imagination (Plaskow 1991).

Thus, this feminine liturgical creation may challenge existing patriarchal traditions regarding the ways in which Jewish tradition and liturgy have been shaped and articulated through male authority. I therefore identify this form of “female religious labor” as part of a pioneering trend of women who seek to stake a claim in contemporary Jewish creativity. According to Lavie (2008), Jewish women have always maintained a rich and continuous tradition of prayer that has been largely excluded from the official, male-centered liturgical canon. In A Jewish Woman’s Prayer Book she challenges the assumption that women were passive recipients of religious language by showing how they actively composed prayers addressing the full cycle of life—birth, love, illness, loss, and daily devotion—often in moments when established liturgy failed to offer comfort or meaning. Drawing on prayers written by and for Jewish women across different historical periods and geographic contexts, Lavie demonstrates that women’s prayer functioned as a legitimate form of religious expression, authority, and theological reflection, even when it took place in private, domestic, or non-institutional settings. Her work reveals prayer as a space where women articulated embodied experience, emotional vulnerability, and spiritual agency, thereby expanding conventional definitions of Jewish worship. Ultimately, she makes a corrective intervention in Jewish liturgical history, asserting that women’s prayers are not marginal or supplementary but constitute an integral and enduring dimension of Jewish religious tradition.

In addition, Yael Levine has published scholarly studies and essays focusing primarily on various aspects of women in Judaism, and has also authored a series of prayers that have been widely adopted. Levine has been a partner in the creation of new prayers, including a prayer for a woman who has been raped, a prayer for a woman after divorce, a prayer for finding a life partner, etc.6 In addition, Levine (2004) examined the figure of Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh, and the midrashic traditions associated with her, particularly in the context of the Passover Seder and interpretations of the Haggadah, including supplementary liturgical sections centered on women. She analyzes Bithiah’s multiple appearances in the midrashim, her portrayal as a convert, and her role as the one who raises Moses. These examples point to a trend that I also identify in this study: the way in which these women perceive themselves as partners in a form of religious creativity that has the capacity to generate a new gendered discourse on the worlds of ritual, prayer, and the Jewish text.

First, I offer a brief overview of the contributions made by certain groups of women to the development of discourses of peace and coexistence within their socio-historical context. I focus on their activism to promote and initiate coexistence rituals and performance in religious frameworks. After the research method is explained, I present each of the four prayers, including both textual analysis and author perspective. In conclusion, I discuss the commonalities found in the prayers and elaborate on how this case study might shed light on the responses of religious women, particularly those involved in spiritual and religious leadership, to contemporary national conflicts.

2. Women as Peacemakers: Their Role in Shaping Messages and Practices of Reconciliation

Historically, the involvement of women in politics, peacekeeping, and religious reconciliation has been limited by patriarchal systems. Importantly, women started to acquire equal rights in Western countries only by the early and mid-20th century (Sneider 2010). Nonetheless, biblical literature depicts some women as having taken active political roles during times of peace as well as war; for example, Jezebel, Yael, and Deborah, to name only a few. Notwithstanding her infamous reputation among the biblical authors, Jezebel was married to Ahab, King of Israel, in order to strengthen the connection between the kingdoms of Tyre and Israel. Yael, the wife of Heber the Kenite (extensively mentioned in the Book of Judges, chapters 4 and 5), is known for killing Sisera, the commander of the army of Jabin, King of Hazor, when he fled from the battle in which his army was defeated by the armies of Israel. As such, she played a significant role in Israel’s victory over the Canaanites during the period of the Judges. In the same conflict, Deborah is recognized as a prophetess, whose song of thanksgiving and victory praises the victory of the Israelites over the Canaanites with the help of God, while criticizing the tribes that refrained from participating in the war because they were not directly threatened by Sisera.

Not only in a biblical or historical context do women of the Jewish people have a place in action and discourse surrounding issues of the military and security, but also within the contemporary ethno-national context of the lived reality of the State of Israel. Israeli women have been central partners in the Zionist project and in shaping the existential security of the state since its inception, not as a marginal or exceptional addition, but as an integral component of both the national ethos and its practical realization. Already during the period of the Yishuv, women played active roles in the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi—as fighters, couriers, intelligence agents, and logistical organizers—thereby challenging conventional gendered divisions between “front” and “home front” (Yuval-Davis 1997). Iconic figures such as Sarah Aaronsohn, one of the founders of the NILI underground network, and Hannah Senesh, the parachutist and poet, became symbols of devotion, sacrifice, and female courage within the national struggle, while also serving as cultural sites for negotiating the boundaries of femininity, heroism, and self-sacrifice (Almog 2000).

With the establishment of the state, the principle of women’s conscription into the Israel Defense Forces was institutionalized as part of the “people’s army” doctrine; an exceptional move in comparative international perspective, which reflected both an egalitarian ideology and an existential security necessity in a context of ongoing threat (Yuval-Davis 1997). Although in practice women were excluded for many years from combat roles and senior command positions, their very presence within the military system contributed to the formation of a civic-national identity in which military service constitutes a central axis of belonging. In recent decades, a significant transformation has taken place: women are increasingly integrated into senior command positions, combat units, intelligence, cyber operations, and strategic decision-making arenas, and they occupy key roles in the Israel Security Agency, the Mossad, and the defense industries. These developments are not merely the outcome of feminist struggles for equality, but also reflect an institutional recognition that diverse female participation strengthens both security effectiveness and societal resilience (Sasson-Levy 2003). Thus, the historical continuum from the Zionist Yishuv to contemporary Israel demonstrates that women are not only “bearing the burden” of security but are active partners in shaping it, combining national commitment, gendered agency, and a reconfiguration of both civic and military notions of heroism.

However, since women’s involvement in formal political decision-making processes has varied across societies but has often been restricted, they can play dynamic non-institutional roles in peace-building in civil society (Porter 2003). Marieme Helie-Lucas, an Algerian sociologist, who is the founder of the Women Living Under Muslim Laws international solidarity network,7 argues that “History will acknowledge the crucial role of women human rights defenders in building up sane and safe societies… Which values are we betraying when we expose crimes committed in our name by our own governments? Certainly not the values that are enshrined in each and every one of our constitutions—values that our governments and armies so often trample. Rather than ‘traitors’, we are the very guardians of these values.” (UN Press Release 1999).

Throughout history, women have been key advocates for peace, opposing militarism and promoting reconciliation. They have campaigned against nuclear weapons, mass destruction, and the arms trade. As activists, community leaders, and survivors of war, women play crucial roles in peace-building, bridging political, religious, and ethnic divides. Their leadership is especially evident in local communities, where they resolve conflicts and develop essential peace-building skills. Despite these contributions, their efforts often go unnoticed and undervalued (Rehn and Sirleaf 2002, p. 76).

The majority of research on women and war views women as victims rather than as active agents, largely as a result of patriarchal structures. Nonetheless, Karam (2000) reported that women in fact occupy a number of roles and create different fates for themselves, as war is also a site of potential change. According to Julian (1997), women, in fact, deconstruct the concept of ‘victimized self’ when taking action against victimization.

Ultimately, most of the research addressing women’s involvement in peace promotion has not focused on religious contexts, religious women, or religious spaces. Therefore, this study contributes to the understanding that women are not merely victims of patriarchal structures, especially during crises that intensify male dominance in decision-making and delay peace resolution. Rather, they are agents of change capable of promoting coexistence, even in religious spaces that typically exclude them and are dominated by men. It is important to examine women’s efforts and the pursuit of peace discourse not only within civil society, secular practices, and civic initiatives but also within the public sphere, particularly in religious spaces, which provide distinct resources and levels of access, in order to consider the specific resources these spaces offer to support them.

3. Methodology

Since the outbreak of the “Iron Swords” war and until its conclusion, I have studied prayers, new rituals, and various spiritual and religious responses that emerged, demonstrating the creative ways in which communities and individuals coped with the war (Ben-Lulu 2025a). This study, which is a product of this broader project, is based on a qualitative analysis that included textual analysis of the written texts and semi-structured interviews with the four authors of the prayers, who serve in non-Orthodox rabbinical roles in Israel, and another interview with Israeli Muslim Arab peace activists. Additionally, the content analysis of the prayers initially involved mapping out the key elements, thereby identifying the addressee and speaker. Next, I focused on linguistic expressions, paraphrases, and intertextuality and identified quotations from traditional sources that were incorporated into the prayers. I placed significant emphasis on the verbs used to identify the political message, not just the conceptual message, that the prayers sought to convey.

In the qualitative-interpretive research on the positioning of researchers in the field, diversity in disciplinary backgrounds and different national identities contributed to the analytical work. I am an Israeli Jewish anthropologist studying non-Orthodox prayers in Israel over the past year (Ben-Lulu 2022, 2025b).

Recognizing the gap between the researcher’s interpretation and the poet’s intention, I explored interviewee motivations, interpretations, and diverse liturgical choices, as well as their general agenda concerning the intersection of women-war-liturgy. I adopted a qualitative feminist approach that allowed me to recognize the fluidity and dynamism of the interview process (Clarke and Braun 2019). In other words, at times, the first author himself became the interviewee and was asked about his own prayer habits and even my hope for peace among nations. He made an effort not to drift into political discourse and to remain on a professional level.

Another example of challenging the power dynamics between the interviewer and the interviewee was the decision to read aloud the prayers they had written. This poetic performative act was a powerful moment that allowed them to hear the prayer spoken aloud, not just read it in writing or recite it themselves. It was discovered that this approach also helped them provide additional perspectives, some of which emerged for the first time at the moment of hearing the prayer. There were even moments when, immediately after the reciting, they judged their own prayers: “I wrote that?! I cannot believe it; it sounds good,” said one of the interviewees. All these reactions helped to recognize the wide range of interpretations that the prayer creators brought to their work and to explore their reflexive experience.

4. Mothers’ Prayer, by Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum and Ibtisam Mahameed

On 5 July 2024, the “Mothers’ March” took place, led by the mothers of the hostages held captive by Hamas, marking nine months of captivity. The headquarters for the return of the hostages issued a public call to join the mothers, noting how the motif of nine months forms a poignant parallel to the months of pregnancy: “For nine months, they carried them in their wombs and awaited their arrival into the world; for nine months, they have been in Gaza, and the mothers await their return home.” and close acquaintances, which led her to write various prayers. In 2014, the “Mothers’ Prayer” (see Appendix B) was thus written to amplify the voices of mothers in promoting peace, emphasizing the place of motherhood in the context of war and conflict. Its co-author, Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum, is one of the most recognized religious leaders in Israel today, particularly among liberal religious voices dedicated to the cause of coexistence. She is the founder of Zion, an egalitarian non-Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem, and serves as Vice President of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel. In 2010, she was chosen by Forward magazine as one of the five most influential religious leaders in Israel for her efforts toward pluralism and Jewish freedom.

Since the outbreak of the war, Rabbi Elad-Appelbaum has lost family members in the IDF operation Protective Edge (Tzuk Eitan). She wrote “The Prayers of the Mothers” with Ibtisam Mahameed, an Arab-Israeli peace activist. Mahameed is a recipient of the “Unsung Heroes” Peace Prize from the Dalai Lama awarded in 2009 and serves as the chairperson of the organization, Peace Begins Within.8 Both of these leaders partner and lead joint Jewish–Arab initiatives to promote shared prayer and faith.

For Rabbi Appelbaum-Elad, prayer is a spiritual tool to cope with harsh reality and to establish a sensitive theological relationship between the worshipper and God on the basis of consent:

The only language left these days is the language of prayer. Prayer enters when a person runs out of words, and it helps us pray, plead and beg for mercy. In the midst of the broken words, we only sought to pray. It is a type of training space—where we practice a different type of relationship so that we can learn how to live together and see the other. Therefore, we ask God for permission to offer a prayer. The difference between wickedness and permission is the foundation of consent. Even speaking to God requires consent, in contrast to a world of wickedness—where things are done without consent, through abduction, violence, and conquest. Even God asked for human consent; He prays with us and asks us to choose good and hope. It is a very sensitive and cautious act. This is why prayer has the power to stand against wickedness, division, and destruction, and with sensitivity, it can weave broken faith back together.

The prayer of these two women has been translated into many languages and recognized in numerous communities. Rabbi Elad-Appelbaum shares the following:

We felt that each of us needed to speak from her own tradition. We talked, and each of us wrote both her own words and those of the other’s tradition. Each of us prayed—Ibtisam opened her hands and prayed, and I sat and wrote out of her pain, her cry, and her fear. I did the same—we began by praying together, and then the prayer was born. Afterward, it was clear that this was not one shared prayer but rather two prayers that we connected from two different traditions. Then, we began working on it further—each of us looked at her own parts and refined them. I could see how important it was for her that we pray with our hands, with our bodies, that we cry. It was important for her to bring the broken body into the broken prayer. I found myself with the words—asking ‘Remember us for life,’ this is a time of judgment, we ask to be sealed for life—this was the process itself.

Mahame emphasized that prayer is a spiritual call for self-reflection and personal action; peace begins with a small personal decision rooted in faith and the ability to let go of anger:

This is not just another prayer… This is duʿāʾ (دُعَاء in Arabic), an act of supplication. I seek to spread a lot of love and call for addressing everyone’s anger. This prayer is a request to eradicate and confront anger; it all begins with ‘me.’ Peace starts within me. Before we ask to make peace in the world, we must first begin at home. How can I talk about peace if I am not speaking with my daughter-in-law or my friend? We need to think about what happens after the anger because then comes revenge, and that is dangerous… In the village, they call me Mother Teresa (she laughs).

The prayer begins with a well-known quote from the Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) liturgy: “Remember us for life, O King who desires life,” and continues with a verse from Psalms (147:3): “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” It appeals to God to hear the prayers of mothers, who have a key role in fostering peace in the world and are responsible for its sustenance. The prayer then presents a universal ethic, standing firmly against murder, killing, fear, anger, and hatred, and calls for the promotion of peace and life.

It draws upon the lament from the Book of Lamentations (“For these I weep”) and describes the pain of the children and the desperate, suffering parents, especially the tears of the women who cry out for mercy. The prayer calls on God to hear their plea, to grant mercy, to help contain disappointment and sorrow, and asks to be inscribed in the Book of Life (as is customary during the Jewish Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur). This is the testament of the prayer and the cry of the women: “Let us choose life,” as those who bring life into the world. This is how Rabbi Elad-Appelbaum describes it and connects her feminine spiritual vision to her grandmother; a feminine methodology of prayer passed from grandmother to granddaughter:

Women have the ability to hold into brokenness, to speak, to cry, and society needs that. We have a responsibility as women leaders to provide and give this to society as a whole. We called it the ‘Prayer of the Mothers’ because it’s mothers—those who brought life into the world and now see life being destroyed. Faith (emunah in Hebrew) comes from the word ‘mother’ (imah in Hebrew), and it also reflects God’s trust in us. We need the ability to ask. The Zohar9 says that a person asks for the chance to be born again—and that’s asking for a second chance. It’s the opportunity to be reborn, to live. Mothers, who bring life and cry out for life, do everything we do for the sake of living, and we must place life at the center, not death. This is a deeply significant theological and political statement. At the same time, it is a pluralistic feminist prayer—about the feminine and about all of humanity, not just for women. It’s asking for an opening, for faith, for the children, and for the fighters.

…I remember my Moroccan grandmother. Although she was not an official figure in the synagogue, she was such an important presence. I remember how much her prayers mattered to my grandfather and to me. She taught me to pray, no matter the situation. Not to despair of mercy, to stand by the mezuzah10, and pray with devotion. She, and many other women, are sources of faith, and society needs such women. Religious female leadership is very much needed now—unfortunately, throughout history, we women leaders often feel that we don’t have a place, and so many men are leading this moment. It’s important for us to raise this voice, the maternal voice that holds loyalty to so many things at once, and above all, to the sanctity of life.

Mahameed, who identifies as a Palestinian-Israeli, emphasized that their connection stems from the fact that both of them are mothers:

Because of the womb, my womb and her womb are the same, I am nine months pregnant, and so is she. She is raising children, and I am raising children. We both share the fear for our children, about how they will grow up, especially during wars. I don’t want my son to die in a war and be called a hero. I don’t want him to be called a hero; he could be a rabbit for all I care, as long as he is alive. This is a visceral feeling, and women have it, but men have high egos, which creates wars. Like Sadat’s wife, Jehan pushed for the peace agreement and succeeded in ending the cycle of bloodshed. Unfortunately, there are no women in the negotiation process, and the government does not support women’s peace organizations.

Mahameed claims that the female body, specifically the womb, serves as a channel that transcends political barriers or religious divisions and allows for the recognition of a shared gender destiny. Pervasive fear is the central emotion that creates a consciousness seeking to oppose war. She thus reaffirms the maternal longing and emotion to protect her son’s life, contrasted with the dichotomy between the male ego, which fosters conflict, and maternal gentleness, which fosters care and security. Like her partner in this prayer writing, she criticizes the way women’s roles are erased and marginalized in political decision-making arenas.

5. A Prayer for the Children of the World, by Rabbi Nava Hefetz

During decades of conflict between people, children become the frontline; they are murdered, slaughtered, and abducted (Nikolic-Ristanovic 2001; Singer 2006). In this current war, among the Israeli hostages are three babies. Conversely, Palestinian reports indicate that a significant number of the victims are children, who, among those who survive, endure profound loss and widespread hunger.

In response to this painful reality, where children have to pay the price for the wars of adults, Rabbi Nava Hefetz, the educational director of the nongovernmental organization “Rabbis for Human Rights” authored the Prayer for the Children of the World. This prayer (see Appendix C) was written in 2013 as part of Rabbi Hefetz’s activism against the deportation of the children of asylum seekers who live in Israel. As a human rights activist, Rabbi Hefetz sees religious space as a political platform to advance activism. It’s grounding her motivation for writing this prayer in both gender and theology:

This prayer is intended for the children of this land, and in fact, it’s a prayer for all children, wherever they are. Children are not responsible for what their parents do, and it does not matter who the parents are. We are active (female) partners in the creation of humanity, together with the Holy One, and thus also in the creation of prayer. We, as mothers, have the power to promote this message because we give life, and wars are waged by men. Losing a child is extremely difficult for a woman who has given birth. Therefore, it makes sense for us, as women, to write such prayers.

Rabbi Hefetz justifies the writing of prayers by women, criticizing masculinity, which promotes war, while motherhood fosters compassion and kindness. This prayer begins by rejecting the exclusivity of the God of Israel and recognizing God’s power to provide peace. It calls for the blessing of the children of Israel and all children of the world with mental and physical health. It acknowledges that the prayer transcends nations and religions, as we are all created in the image of God. This biblical expression, which appears in the creation story, demonstrates that any recognition of a person as a living being includes an element of divinity.11 The call for the well-being and preservation of the soul and body is grounded in a biblical verse: “Then, the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).

The prayer acknowledges God as possessing abundant mercy (Exodus 34:6) and, therefore, able to provide children with salvation and protection, referencing Psalm 147:13 (“He strengthens the bars of your gates; He blesses your children within you”). The final request that concludes the prayer is adapted from the Prayer for the State of Israel: “Establish peace in the land, and everlasting joy for its inhabitants” (based on Lev 26:6 and Isa 35:9 and 51:10). This adaptation aligns with the “Sim Shalom” blessing, a blessing that is recited at the end of the morning Amidah12. By adding “for all” to “its inhabitants,” the prayer connects the initial statement recognizing “all” human beings and the concluding reference to “all the inhabitants of the land,” thus extending the blessing beyond just Jews to include everyone.

Rabbi Hefetz views prayers as genuinely therapeutic. Her writing moves along the liturgical axis between preservation and innovation, balancing the universality of the message with the uniqueness of the Jewish voice; an approach she advocates as a Reform rabbi:

The main emphasis in my writing was first and foremost the reference to all the children created in the world. There can be no peace if we harm souls who have not yet reached maturity. The writing flowed easily for me, using expressions that I find in most of our prayers so that the language would not feel foreign to the one praying. When I wrote the prayer, I had various prayers in mind, such as the Mi Sheberach for the sick (‘health of the mind and body’), the Traveler’s Prayer (‘grant success to their journey’), the Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s adapted prayer for peace, and others. Importantly, in Jewish tradition, there is both a universal and particular aspect. For example, when I wrote ‘Bless our children and the children of the whole world,’ I created a blend of the particular and universal in one blessing. Tradition should evolve; custom must not become law, and this blend of particular and universal is a Reform approach.

The context of the prayer—a blessing for children regardless of religion, race, or gender—shaped the author’s writing process. Rabbi Hefetz crafted this prayer unbound by constraints, inspired by various sources, and with an awareness of the flexibility and creativity required to align the language of a prayer with its content (Marx 2017). It is possible that without the confidence provided by Reform Judaism, which allows for this liturgical approach, the writing would have been entirely different. However, just as for children, the world of creativity and creation is fertile ground for emotional expression and growth, inviting us to recognize the power of contemporary liturgy to engage with harsh realities and remain relevant to the pressing needs of the time.

6. Prayer for the Peace of the Nations, by Rabbi Oshrat Morag

Rabbi Oshrat Morag is the head of the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa, one of the oldest Reform educational institutions in Israel. In her role, she is responsible for reforming Jewish education across all age groups at the school and managing the community department. Rabbi Morag, a mother of four, was born and raised in Haifa and was ordained as a Reform rabbi in 2008 at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. Through her extensive work at Leo Baeck, which includes various initiatives to strengthen Jewish–Arab relations, such as a shared community garden, cultural tours in Arab neighborhoods in Haifa, joint rituals, a project for the employment of Arab women, collaborative activities for Jewish and Arab women, and meetings for Jewish and Arab retirees,13 she aims to advance a humanistic vision.

For her, writing a prayer for peace (see Appendix D) serves as another platform to promote this political agenda, particularly in Haifa, a mixed Jewish–Arab city that has long symbolized coexistence:

I wrote this prayer from the feeling that at their core, religions are similar and teach ways of peace and shared life, while respecting their differences. I felt the need to write something about the beautiful connections that are created and our ability to share values. This prayer accompanies our joint meetings to promote reconciliation and peace, especially when there are voices trying to undermine these relationships. The idea of this prayer is to unite and remove boundaries between nations and to emphasize humanity—we are all created in the image of God and have a shared mission in the world. Our texts convey similar messages about the desired way to live in the world. On the one hand, the prayer allows connection regardless of nationality or religion; on the other hand, I understand that this prayer might threaten those who believe in our [Jewish] uniqueness as the ‘chosen people’ or ‘treasured nation.’ Therefore, it is a communal, rather than individual, prayer, intended to be said in a mixed religious community, to provide strength, spirit, and a sense of shared purpose.”

Rabbi Morag’s point of view of expanding boundaries and blurring differences between religions is reflected theoretically in the change in God’s name in the prayer. The address is not only to the God of Israel but also to the God of all peoples and nations, meaning that right from the first line, Rabbi Morag dismisses the exclusivity of the God of Israel. In addition, she emphasizes the power of community to say this prayer, and to declare its peaceful idea rather than a personal moment.

Another theological aspect is gender. Rabbi Morag discusses various liturgical deliberations, particularly concerning the gendered naming of God:

My sources of inspiration were other prayers for peace and the integration of shared verses from different religions. For example, whether to incorporate sources directly from the Quran, the New Testament, the Bahá’í writings, and so on, or just the spirit of these texts. I wanted to find something unifying, like the figure of Elijah the Prophet—important in all religions—but specifically learn how he teaches us to move beyond zealotry. The biggest dilemma for me was the gendered designation of God: whether to address God only as male or as female or gender-neutral. I felt that this was complicated from the perspective of all religions and that the debate it might generate could overshadow the good that the prayer could bring. In a certain sense, I see this prayer as a Reform prayer, in that, like Reform Judaism, it emphasizes the commandments of love and the ethics of the prophets. However, it can also be seen as a liberal religious prayer not affiliated with any specific religious stream.

Rabbi Morag’s decision to refrain from advancing a more explicit feminist agenda, particularly her choice not to alter the name of God, can be understood as a strategic consideration regarding audience reception and the effectiveness of such interventions, rather than as an indication of ideological retreat. She decides to give up her theological-gender view and wants to see the congregation of worshipers at the center of religious activity. The focus is on the request to God to advance understanding as part of a religious commitment to world repair and even attempts to attribute this goal to Elijah the Prophet—a key figure in the Jewish canon for promoting redemption and traditionally believed to be buried just a kilometer from the institution she manages on Mount Carmel.

The prayer calls for the elimination of jealousy and the creation of a space entirely devoted to holiness and revelation, as described in 1 Kings 19:12: “And after the earthquake, a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” The request is rather for God to sanctify the spirit, aiming to instill in the hearts of believers a passion for peace. The prayer also draws on the language of the second blessing recited before the Shema paragraphs in the morning liturgy, which asks God to “instill in our hearts the ability to understand and discern, to observe, perform, and fulfill [all the teachings of Your Torah].” In Rabbi Morag’s prayer, the object of these verbs is rather our divinely mandated task to work cooperatively to repair the world, a legitimate contemporary reinterpretation through echoing and intertextuality. It recognizes individuals as social agents with responsibility and change-making potential for social justice and for establishing an active society with the awareness of fostering good neighborly relationships and friendship. This is done with an appreciation for multiculturalism and acknowledgment of “the other” (Charles Taylor), stemming from the biblical principle that “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18).

Indeed, the inclusion of both Hebrew and Arabic in the closing of the prayer illustrates how language contributes to the establishment of the concept of peace. In particular, in the Israeli Jewish context, Arabic is considered the language of the enemy (Yitzhaki 2010). Thus, the choice to include the Arabic transliteration alongside the Hebrew text is a radical decision within a Jewish prayer traditionally written only in Hebrew (or Aramaic). This choice underlines a profound gesture toward inclusivity and mutual respect, reinforcing the prayer’s universal message and bridging linguistic and cultural divides. Furthermore, in contrast to Rabbi Hefetz’s approach, which addressed the tension in Reform liturgy between conservatism and innovation, in this prayer, Rabbi Morag does not dismiss the possibility of non-affiliation with a particular movement; for her, the main goal is that the message is conveyed.

The prayer also references Mishnah Avot 1:12, “Be among the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace.” Additionally, by integrating a verse from 1 Samuel 25:6—“And thus you shall greet him: Peace be to you, and peace be to your household, and peace be to all that you have”—the prayer emphasizes the importance of peace and its association with divine will. In this context, the phrase is attributed to God, the God of Peace (another traditional liturgical epithet for God), reinforcing the commitment to peace and the belief in it. Essentially, belief in God equates to belief in peace, and disbelief in God is akin to disbelief in peace.

7. A Heartfelt Plea for Difficult Days, by Rabbi Noa Mazor

Rabbi Mazor was ordained as a Reform rabbi in 2008 at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. Her decision to become a Reform rabbi was rooted in her activism and work as a human rights advocate. Even before pursuing the rabbinate, Rabbi Mazor was a peace activist and was involved in various forms of activism. In an interview, she explained that choosing the rabbinate allowed her to merge her activism with Judaism.

Rabbi Mazor composed this supplication (“Tahanun”) (see Appendix E) during Operation Protective Edge (Miv’tza Tzuk Eitan) in the summer of 2014. At the beginning of our interview, she mentioned that although times have changed, Facebook constantly reminds her of how relevant the prayer remains today. At the heart of the prayer is the value of the sanctity of life and humanity. She seeks to distill a humanistic perspective, seeing every person as a human being created from dust and destined to return to dust (referring to Genesis 3:19). Specifically, she chooses to use the verse “Man’s foundation is in dust, and to dust, he shall return” from the well-known piyyut “Unetaneh Tokef”, a very famous and popular liturgical poems recited during the High Holidays, intended to inspire awe and reverence.

She opens the prayer by invoking God of the Matriarchs, not just of the Patriarchs (as is customary in traditional Jewish prayers), and addresses God, using the term “Shekhinah” in the second line to add a feminine aspect to the divinity.14 According to her, mixed-gender language is a tool for expressing the different emotions that arise during the writing process, as well as those that may surface in the worshiper:

I need words to cope with reality, and prayer holds the emotional experience. When I write a prayer, I usually have a verse in mind; it is spontaneous. On the basis of the feeling, I just write according to what I feel at that moment… Using a variety of terms and concepts allows for different experiences and emotions. That is why I prefer to write in mixed gendered language, to create something more inclusive, both of people and to open up the imagination, so it is not just one God—but divinity as something broader. Unfortunately, many times when people say ‘God,’ it is often immediately linked to a man, but when they say ‘Shekhinah’, it forces more thought and imagination. Who is this Shekhinah?

For Rabbi Mazor, language is the central means of conveying emotional sensation; she acknowledges the power of words not only to convey the message or idea but also to express the range of feelings she experiences during the writing process itself (McGrath 2002; Takamoto 2000). This writing experience is created in a space of movement—between planning and execution, predetermined and organized, and spontaneous and liberated. This movement is supported by the choice to use mixed-gender language.

Performance researchers are very engaged in the question of whether the radicalism of performance stems from preplanning and repetitiveness, or from a spontaneous and one-time creative process (Schechner 2017; Taylor 2015). Rabbi Mazor’s very reflexive choice to create a prayer that is connected to the moment of writing itself and to the experience of the writer, rather than just to the moment when the prayer will be recited by the community, challenges older traditions of writing a liturgy, which was created mainly by male religious leaders.

In her prayer, Rabbi Mazor calls upon God to help leaders choose a path of negotiation and peacemaking, thereby advancing the prophecy of the end of days, which she quotes at the end of the prayer (Micah 4:4). For her, the aspiration for peace should be an integral part of the public responsibility that leaders must uphold, as well as the religious responsibility that ought to be, but is not heard, among the Orthodox leadership in Israel:

If our leadership were different, we wouldn’t be in this situation today. Unfortunately, our leadership does not see each person as a human being, as the prayer suggests. Instead, they focus on “us versus them”… It’s absurd that we (Reform rabbis), who voice a call for peace, are the ones who are unheard and considered “marginal,” while Orthodox rabbis pray and call for the conquest of Gaza. To me, it’s absurd.

…Writing a prayer isn’t because “it’s my job as a rabbi,” it’s who I am. It is not about completing a task; I truly cannot remain silent about reality. I cannot refrain from speaking about human rights, about the need to believe and imagine that everything can be different. That is why I chose to become a rabbi. Judaism can be a unifying force, not just a dividing force. Writing a prayer for peace requires me to believe in the possibility of a “different tomorrow.” I want to hold onto hope; I need this reminder for myself that things can get better.

She demonstrates sharp criticism of the Israeli political leadership and the Orthodox rabbis in Israel, seeing prayer not only as an act of resistance to the militant-Israeli trend characterizing leadership but also as part of her rabbinical role. Rabbi Mazor feels a commitment to raise her voice not only in demonstrations in the city square but also in the synagogue through the creation of prayers, conveying a community-religious message that calls for peace and opposes war. Thus, her liturgical work serves as a reminder of the ideology that is gradually eroding at a time when public discourse in Israel avoids promoting conciliatory statements.

8. Discussion

‘War also destroys the patriarchal structures of society that confine and degrade women. In the very breakdown of morals, traditions, customs, and community, war also opens up new beginnings.’

(Turshen 1998, p. 20)

This article demonstrates how female religious leaders, most of whom have non-Orthodox religious training and ordination, seek to create discourse that promotes peace through the writing of prayers. A textual analysis of the four prayers, along with an interpretive analysis of their perspective and the experience of writing them, reveals that their creation is not detached from female identity, maternal role, or liberal religious identity. Each interviewee describes how the prayer reflects a movement between adopting familiar traditional liturgical patterns (such as popular prayers) alongside innovation and creativity to adapt the text to the message they wish to convey. While in situations of ongoing conflict, women are often excluded from political discourse aimed at promoting solutions, and political matters are left to male governance, the creations of these women, and their decision to voice and highlight their writings during this difficult time of war may be interpreted as a practice of resistance against patriarchy, nationalism, and hegemonic discourse.

Thus, this research supports previous studies that have demonstrated how women’s cultural contributions in conflict situations can make them pivotal political actors in promoting peace efforts and dialogue, both through formal and informal channels (Arostegui 2013; Kirby and Shepherd 2016). The prayers analyzed here demonstrate that women’s liturgical creations reflect the intersection between the feminist movement and the Jewish world, with an emphasis on how values of gender equality have shaped and continue to shape Reform liturgy (Marx 2009). This contributes not only to understanding how cultural movements and trends transform tradition but also to recognizing that women view the religious sphere as an important political space for establishing the values in which they believe, including ideological perspectives that transcend national and religious boundaries.

Following Haeri (2020), who demonstrates in her ethnography of Iranian women how different forms of prayer may transform into dialogues with God, I conclude that the authors also engage with their femininity and gender identity. This interplay is evident in their theological perspectives, which, in turn, reflect their gender identities.

For instance, the use of mixed gendered language in reference to God, as appears in Appendix E, is not intended to suggest divine offense or sensitivity to gender per se, but rather reflects a conscious liturgical strategy. Within feminist and progressive Jewish theology, alternating or combining gendered metaphors for God functions as a means of disrupting the long-standing masculinization of the divine in Jewish liturgy, without replacing it with a new exclusive norm. Rather than positing God as simultaneously male and female in an ontological sense, this linguistic choice emphasizes the metaphorical and constructed nature of all God-language (Prell 2007; Ringe 2013). The deliberate refusal to settle on a single gendered reference thus serves to expand the theological imagination and to create a prayerful space in which diverse worshippers can encounter the divine without the constraints of a singular, normative representation (Adler 1998).

Another category that highlights the intersection of gender and theological discourse is motherhood, which is understood not only as central to sustaining war and ensuring the continuity of the people through bearing and raising children (Slattery and Garner 2007), but also as a critical space that can challenge dominant voices and hegemonic narratives. Motherhood is not biased toward only one side of the conflict’s participants; rather, it is a cross-boundary category that seeks to dissolve hostility and promote a shared destiny between nations. It serves as a channel through which a spiritual-gender discourse can emerge, aiming to evolve into a political discourse of peace.

In addition, the significance of motherhood is revealed not only as a functional space through which the message of peace can be affirmed and promoted, in light of maternal responsibilities or emotional experiences but also as a focus on the body itself—on women’s wombs. The body is not forgotten; it is the proof of the possibility of human creation, the agent that has no political stance, ethnic background, or nationality. It represents the shared essence and thus serves as evidence of the internalization of the message and the dissolution of divisions between nations. In other words, while in wars, the body is a testament to trauma, a symbol of absence, bereavement, and physical and mental harm (McSorley 2013), it now gains new meaning—it becomes a symbol of life, of equality, a testament to the recognition and realization that we are all human.

At the local level, it is likely that the fact that these prayers are created by non-Orthodox Israeli women may contribute to maintaining the public image of non-Orthodox religious movements in Israel as left-wing movements. The Reform movement often struggles to break free from this image and maintain neutrality to expand its membership. However, last year, following the attempt at a judicial overhaul in Israel, the movement decided to change its stance and took a clear political position, thereby positioning itself in the public sphere as a movement identified with left-wing values (Ben-Lulu 2024). It is also possible that these prayers might reinforce the movement’s leftist image because of the messages they convey.

Thus, the entry of women into the rabbinic world enables not only a shift in gender discourse and the promotion of feminist values of gender equality (Ben-Lulu 2017) but also, more broadly, the development of a political dialogue on peace relations between nations and coexistence, using religious language and platforms to convey the message. The synagogue and prayer book are not neutral spaces detached from daily life and the call of the times. Rather, they are places that can respond to reality’s challenges and provide hope and faith for better days.

Within the context of gender, war, and peace, it is important to emphasize that this study does not rely on a binary or essentialist distinction between women as “natural peacemakers” and men as “agents of war”—a distinction that does not withstand scrutiny in the Israeli social and security reality. On the contrary, women today constitute an integral and significant part of Israel’s military and security institutions: they serve as combat soldiers, officers, commanders, and senior figures in intelligence, cyber units, and strategic decision-making arenas, actively participating in the maintenance of a security order that is often perceived as violent, hierarchical, and militarized. Precisely against this backdrop, the importance of women who compose prayers for peace does not stem from an assumption of an inherently pacifist “female nature,” but rather from the fact that the liturgical discourse they produce exists in conscious tension with women’s—whether their own or others’—participation in the state’s apparatuses of power. These women’s peace prayers do not erase this complexity; instead, they reflect and engage with it. They constitute a space of critical reflexivity in which religious women operate from within a national-security field saturated with violence, yet seek to articulate an alternative Jewish moral language grounded in responsibility, compassion, and political imagination. Accordingly, women’s liturgical creativity should not be understood as a substitute for security action nor as a “pure” stance outside politics, but rather as a distinctive form of religious-civic agency that unfolds alongside, and at times in tension with, women’s active involvement in the state’s coercive institutions. In this sense, the contribution of women’s peace prayers lies not in the claim that all women desire peace, but in the fact that some women choose to articulate peace precisely in a reality where other women are deeply engaged in the management of war.