A Women’s Ritual Economy: Amen Meals as a System of Material, Emotional, and Symbolic Capital

This study proposes a novel theoretical synthesis, bridging the sociology of lived religion with economic club good theory to explore the high-commitment dynamics in domestic spheres in the analysis of “Amen meals”, a rapidly spreading ritual among Jewish women. Using a qualitative–ethnographic methodology based on 23 participant observations and 53 in-depth interviews with a diverse spectrum of Jewish women in Israel, the research examines the ways this ritual functions as a gendered religious economy. The findings identify emotional stringency as a key mechanism for communal cohesion: unlike traditional religious clubs that filter out free riders through external prohibitions, this economy demands a tariff of emotional exposure and vulnerability, where public tears serve as costly signals of commitment. These enable the participants to gain access to exclusive club goods such as social insurance and spiritual agency. The study concludes that Amen meals challenge the binary between institutional–rational and private–emotional spheres, positioning women’s ritual creativity as a mutual insurance system for risks that formal institutions fail to cover. It reveals the powerful economies operating within the lived religion of women.