Contributor Biography: Varda Polak-Sahm
Varda Polak-Sahm
Biography: Varda Polak-Sahm is a seventh-generation Jerusalemite, the author of three books, and an internationally known photographer and researcher of folklore.
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Author: Varda Polak-Sahm
Binding Information: Cloth
Trade Code: 00C
Price: $28.95 In stock.
Roused by her own experiences of immersion, for eleven years Varda Polak-Sahm patiently observed and interviewed Jewish women using the mikveh, gaining unprecedented access to the entirely hidden feminine culture and sensual atmosphere within traditional mikvehs. The result is a richly nuanced, uncensored look at an experience that is for some holy and for others coercive. The House of Secrets gives voice to women from all branches of Judaism as they open up about what the mikveh means to them; how it fits in with their attitudes toward religion; its effect on their marriages and families as well as on their sexual, physical, and spiritual self-perception and on their relationship with God.
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For Orthodox Jews, immersion in the mikveh is the cornerstone of family life. Jewish women must visit this ritual bath before marriage and monthly after menstruation before resuming marital relations. Yet women from across the Jewish spectrum frequent the mikveh, often for surprising personal reasons. Roused by her own immersion experience, for years Varda Polak-Sahm, a secular Jew, patiently observed and interviewed women at the mikveh, gaining unprecedented access to this hidden world of purity, sexuality, and fertility. Her uncensored firsthand account of an experience that is for some holy and for others coercive illuminates the power of ritual immersion for the growing number of women reclaiming this practice.
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