The Bride's Henna Rituals: Symbols, Meanings and Changes by Rachel Sharaby

The Bride's Henna Rituals: Symbols, Meanings and Changes by Rachel Sharaby

THE BRIDE'S HENNA RITUAL: SYMBOLS, MEANINGS AND CHANGES

Rachel Sharaby

The bride's henna ritual was the principal rite of passage for women in Yemen. This ritual was an important stage in preparing the bride for her new life, as she changed from a girl-youth into a man's wife, became separated from her family, and went to live in her husband's home. It expressed a rigid gender separation and a non-egalitarian system in which femininity was shackled in structural inferiority.

After immigrating to Israel and becoming exposed to a western society with egalitarian messages, Yemenite women became less dependent and subservient and more empowered. However, they also maintained tradi­tional thought patterns. The change in their status, as well as the mixed trends towards change and preservation in communal tradition, influenced the performance of the henna ritual in Israel, and it became syncret

INTRODUCTION

The ritual is a planned event, with rules, accompanied by symbols that transmit recognized meanings. It presents us in a concentrated manner with the socio­ cultural experience, diverse relationships, and social hierarchy that character­ize the context within which it takes place, and with the participants' beliefs and ideologies. ¹ Two intertwined dimensions exist in every ritual. On the one hand, it comprises a means for maintaining social order, increasing social cohesion, and strengthening the main values of the society, and it legitimizes statuses and roles on the basis of those values. On the other hand, via col­laborative social consent, it enables the introduction of new elements that are appropriate to changing circumstances.2

Wedding ceremonies, in which members of a couple are transformed from being unmarried to being married, are rites of passage,3 rituals by which people pass from one status to another. They become aware of their new obligations and rights and obtain approval for their new identity. Van Gennep discerned three principal stages in the rite of passage: separation from the prior social world; transition; and incorporation into the new conditions or statuses. According to Turner,4 transition is the critical stage in which the cultural border is crossed. The characteristics of the liminal beings are therefore necessarily ambiguous; they are "betwixt and between." In the liminal condition, the definition of social roles and statuses is vague, as expressed in a plenitude of contradictory symbols.

Among the lengthy wedding rituals practiced among Jews in Yemen were the henna rituals held for the bride and groom during the wedding week, in which the palms of their hands and feet were covered with a material extracted from the henna plant. This article will focus on the bride's henna ritual, with the aim of examining its symbolic gender significance in traditional Yemenite society, in which femininity was characterized by structural inferiority, and the changes that occurred in the ritual after the immigration of the Yemenite Jews to Israel, from the 1950s to date. Economic and social processes in Israel, as well as feminist messages issuing from the West, expanded the world of Yemenite women and empowered them in both the private and the public spheres. This has led to a decline in the importance of the henna ritual as a rite of passage and to changes in its performance, its accessories, and its symbolic significance.

My research is based on observations, participant observations, video recordings of henna rituals that took place in Israel from the 1970s through the present, and in-depth interviews. During 2003-2004, I interviewed approxi­ mately thirty Yemenite women living in different parts of Israel-in urban neighborhoods and in ethnically homogeneous and heterogeneous settle­ ments. The interviews were conducted in Hebrew and in Yemenite (a type of Judaeo-Arabic), a language I speak. Some of the women were interviewed at home and others in old-age centers. Approximately half of them were born in 12 different regions of Yemen and immigrated to Israel in 1949-1950, when they were between 13 and 30 years old. Now aged 70 to 90, they had married either while still in Yemen or soon after their arrival in Israel. Some of these older women were professional dressers and singers who had learned the art from their mothers and grandmothers in Yemen. The younger women, born in Israel, were aged between about 20 and 50. Most had at least a high-school education and engaged in various professions.

Distances of time and place pose methodological difficulties to reconstruct­ ing a culture largely by way of ethnographic fieldwork. Older interviewees have a tendency toward forgetfulness and idealization of the past, and they may also be influenced in their descriptions of how rituals were performed in the past (in Yemen or in the first decades in Israel) by the way in which they are performed today. Nevertheless, these primary oral history sources comprise an important social and cultural text.

In composing this study, I have also drawn upon the research of other schol­ars, including an important store of photographs (mainly in black and white), observations, interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Israel from the 1970s through 2000, focusing mainly on the musical repertoire of women's ritual singing during the henna ritual.

THE HENNA RITUAL OF THE BRIDE IN YEMEN

Weddings in Yemen were not a single ritual, but rather a string of rituals that lasted for about a month before the wedding day.⁵ Because of the dispersion of the Jewish communities in Yemen, and the difficulties of travel between them due to topographical conditions, unique styles evolved in the different regions, including differences in dress, songs, dancing, and the duration of the ceremonies.

The principal rituals were held during the "wedding week," in which the wedding ceremony itself took place. The celebrations opened in the groom's home on the Sabbath before the wedding day, which was called the "Sabbath of the Beginning." On Saturday night, separate celebrations for the women and the men, without the bride, took place in the groom's home. In some communities, the bride's immersion in the ritual bath (mikveh) took place on Sunday and her henna ritual on Monday, while the groom's henna ritual was held on Tuesday. On Wednesday the bride's hair was done, and the wedding13 took place that evening, the "Night of the Kiddush." On Thursday afternoon a ritual feast took place in the groom's home. In other communities the wed­ ding ceremony was performed on Thursday evening, and the ritual feast took place on Friday. The Sabbath following the wedding was called the Wedding Sabbath, celebrated in the groom's home.

Whichever day it was held, no marriage could be celebrated in Yemen without the henna ritual, whose customs were passed down from generation to generation. Henna is a perfumed shrub with white blossoms. Originating in India, it spread from there to the countries of Asia and North Africa. It is known to have been used in Palestine in the biblical, mishnaic, and talmudic periods,⁶ and the ancient Egyptians used it in the embalming process and for dyeing their horses' tails and manes. Fragrant oils were extracted from its leaves, seeds, and flowers. Popular medicine credited the plant with medicinal properties: Leaf extracts were used for treating stomachaches and swelling, and for disinfecting the mouth and strengthening the roots of the teeth.

To make a dye, henna leaves were dried and ground into a fragrant powder, to which ground pomegranate shells or nutshells were added in order to obtain a darker red color. The powder was kneaded with water, rosewater, or wine until a paste ready for spreading was obtained. This paste was used for dyeing textiles and leather, and it was also spread on parts of the body, since it was considered to be beneficial against stomachaches and for preventing dandruff, strengthening the hair roots and the fingernails, and for the drying and healing of wounds. Henna's red color was also considered beautiful.

The custom of dyeing the hair, hands, and feet was common among the people of India and Persia as well as among the Arabs. On ordinary days, women in Yemen would spread the paste uniformly on the palms of their hands and feet, while men used it to dye their graying hair and beards. The areas that were covered with the paste were wrapped in cloth for a few hours, usually during the night. The cloth covers were then taken off, the crust was removed, and the fragrant reddish parts were washed, leaving a color that remained for weeks. In addition to its medicinal and cosmetic properties, henna was thought to have magical properties, and it was widely used in premarital rituals, mainly in the Muslim countries. The Jews of Persia, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Kurdistan, North Africa, and Yemen adopted from their Muslim neighbors the ritual of dyeing the couple's hands and feet with henna.

The period before marriage is one of adjustment to the couple's future situ­ation. The couple is in a liminal state; they are no longer completely separate,14 since they have committed themselves to the marriage, but they still are not married. This is perceived as a dangerous period in which they are vulnerable to physical and mental injuries, translated in popular thought into harm from demons and spirits. Means of protection differed from one society to another and could include materials such as stone, metal, plants, water, milk, eggs, and henna-or even wearing a disguise.⁷

The women I interviewed, as well as other sources,⁸ confirmed that henna served not only for purposes of beauty and health, but also as a magical and beneficial means of protecting the bride and groom. It was believed that the red patches on the skin, as well as the original green color of the henna leaves and powder, would protect the couple from lurking dangers and chase away the evil eye. The henna, by changing its color (identity) from green (powder) to red (wet henna), prevents the demons from recognizing the bride and groom and also symbolizes the transformation undergone by the couple during the rite of passage. Moreover, the plant's green color as well as its shape-a cluster with a white inflorescence-is a symbol of fertility, and its fragrance resembles an aphrodisiac perfume. The red color remaining on the skin like a "marriage stamp" also added happiness to the wedding and was part of the couple's magnificent dress and jewelry. The red and green colors are recurrent symbolic motifs during the ritual activity.

The bride's henna ceremony was more magnificent than the groom's. For the bride, usually married at age 10-12, this was a more significant rite of pas­ sage and a more intensive emotional experience, part of a process by which she turned from a girl-youth into a wife and left her parent's home for that of her husband. That is why many ritual actions in this ceremony focused on the bride's home and included the people closest to her. The sequence of rituals that comprised the ceremony helped prepare the bride for her new life and clarified the community's social expectations and messages.

The ceremony began with lunch at the bride's home, for women only, because of the strict separation of the sexes observed in Yemen. The first ritual action was that of dressing the bride.⁹ It was performed in a side room by an expert dresser (shar'eh), or, in some places, by an "attendant" chosen by the parents to accompany and instruct the bride during the wedding events.

The bride's dress and jewelry were supplied by the groom's family. In some cases, very expensive jewelry could be rented. The groom's gifts were not only a romantic gesture but an element of the barter relations between the families. These were intended to insure, already at the premarital stage, the traditional15 gender division of labor in Yemen, in which the wife was dependent on her husband even for her basic needs.¹⁰ The dress and jewelry served as status symbols and were unique to different areas in Yemen. Since the scope of the present article does not allow a detailed description of bridal dress in all parts of Yemen, the following description is confined to the garments and ornaments characteristic of a few central regions.

In the capital city of San'a, whose Jews were economically well off, the bride's magnificent dress glittered in hues of gold and silver, as well as red, which symbolized her fertility. During the henna ritual, she was garbed in two long dresses with long sleeves: an inner, light-colored one and a wider, dark outer one. The front of the upper dress had a long slit, around which many silver decorations were sewn, as well as gold-plated chains and elaborate silver and gold embroidery. In addition, the bride wore leggings embroidered with gold and silver threads and red silk in the form of stars and diamonds, and an embroidered coat made of golden brocade material (Jal/ayah mizahhar) and decorated with silver buttons.¹¹

The head-covering typical of the Yemenite woman from childhood on was a pointed black cloth cap (gargush), which covered her forehead and came down over her neck and shoulders, since for reasons of modesty a woman's hair should not be seen.12 The hat worn by the bride in San'a on the evening of the henna ritual was made of an expensive gold brocade material, embroi­ dered with threads of braided silver and colorful silk, and adorned with red stones, beads, silver chains, a pearl chain, and silver pieces of varying sizes. Gold and silver droplets in the shape of grains were sewn above the forehead as a symbol of nature's fertility and hoped-for plenty, and also of the Yemenite woman's everyday task of grinding grain into flour and baking bread. Three rows of gold-plated silver coins were also sewn onto the fabric of the hat. These became what was often the woman's most important personal property: In times of need she could sell some coins, to be replenished when her eco­ nomic condition improved. A large scarf of brocade and (green) silk, decorated with gold embroidery, was spread over the cap.13

Many traditional pieces of jewelry, made by the famous silversmiths of San'a,¹⁴ were placed on the bride's hands, feet, and neck. She wore gold-plated silver bracelets and different kinds of silver and gold rings, some of which had inlays of precious stones. The expensive, heavy pendant on her neck was composed of numerous chains, collected at the two ends by triangular golden plates that often had stone inlays; the triangle, too, symbolized the woman's fertility.¹⁵ Special shoes were placed on her feet, and she was sprayed with a typical Yemenite perfume.¹⁶ The bride's eyes were made up with a blue material, both to protect them from infection and to prevent the evil eye from sabotaging her fertility-the major definer of feminine identity in traditional societies.¹⁷

In the Haban community, built on an isolated hill in eastern Yemen, the bride's dress was more modest and unique. During the ceremony, which began in the noon hours, the bride was clothed in a long black dress, decorated with appliqued, embroidered stripes and borders and held together with the broad silver belt used in women's everyday dress in Haban. In the eastern regions of Yemen the women did not sew leggings on the trousers they wore under their dresses, and these were absent from the bridal gown as well.¹⁸ The bride wore black cloth shoes embroidered with colorful stripes. Her eyes were painted blue and the eyebrows emphasized with a black stripe.

The bride did not wear a hat, but a large, colorful scarf was placed on her head. Her hands and feet were adorned with jewelry. In everyday life, the women of Haban wore their hair in braids-many thin braids for unmarried women, and four braids on each side of the head for married women. In prepa­ration for the henna evening, a unique braiding ritual took place in order to emphasize the bride's passage from the unmarried to the married status. Her hair was plaited into four braids on each side, like that of a married woman, as well as a thick, upright braid in the middle, which was unique to the bride. The braids were decorated in silver, red, and green colors and with alternating red and yellow dots. The main braid was decorated with a stone-inlaid silver ornament and a gold chain that ended behind the bride's head in a group of large silver balls.

In the evening, the Habani bride's dress was replaced with a more magnifi­cent one. An array of silver jewelry and colorful bead necklaces was placed on her neck, and a small round pendant was hung on the piece of jewelry on her forehead, as well as short head pendants on the sides of her hair. The jewelry on her hands and feet was removed so that henna could be spread on them.

In the southern town of Aden, the bride was also dressed in two stages.¹⁹ During the first stage, in the afternoon hours, she wore a green velvet, silk, or satin dress given her by the groom. Her head was covered with a scarf, and she was bedecked with much jewelry: thin gold bracelets and earrings, a ring on each finger, a two-meter-long gold chain wound twice around her neck, and a gold medallion. The women of Aden did not put on makeup.

In the evening, in preparation for the henna ritual, the Aden bride wore a dress given her by her father, usually of red silk interwoven with silver threads. Her head covering was also replaced with an expensive, colorful, hand-embroidered veil with loops made of the embroidery threads at its ends. A broad solid gold bracelet was added to the bracelets that she wore in the afternoon. Her shoes were also changed, and, as in the afternoon, emphasis was placed on their beauty and price, and how well they matched the dress. It is reasonable to assume that in Aden the dress change had both economic and symbolic significance. There were few opportunities for the Aden Jews to exhibit their wealth, and since most of the clothes and jewelry were gifts from the groom, the bride served as a showcase for his economic status.²⁰ The dresses given her, respectively, by her father and father-in-law (via the groom) symbolized her status as a daughter to her parents and as a man's wife, and the dominant position of these two men in her life. In addition, the change symbolized the many changes she was about to undergo-of home, social environment, age, and responsibility.

In the communities of northern Yemen, the bride wore a woven dress like a galabiya, but much wider,21 with a rounded collar and av-neck. It was made of a special material and decorated with colorful embroidery and appliques. The sleeves, which were as long as the dress, were turned over, attached with a pin, and placed over the bride's head and neck. Under the dress, she wore embroi­dered black trousers and leggings embroidered with different colored stripes. Her eyes, again, were daubed with blue made-up. In most places, an expensive drapery was placed on her head, made of a thick, shiny, rectangular satin cloth decorated with stripes of different widths, in black, maroon, mustard (dotted with black), and white. She was adorned with a pair of silver jewelry pieces that hung from both sides of her chest, and with earrings, bracelets, and differ­ ent types of rings. Though women in northern Yemen usually went barefoot, the bride wore sandals that she received for her wedding.

The ceremonies involved in the dressing ritual thus focused on the bride's body and revealed rigid traditional value codes. Her role was to be passive and trust herself fully to the hands of the older woman placed in charge of her. She was washed, dressed, decorated, perfumed, and made up, and her young body was loaded with heavy jewelry, symbolizing the yoke of her role as a wife. She was covered with wide clothes that hid the contours of her body, since emphasizing them was contrary to the rules of modesty and might awaken the evil eye to sabotage her fertility.²² Covering the bride is also an expression of invisibility, one of the liminal characteristics ascribed by Turner to persons undergoing rites of passage.²³ Though physically visible, they are "invisible" in terms of their social status. Having lost their former status, they are stripped of its symbolic expressions in external appearance and behavior. Thus, during the wedding ritual, the former status of being unmarried is erased (dies). The consequent invisibility is expressed symbolically in that the bride (like the groom) does not appear in public in her ordinary clothes, but is hidden by special clothes, jewelry, and make-up.

The second ritual activity, called zaffeh, was that of leading the bride from the door of the dressing room to her sitting place.²⁴ The procession was led by several singers, accompanied by percussion instruments: a copper tray beaten with metal tools and a drum beaten with the palm of the hand. Throughout the ritual, the singers and female relatives gathered around the bride sounded happy ululations.

The women bore various traditional accessories, usually borrowed, on their heads. Each carried a large, colorful burning candle. My interviewees explained that these were both a source of lighting and a symbol of the women's wishes for light in the bride's life. One of the women carried a candleholder that sometimes had two handles and was either the color of natural clay or painted white and decorated with geometrical designs and colorful dots. It had a wide or round base and broadened upwards into an open bowl with places in it for candles and smaller bowls. Colored eggs decorated with geometrical designs were placed on its serrated margins. The use of eggs is prevalent in rites of passage in many cultures, since they symbolize the life cycle, fertility, and luck, and offer protection against demons and evil spirits.²⁵

Another woman held an incense vessel called a mabkhariih, which gave off a pleasant smell that was also considered beneficial in keeping away demons.²⁶ This three or four-leveled vessel was narrow, stood on a leg, and was deco­ rated with rings strung on its handles or with four arcs that connected in the upper part, ending in a goblet for an egg. Several women carried straw baskets decorated with fragrant green branches of Yemenite plants that were believed to counteract the evil eye, including basil and rue. One of the older women carried the bowl of henna powder.

The bride walked between her mother and the groom's mother. In the Aden community it was customary for her, together with her escorts, to circle her father's house once as a symbol of her separation from her family. In the ritual interaction of the procession, the vulnerable, dependent bride was protected by the elderly women who accompanied her. Her role, again, was to be passive and trust herself fully to their hands, while they took responsibility for passing on the cultural and social tradition. They had the knowledge, and the bride was absorbing and accepting. In the liminal stage defined by Turner²⁷ as no longer in the previous status and not yet in the new one, the person undergoing the rite is in a confused state and must learn the appropriate rules and behaviors intensively from authoritative people.

When the procession neared the audience of women guests, the enthusiasm increased. The ululations became longer and louder, and the drumming grew faster and more rhythmic, opening a fixed repertoire of dance songs. When these ended, the bride was seated in an elevated, decorated chair, with the sing­ ers and older women gathered around her and so continuing her protection. The seating arrangement also reflected the social hierarchy, which the ritual helped preserve. The ritual vessels that had been carried in the procession were placed on the table before the bride, and the women were served refreshments of fruits, drinks, and nuts.

This was followed by the third ritual activity of kneading the henna by the woman closest to the bride-her grandmother or mother-to an accompani­ment of drumming and singing. In Aden it was customary to add salt to the henna paste as a protection against the evil eye.28 When it was finished, the kneader stuck in a bunch of rue branches, lit colorful candles, and covered the bowl with an embroidered cloth. The singers began another series of dance songs, and the women danced with the bowl on their head one by one, according to their relationship to the bride, again reflecting and confirming the social hierarchy.

The ceremony reached its peak with the fourth ritual activity, that of spread­ ing the henna on the bride's palms and the soles of her feet,29 so that the evil eye would neither harm the work of her hands nor injure her wherever she went. In San'a, an expert artist was hired for this, and members of the bride's family endowed her with gifts of silver while she worked. In Haban, the henna was spread by an "attendant" who first washed the bride's hands and feet. In Aden where the practice of spreading henna on the bride's feet for some reason was discontinued, it was the bride's or the groom's mother who spread the henna on the bride's hands. Except in Aden, henna was applied not only to the bride, but also to members of her family or her friends.

The dyeing ritual was done in several stages.³⁰ On the evening of the henna ceremony, usually a Monday, henna was spread uniformly on parts of the bride's body. On the next day, Tuesday, the henna artist prepared a mixture of fragrant plant resin, olive oil, and incense, and melted them over a fire. With the help of a chip, a feather, or a paintbrush, she used this wax to decorate the parts of the bride's body that were spread with henna. The hot wax solidified, slightly burning the bride's skin, symbolizing the responsibility of marriage and the yoke of her new life. The artist first dyed the bride's hands up to the wrist, and then her feet up to the ankle. She drew a network of lines, circles, and dots, and, on the hands, pictures of grains. These drawings had an accepted order and were based on patterns used in Yemenite women's embroidery, including gendered fertility symbols familiar from other societies. The main patterns were a triangle, a grain, and three dots in different compositions and colors: black, brown, and red.³² In some districts in northern Yemen, it was customary to draw rows of five dots on the bride's hands, giving them the significance of an amulet against the evil eye and also symbolizing that the number of her children should be as that of the dots on her hands.33

On Wednesday morning, the wedding day in San'a and several other com­ munities, rosewater and perfume along with another mixture of fragrances were spread over the wax on the bride's hands and feet. The mixture, com­ posed of plants and a kind of stone that was ground and burnt, was credited with antibiotic properties and healing sores, and it made the henna appear darker. When the new mixture and the wax below it were peeled off, the skin underneath appeared decorated and lighter in color than the other parts, which were dyed dark red. Using a shiny black dye extracted from a mixture of plant powder and a special metal, the artist drew lines and dots on the bride's fore­ head and cheeks. The decoration of the bride, for the sake of both beauty and protection against the evil eye, was now complete.

A major component of the henna ritual was the musical accompaniment, performed by professional singers. In the musical repertoire, we may distin­guish between "event songs," which accompanied a particular ritual activity and whose timing was therefore fixed, and freely performed "dancing songs" that were meant to please the women and make them dance.³⁴ The women in Yemen were illiterate and therefore sang by heart, in the Yemenite language.35 The original versions of the songs were preserved and passed on from genera­ tion to generation, though changes could be made according to circumstance. In contrast to the men's liturgical singing, the women's popular singing, which was influenced by Muslim songs, was basically a secular accompaniment to their harsh everyday lives and to life-cycle events.

 The songs of the henna ritual centered on the bride, praising her beauty, the details of her dress, her attributes, and those of her family. The principle theme of the midday songs was that of "the bride as maiden," while the evening songs emphasized "the bride as wife and mother." Thus, the order of the songs and their content indicated the change that was about to occur in the bride's life and status. Some of the songs began with sections from the prayers, including praises to God and pleas that He bless the bride's future actions, indicating that although the women in Yemen lacked formal education, they had strong religious beliefs and were versed in religious sources.

A major theme in the songs is that of the girl-maiden's pain at separating from her family and her known world, and her passage to a strange place, where she would live in the shadow of her mother-in-law. Responsive couplets expressed her longings for her mother's home and care.

In the songs of the Radda community, the bride, so to speak, played a more active role,³⁶ arguing with her father for marrying her off at such a young age and with her mother for selling her in return for a bride-price. From the father's apologies, it appears that he is subject to accepted social mores and not at liberty to act according to his will. Finally, the bride accepts her fate, her father's wish, and the social norms, and praises the groom with a song. This ending is characteristic of the traditional Yemenite religious conception that everything that happens is determined by a supreme heavenly power and must be accepted. The bride's acceptance of her fate was also expressed in the rhythm of the songs, which was slow during the first half of the evening, reflecting the sad separation, and became faster and happier after the spreading of the henna. The songs announced, as it were, that the bride was happy and willing to pass into her husband's domain.

The singing gave Yemenite women an opportunity to express repressed feel­ ings and desires, things that could not be voiced explicitly to a man, because of the women's low status and the rules of modesty by which they were bound. In central and Southern Yemen, the evening songs were accompanied by humorous game dances, in which the women poured out their anger against the practice of polygamy, symbolically described the death of the second, "rival wife," and held mock arguments with their husbands, whom they were obliged by tradition to obey. They also sang of the return of an unknown lover, or of his exile from the woman awaiting his return. However, these songs did not express sexual intimacy, but only hinted at it using symbols and metaphors from the natural world.

Their singing demonstrates how, in a ritual activity in which only women participated, they permitted themselves to glide into forbidden fields, break social norms, and cross gender borders, envisaging alternative sources of power in compensation for their structural inferiority.

THE HENNA RITUAL IN ISRAEL

The Henna Ritual During the 1950s and 1960s

Although Yemenite Jews began arriving in Eretz Israel in the nineteenth cen­tury, the largest group of immigrants, approximately fifty thousand, arrived via the "Magic Carpet" operation (1948-1950), during the period of mass immi­gration to Israel. The establishment of the State, the unstable internal situation in Yemen, the Jews' Messianic beliefs, as well as the activity of immigration agents sent from Israel, were among the major factors contributing to this wave of immigration. After being housed temporarily in immigrant camps,³⁷ most of the new arrivals were referred to agricultural settlements and some to urban settlements. ³⁸

Women I interviewed told me that in the difficult conditions of the early 1950s, though the immigrants felt it was important to maintain their traditions, they could not celebrate marriages as they had in Yemen. The rituals of the wedding week were abrogated, as was the groom's henna ritual. The bride's ceremony was limited and poor; its appurtenances included a large bowl of beans and some pitas, and the bride carried a branch of Yemenite rue (shadhab) against the evil eye. There were no traditional clothes and accessories. Accord­ ing to some of my interviewees, even those who had the traditional dress did not wear it, because they were ashamed of it in the new society.

Several years later, when the immigrants' situation had somewhat improved, marriage celebrations again lasted for a week. The henna evening with its traditional ritual elements of dress, food, songs, and dance was reinstated. Only members of the Yemenite community participated, since marriage to people from other communities was rare in that period. However, although the Yemenites wanted to perform the ritual traditionally, they had to adapt it to their new social and economic conditions.

In Israel, participants could not afford to lose workdays to elaborate rituals, and they wanted to save on time and expense. In many places, especially when the bride's and the groom's families both lived in the same small settlement, the henna ceremony in the groom's home was abolished. On the evening before the wedding day, the groom and his family were invited to the bride's home, and the men celebrated with the groom and the women with the bride, in separate rooms. Henna was spread on the groom in symbolically, while the bride's ritual was more elaborate, reinforcing its character as a rite of passage pertaining especially to the bride. However, the henna was daubed only on her palms, and the process of decorating it, performed over several days in Yemen, was relinquished. These changes were most likely a product of the immigrants' efforts to adjust their ritual activities to their economic capabili­ ties, but they also reflected the negative stigmatization of immigrants from Muslim countries during the first decades of the State.³⁹ The immigrants were perceived as culturally inferior, and the "melting pot" policy then in force required them to undergo a process of de-socialization and re-socialization in which they adopted Western cultural patterns.

These customs continued through the 1960s. Since differences in origin among members of the same immigrant group were less prominent in Israel, the ritual differences among the various groups from Yemen became blurred, and the customs of San'a came to dominate even among brides whose par­ents originated from other regions of Yemen.⁴⁰ The dress that became most widespread for the henna ritual resembled the magnificent dress worn by the bride in San'a-not for the henna ritual, but on the eve of her wedding.⁴¹ The Yemenite Israeli bride wore an upper coat of golden brocade material and black trousers with embroidered leggings. Her head was crowned with a high triangular hat (tishbuk lu'lu ') adorned by rows of white pearls intertwined with red and black beads, with a row of golden and elongated pendants on its margins, above the forehead. Red and white flowers and bundles of rue branches were attached to both sides for protection against the evil eye. Strings of white pearls were hung on both sides of the bride's face and dangled to her shoulders. A large silk scarf was attached to the top of the hat and spread almost to the bride's waist.

The jewelry of the San'a bride-again, that used on the eve of the wed­ ding-also found renewed life on the henna evening in Israel. These expen­sive, heavy pieces either had been brought with the immigrants from Yemen or were manufactured locally. The bride's face, chin, and cheeks were encom­ passed by an ornament called a labbah, decorated with rows of large, hollow silver or gold balls that had amulets for protection against the evil eye in the
center. Below the labbah, the bride wore chains of corals and pearls (ma' nageh lu'lu '). She wore silver or gold rings with stone inlays on her fingers and bracelets on her wrists and ankles.

In a heterogeneous society, the maintenance of traditional rituals facili­ tates communal cohesiveness and mutual commitment. Among Yemenite Jews in Israel, this function was fulfilled by the henna ritual, particularly within homogenous communities of Yemenite immigrants in villages and urban neighborhoods. During the wedding ceremony itself, which usually took place in the yard of the family's home, Yemenite brides preferred European dress-a white dress and white shoes.⁴² This mixing of customs is an example of cultural syncretism, the mixing of different cultural traditions to create a new cultural pattem.⁴³ In their practice of the henna ritual in Israel, Yemenite Jews expressed their wish both to become integrated into Israeli culture and to preserve major elements of their own traditional culture.

The Jewish community of Haban immigrated to Israel in its entirety and settled in together in the small village of Bareket. Photographs documenting this community in the 1950s and 1960s supply visual evidence of its effort to integrate tradition and modernity while maintaining its own unique style, as reflected in the way in its members celebrated the henna ritual.⁴⁴

In the Haban ritual as practiced in Israel, the bride's palms were still deco­rated, but the colored decorations on her face diminished and gradually dis­ appeared, and some of the traditional jewelry was exchanged for a modem gold chain. The bride's hair was combed into braids and decorated in the Haban style, becoming a symbol unique to the Habani bride in Israel. For the wedding itself, her head was shaped and decorated according to the colorful Habani tradition-but she wore a white dress and pointed white high-heeled shoes, following 1960s fashion. By her appearance, she symbolized the bridge between past and present, her own changing identity, and the roles of symbols within a process of social change.

The Henna Ritual from the 1970s through the Mid-1980s

Immigration to Israel, and the transition from the extended to the nuclear family, generated significant changes among the first-generation immigrants, and particularly among the women. Yemenite mothers came into contact with public institutions such as Tipat Halav (Israel's system of well-baby clinics), kindergartens, and schools, where they became acquainted with the new social order. Their legal status changed as well, so that they married at a later age and were partners in the family property, polygamy was prohibited, and their consent was required for divorce.⁴⁵

Many women went out to work, mainly as domestic help in the households of European immigrants. Their income often equaled that of their husbands, and they were sometimes the principal breadwinners. Their work afforded them economic independence, increased their power at home, and helped them develop social networks with women outside their community. They were exposed to values and lifestyles different from those with which they were familiar and often succeeded in coping with the new social reality better than the men.⁴⁶ Women's organizations that had operated in the Yemenite settlements since their establishment also contributed to the strengthening of the Yemenite women's status by holding classes and lectures. Life in mixed settlements allowed the Yemenite women more flexibility in their lifestyle, since they were under less social control.47

The new social and economic activities that were open to Yemenite women gave them an increased sense of self-esteem and independence,⁴⁸ demon­strating how the circumstances of immigration can expose women to new opportunities that serve as sources of empowerment.49 However, their past in Yemen still significantly influenced the women's perceptions. They retained traditional conceptions of gender roles and expected their daughters to behave according to traditional values. One of my respondents, for example, expressed her disappointment:

Our [Yemenites'] integration into Israeli society cost us dearly, since our children's generation did not really succeed in preserving the original tradi­tion and heritage of our ethnic group. For example, the mixing of boys and girls and the liberalism in the schools has led to a lack of modesty among the Yemenite girls. They wear revealing clothes, and behave improperly in the presence of boys.

Hard work at home and outside and coping with an alienating environment also pushed aside Yemenite symbols of femininity, such as the traditional embroidered dresses and leggings, jewelry, and make-up, and the use of per­ fume branches. These signs of self-grooming were relegated to Sabbaths and holidays, and later fell away almost completely.50

The second, Israeli-born generation of immigrants was influenced by the "melting pot" policy and the ethos of "negating the Diaspora,"⁵¹ which were major components in the structuring of Israeli identity. Its members did not face the dilemmas faced by their immigrant parents. Their memories were not directed towards Yemen, which they had never experienced. The gap created between the Yemenite parents and their children therefore was thus not only inter-generational, but a real cultural gap.⁵² Many traditions were perceived as old-fashioned and unsuited to Israel's modem society, into which the young people strove to integrate as fast as possible. Ethnic identity was often considered a marginal issue, to be expressed only on specific occasions. Nevertheless, many second-generation Yemenites continued to identify with their parents' country of origin, traditional foods, holiday customs, songs, and dances. While they moved away from strict religious observance, most did not disengage from religion completely, and the percentage of Yemenite youths who defined themselves as religious or "traditional" was higher than in other ethnic groups.⁵³ In the terms coined by Shlomo Deshen, it may be said that their move away from traditional piety was less one of "abolition" of religious symbols than of a more moderate "abandoning."⁵⁴

The girls of this generation participated actively in Israel's youth institutions and in the major realms of Israeli society.⁵⁵ In school, they learned that they could rely on and fulfill their talents and inclinations, further increasing their self-confidence and decreasing their dependence on others.⁵⁶ Most of them continued their studies through high school and later worked as teachers, kindergarten teachers, nurses, secretaries, and so on, for which they received reinforcement in their primary environment. As daughters of Yemenite par­ents, they were usually proud of their heritage, since the Yemenite community enjoyed relatively high prestige in Israeli society. However, these feelings of pride were accompanied by a lack of decisiveness regarding their parents' norms and conceptual world. They appreciated their parents but were reserved about their "primitive" way of life, which, in their opinion was not compatible with the new conditions. They perceived themselves as modern and above all as Israelis.⁵⁷

According to my respondents, the young people did not want to preserve the henna ritual and argued about it with their parents. They insisted that brides in Israel could decide whether to hold the henna ritual or not; it could no longer be forced upon them, as was customary in Yemen. If the custom did not dis­ appear, this was only because of their respect for their parents, who insisted on its preservation. However, since most of the younger generation refused to accept the ritual as it was, and the older generation expressed a willingness to change, the henna ritual was adjusted to the new circumstances, and modern elements were integrated into it.

According to interviews and anthropological fieldwork carried out during the 1970s and 1980s,58 it appears that the timing of the henna ritual remained as it had been during the first two decades in Israel; that is, it was held on the evening before the wedding, for the bride only. The interviewees indicated that these occasions gradually stopped being community events, as had been customary in Yemen, and they tended to go only to the celebrations of relatives and a handful of friends. In Israel, they explained, the Yemenites regarded pro­ longed wedding celebrations as a waste of time. In addition, the loudspeakers and guests disturbed the neighbors at night. They therefore decided to make do with one evening and thus also save on expenses.

The henna ritual was still held in the parents' yard, though the wedding itself now took place in a wedding hall. Where Yemenite society was strict about separating the sexes both in everyday life and in ritual, in Israel there was no such separation, and in some of the henna rituals the groom sat next to the bride, emphasizing the transition from structural inferiority for women to a more egalitarian society. People from other ethnic groups who had relations with the hosts, by marriage or through other forms of societal interaction, were invited to the ritual. Nevertheless, it appears from the testimonies that since weddings had become modern, it was important for the Yemenites, especially the older people but also for some of the youth, to maintain the henna ritual in order to preserve part of their tradition. Since many couples wore western dress for the wedding itself, the traditional Yemenite costume (of San'a) was diverted to the henna ritual. The hired professional singer and dresser saw to the traditional character of the evening and to the dress of the bride and groom.

The Henna Ritual from the Mid- I980's to Date

In the last few decades, the henna ritual has been revived and become more accepted,⁵⁹ in the context of a more widespread process among Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern and North African background) in Israel of returning to roots and reviving religious and ethnic traditions. This process is reflected, for example, in the popularity of Mizrahi music, in the custom of visiting the graves of famous rabbis (mostly from North Africa), and in the broad accep­ tance of ethnic holidays such as the mimuna (spring festival) of immigrants from Morocco.⁶⁰

This "new ethnicity"⁶¹ can be explained by a combination of factors.62 Modernization processes that attenuated people's sense of belonging created a need to return to and preserve traditional beliefs and customs. A slow but consistent retreat from the ethos of "negating the Diaspora" has also strength­ened dialogue with the past, with religion, and with Jewish tradition and iden­tity. According to studies carried out during the past decade, the percentage of people who consider themselves religious or traditional is higher among Israelis of Asian-African background than among those who hail from Europe and America, as is the proportion of those who attach significance to religious holidays and rituals.⁶³

The search for identity among Mizrahi young people is also part of their struggle against the hegemonic political center once symbolized by the labor party, and of their response to economic, social, and cultural discrimination against them. The decrease in Ashkenazi hegemony and the appearance of a new ideology of pluralism have afforded legitimacy to the cultures of "others" (Mizrahim, Arabs, women) who until recently were located at the margins of Israeli society. Today, Mizrahim feel greater confidence in performing their traditional rituals, without fear that this will impair their social integration or impugn their modem Israeli identity.

The "melting pot" policy, whose aim was to integrate the members of the various ethnic groups and create a uniform Israeli culture, did not pass the test of time.⁶⁴ The first generation of immigrants was expected to vanish from the stage within a short time, together with its ethic symbols, and the members of the second generation were usually ashamed of their parents' heritage. However, the members of the third generation are searching for their unique identity, and they give it various forms of expression. Yemenite brides who were asked in 2003 why they found it important to maintain the henna ritual answered that they wanted to continue and preserve the tradition. One bride said: "Preserving the Yemenite tradition and the customs brought by the Yemenite immigrants to Israel is very important. The aim is not to lose our roots, our personal and collective identity. Another reason why I chose to have the henna ritual is that it is an impressive, unique, and magnificent ritual."

Today, such young people are trying to reconstruct and perform the henna ritual according to the tradition preserved in the memory of their elders.

However, when the social and cultural context changes, the ritual must also change, and in this case it becomes syncretic. Older women expressed ambiva­lent attitudes towards this process. On the one hand, they recognized the need to introduce new elements in order to preserve the ritual among members of the third generation, who are being educated in a modern Western society in which they interact with members of other ethnic groups. They women empha­ sized that they very much wanted to preserve the ritual as it had been, but they compromised for lack of choice, so that it would not disappear completely. If new elements have been added, what is important, in their opinion, is that the ritual continues to be performed. On the other hand, they expressed their fear that the integration of tradition and modernity might eventually result in the original ceremony being forgotten.

Because inter-ethnic marriages are becoming more prevalent in Israel,⁶⁵ the phenomenon of holding a henna ritual for a non-Yemenite bride is becoming common. During the ceremony there is no ritual mention of the bride's origin, and her entire family comes to celebrate. A woman I interviewed related that when her son was about to get married, he asked her to hold a henna ritual for his bride, who was of European origin. At first the mother refused, claiming that the ritual was superfluous, since the bride would not understand the sig­ nificance of the ritual actions, songs, etc. However, the bride did not relent, and she had a ritual according to all the rules. Thus, holding henna rituals for non­ Yemenite brides, with the participation of non-Yemenite guests, expresses a syncretic process in which the dominant society also changes as a result of the inter-cultural encounter.⁶⁶ Israeli society, which had seen itself as "absorbing" the immigrants, has become willing to adopt cultural elements of the ethnic minority groups being "absorbed."

Today, the Yemenite henna ritual usually takes place with pomp and circum­ stance, in a wedding hall and not in the bride's home, a location that allows the invitation of guests from different ethnic groups. The guests usually do not bring gifts (which they bring to the wedding itself), making the high cost of renting the hall an indication of the parents' economic status. The ritual is not held on a fixed day but usually takes place between three days and a week before the wedding. Unless the family is strictly observant, there is no separa­ tion of the sexes. The rituals are uniform and dominated by the San'a style. The order of the ritual actions is very similar to that practiced in Yemen: dressing, procession, kneading, and spreading the henna. However, significant changes have occurred in the way these actions are performed, in the ritual accessories, and in the ritual's symbolic significance.

In many ceremonies, ritual actions once unique to the bride are now common to the bride and the groom. They thus reflect the new egalitarian messages prevalent in society and the change in Yemenite women's status in Israel. They marry at a later age, are more independent economically, choose their hus­ bands and sometimes even live with them before the wedding, and no longer are subject to parental or family supervision.⁶⁷ The young Yemenite men are not bothered, as were their immigrant parents, by this "undermining" of the men's status and by the women becoming more assertive in family life. Both partners contribute to the couple's social advancement. The accepted patterns for them are those that characterize most Israelis, and young Yemenite women, like their Israeli friends, measure success in terms of material achievement and educational level.⁶⁸ The actual wedding therefore does not comprise the same kind of major change in a woman's life as it did in traditional society. The significance of the henna ritual as a rite of passage therefore is also decreased, as expressed by one of the brides: "The henna ritual symbolized the daughter's separation from her parents and her leaving home. She prepared for married life. Today the ritual is done solely for enjoyment".

According to custom, a professional dresser is hired, and she brings the necessary items of dress and adornment. However, she now also fulfills addi­tional roles, acting as singer, organizer, and master of ceremonies. One dresser told me that she learned her profession from her mother and grandmother, who were professional dressers in Yemen. As in the first decades in Israel, the dresser clothes the bride and the groom in the magnificent traditional dress that was customary on the wedding day-rather than the day of the henna ritual-in San'a, with the addition of some modern elements. Some of the jewelry is still the original jewelry brought from Yemen, but most is locally produced, adding materials and patterns that were not in the original design,⁶⁹ and the bride also wears Israeli gold jewelry. The dressing women with whom I spoke indicated that the significance of the heavy jewelry is to turn the bride's attention to her assumption of life's mental and spiritual weight and of the heavy load placed upon her as a married woman. However, they added a modem interpretation, compatible with today's gender equality: "To show the bride that her future depends only upon herself, and that it is in her power to decide whether to turn her married life into a heavy load or to make it beautiful and full of content, like the jewelry that she wears around her neck." The inter­ viewed brides explained that the traditional dress and jewelry made them feel a bond with their parents' past and that this was a wonderful feeling, since these items symbolized what was in the past and evoked greater happiness.⁷⁰

In Israel the bride's entire face, not only her eyes, is made up. In Yemen, modesty was emphasized in the woman's and the bride's appearance, but in Israel the dresser paints the bride's lips with bright red lipstick and her fingernails and toenails with red nail polish. The interviewed women did not attribute any magical or fertility significance to the red color; rather, they said that it beautified the bride, emphasized her face, and made people look at her. Use of the perfumes that were customary in Yemen has greatly decreased, partly because the raw materials are unavailable, but also because the tradi­tional Yemenite customs have weakened, and perhaps also because cultural differences have influenced the sense of smell.⁷¹

The groom wears an upper coat of golden brocade and a triangular amulet on his chest against the evil eye. On his head he wears a low black skullcap wound with a checkered cloth.⁷² Long sidecurls (simonim), which in Yemen were the Jews' religious and national symbol and differentiated them from the Arabs,⁷³ are glued to the hat. Both the bride and the groom have branches of rue (shadhab) attached to the edges their hats, and they hold rue and basil branches in their hands. Today these plants are widely grown by the Yemenites in Israel. The interviewed women explained that they hold these branches not out of belief that this will protect them against the evil eye, but rather because the dressing women tell them to do so. The bride's and the groom's parents, and any relatives and guests who wish to do so, wear traditional Yemenite daily dress, or its modern version.

The ritual usually begins with the bride and groom entering the hall in a procession, with the guests standing up and cheering. The women in the procession carry straw baskets filled with sand, in which they put lit candles and colorful flowers, as well as the traditional candleholder with the eggs on top. My interviewees explained the flowers and candles as festive and color­ ful additions to the procession, symbolizing the wish for happiness, light, and beauty in the couple's life. The traditional incense vessel (mabkhariih) is less used today. The dressing women I interviewed told me that the musical instruments used and the songs performed during this part of the evening are the same as those that were customary in Yemen. There, however, the brides used to cry when they heard the sad songs, while most brides today are happy and laugh when they hear songs in the Yemenite language, since they do not understand the words unless someone translates them.

When the opening ritual ends, the rhythm of the songs increases, and all the participants-men and women together with the bride and groom-dance in rows, pairs, and circles to the Yemenite beat. When the song series ends, taped Oriental music is played, but after six or seven songs, the rhythm again returns to the Yemenite beat. After a break, the bride and groom change clothes. The bride puts on some articles of clothing similar to those worn during the henna ritual in San'a, including a golden gargush decorated with embroidery and silver and gold droplets, and she sometimes also changes her dress to a black one with embroidery down the front. The groom keeps his skullcap, but he replaces his clothing with a simple gray dress similar to the everyday garments worn in Yemen.⁷⁴

The interviewed women did not connect the clothes change with the tradi­tional custom (in some areas of Yemen) of changing the bride's clothing on the henna evening. Rather, they raised explanations that reflect social reality in Israel, indicating that this custom is practiced mainly when the bride is related to the dresser, who finds many costumes for her. They also said that these different costumes make a greater impression on the guests, and that the couple wants to take many different photographs as souvenirs of the evening. It seems that changing clothes also allows the family to preserve the unique dress characteristic of additional regions of Yemen, apart from San'a.

After changing their clothes, the bride and groom sit in the center, and the dresser sings and dances traditional parting songs. She asks the bride and groom to join in, and then also the guests. The music again alternates Yemenite and Oriental rhythms. Then the person organizing the ritual stands behind the bride and groom, holding an egg in her hand. She waves the egg in circular movements around the couple's heads, wraps it in a bag, and throws it on the floor. According to my interviewees, this act was also customary in Yemen (apparently in some areas), since the egg symbolizes fertility.⁷⁵

Now first the parents and then members of the family and guests daub henna on the hands of the bride and groom, but in a symbolic manner: only one finger, without the ritual henna decorations. The magical significance of the henna apparently is not clear to those present, especially the young couple, and some of them hurry to remove the signs of it from their hands. One bride said: "They did not explain the purpose, only that it was a tradition. Everyone laughed, and I removed the henna as fast as possible, so that no sign of it would
remain."⁷⁶ Family members congratulate the bride and groom, and the party continues into the late hours of the night, in a less traditional atmosphere. The young people dances to recorded music, including songs in the Mizrahi, pop, Israeli, and hasidic styles, and even songs belonging to the ritual repertoire of other ethnic groups.77 The refreshments are usually a mixture of Yemenite and Israeli foods.

From observations carried out between 1995 and 2000 of henna rituals in families whose origins lie in San'a itself,78 it appears that they are stricter in preserving the bride's original henna ritual. The groom and his family are invited to the ceremony, but the bride is at the center of the ritual activity. The ritual of dressing the bride, the garments themselves, and the musical repertoire are according to custom. However, new elements have penetrated this ritual as well, including the symbolic manner of daubing the henna and the abandonment of the traditional henna decorations; the daubing of henna on the bride by men and in their presence; women singing and dancing in the presence of men; and the addition of songs and dances that are alien to the Yemenite tradition. The style of the Haban community has also not disap­peared, but it is maintained only within the boundaries of that community.⁷⁹ The unique braiding ritual for the bride is still practiced, although the number of braids and the ancient jewelry that decorated them are on the decrease. Traditional songs and ritual musical components have been preserved. None­theless, the processes of change that have occurred among the women of these communities, and their integration into the general society, have inevitably generated changes in their cultural patterns, including the musical repertoire.

CONCLUSIONS

The bride's henna ritual was the principal rite of passage in the series of wed­ ding rituals practiced by the Jewish communities in Yemen. Analysis of this ritual as carried out in Yemen and in Israel reinforces the claim that the ritual is both a means of preserving the social order and, potentially, a mechanism of adjustment to a new social reality, and that changes in the social structure may be reflected by changes in ritual.

The bride's henna ritual in Yemen was a more significant rite of passage than the groom's ritual, an important stage in the transition by which she changed from a girl-youth into a man's wife, separated from her family, and went to live in her husband's home. As all rituals do, the ritual sequence reflected clear messages, norms of social order and hierarchy, and accepted rules of behavior, in this case including the norms of rigid gender separation and a non-egalitarian system in which femininity was shackled in structural inferiority.

After immigrating to Israel and becoming exposed to a Western society with egalitarian messages, Yemenite women gradually left off being dependent and subservient, and gained power in both the private and the public spheres. How­ ever, alongside their openness to reforms in the tradition, the Yemenite immi­ grants also acted for their preservation, even as they maintained, at least in the early years, traditional conceptions of gender roles in which men continued to hold formal power and authority. The change in women's status, together with these mixed trends towards both change and preservation, influenced the performance of the henna ritual in Israel, and it became syncretic. The immigration experience thus emphasizes that culture is something that people carry within and cannot be ignored as a real factor that can afford meaning to the absorption experience.

During the last few decades, as part of the process of a return to roots among Mizrahi young people, the henna ritual has been revived, mainly as a symbol of Yemenite ethnic identity. There has been an attempt to reconstruct the ritual and perform it according to the original tradition. However, the egalitarian social messages as well as the new economic circumstances of Israeli society have influence the ritual's contents, the way it is performed, its accessories, and its symbolic significance. Now reflective of a breaking of the social order and hierarchy, it is focused on the couple, and its importance as a feminine gender rite of passage has diminished.

Notes

Acknowledgements: The research for this article was supported by the Research Authority of the Ashkelon Academic College and by the Interdisciplinary Social Science Department at Bar-Ilan University.

1. On ritual and its symbolic meaning see Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures (Hebrew transl. by Yoash Maisler; Jerusalem: Keter, 1990), pp. 301-305; David Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); Nissan

Rubin, The Beginning of Life (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1995),

pp. 13-14; Robert Wallis, in Michael Mann (ed.), The MacMillan Student Encyclope­ dia of Sociology (London: Macmillan, 1983), pp. 334-335, s.v. "Ritual."

1. Haim Hazan, The Anthropological Discourse (Hebrew: Tel-Aviv: The Ministry of Defense, 1992), pp. 90-92. On the subversive potential of ritual see also Steven Lukes, "Political Ritual and Social Integration," Sociology, 9 (1975), pp. 289-308.
2. Nissan Rubin, The Joy of Life (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2004),

p. 24; Alfred Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960), pp. 9-10.

1. Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca, NY: Cor­ nell University Press, 1967), pp. 93-111; idem, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure (Hebrew transl.; Tel-Aviv: Resling, 2004), p. 88; see also Nissan Rubin, The End of Life (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1997), pp. 49-50.
2. On this series of rituals, including the ones that took place during the week before the wedding day, see Michal Amdor, "Wedding Customs in the Jewish Community in Aden," YedaAm, 23 (53-54) (1986), pp. 57, 63-64 (Hebrew); CarmelaAbdar, "The Head Decorations of the Haban Bride During the 1960s in Israel," Rimonim, 6-7 (1999), pp. 116-120 (Hebrew); Yosef Kafib, Halikhot Teman: Jewish Life in San'a, Yemen, ed. Israel Yeshayahu (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 2002 [first edi­ tion 1961]), pp. 111-156; Aviva Klein, "Wedding Customs of the Women of Radda," Yeda Am, 45-46 (1979), pp. 80-87 (Hebrew); Aviva Muller-Lancet, "On Marriages in Yemen," in Shalom Gamliel et al. (eds.), The Ways of Yemen (Jerusalem: Shalom Institute, 1984), pp. 411-412 (Hebrew); and Nahum Tschernowitz, "Wedding Cus­ toms of the Jews in Northern and Eastern Yemen," Israel: Am ve'aretz, 19 (1984),

pp. 185-200 (Hebrew).

1. On the origins of henna and the ways it is used in everyday life and in marriage rituals, see Amdor, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), p. 58; Zecharia Dori, The Gem and the Ransom (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Hemed, 1982), pp. 38-44; Rivka Gonen, "Sign of Henna," Mishkafayim, 30 (1997), p. 60 (Hebrew); Kafib, Halikhot Teman (above, note 5), pp. 122-125; Yehuda Nahum-Levy, The Secrets of the Yemenite Jews (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv-Jaffa: self-published, 1962), pp. 154-155; Ruth Pardess, "Motion Rituals in the Yemenite Henna Ritual and Their Context in Observation and Ther­ apy," Therapy by the Arts, 3/1 (2000), p. 22 (Hebrew); and Tschemowitz, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), pp. 191-193.
2. Klein, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), pp. 79-80, 83; Edward Westermarck, A Short History of Marriage (New York: Macmillan, 1926), pp. 190-192, 196,209.
3. Gonen, "Sign of Henna" (above, note 6), p. 60; Klein, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), p. 83. Cf. Rachel Waserfall, "Fertility and Community: The White Ribbon and the Green Ribbon Ritual in a Village of People from Morocco," in YaelAtzmon (ed.),

A Window into the Lives of Women in Jewish Societies (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1995), p. 266.

1. On this ritual activity in the different regions of Yemen, see Amdor, "Wedding Cus­ toms" (above, note 5), pp. 59-61; Heftziba Hilger, "Dress and Make-Up among Jewish Women in North Yemen," in Shalom Seri (ed.), Daughter of Yemen (Tel-Aviv: E'eleh Betamar, 1994), pp. 249-264 (Hebrew); Yosef Kafii) and Aviva Lancet, "Wedding Dress of the Jews in Yemen's Capital San'a," YedaAm, 8 (1963), pp. 24-25 (Hebrew); Pardess, "Motion Rituals" (above, note 6), p. 22; Yael Shai, "Women's Songs in Wedding Events of the Jews ofHaban," in Seri, Daughter of Yemen, pp. 155-164.
2. On the status of women in Yemen see, e.g., Nitza Druyan, "Yemenite Jewish Women between Tradition and Change," in Deborah Bernstein (ed.), Pioneers and Homemakers: Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel (Albany: University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 76-78; Bat-Zion Eraqi-Klorman, The Jews of Yemen, II (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Open University, 2004), pp. 207-208.
3. Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 2000),pp. 64-65, 70-71.
4. Kafii) and Lancet, "Wedding Dress" (above, note 9), pp. 24; Kafii), Halikhot Teman

(above, note 5), p. 252; and Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11),

pp. 80-87.

1. For sources on the dress of the bride, accompanied by illustrations, see Kafii) and Lancet, "Wedding Dress" (above, note 9), pp. 20-26; Muller-Lancet, "Marriages in Yemen" (above, note 5), p. 413; Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11), pp. 68-69, 88-89, 92-93, 102-103, 116-117; idem, The Jews of Yemen

(Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1994), pp. 60, 78.

1. On the art of jewelry-making in Yemen and the jewelry of women and brides in San'a, see Yehoyachin Eilon, "Yemenite Jewelry," in Grace Grossman Cohen (ed.), The Jews of Yemen (Chicago: Spertus College, 1976), pp. 13-20; Kafii), Cus­ toms (above, note 5), pp. 125-126; Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11), pp. 112-127, 136-137; and Yehuda Nahum-Levy, Secrets (above, note 6),

pp. 153-154.

15. Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11), pp. 64-65.

1. On perfumes in Yemen, see Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper, "Some Aspects of the Use of Perfume by Yemenite Jews," Tema, 2 (1991), pp. 133-142.
2. Waserfall, "Fertility and Community" (above, note 8), pp. 259-271.
3. Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11), pp. 72-73. On the dress of the bride in Haban, see also Abdar, "Head Decorations" (above, note 5), pp. 112- 123; and Shai, "Women's Songs" (above, note 9).
4. Amdor, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), pp. 59-61.

20. Ibid., p. 61.

Hilger, "Dress and Make-Up" (above, note 9), pp. 249-264; Tschernowitz, "Wed­ ding Customs" (above, note 5), pp. 188-193.

1. Pardess, "Motion Rituals" (above, note 6), p. 22; Klein, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), p. 80.
2. Turner, Ritual Process (above, note 4), p. 88; see also Rubin, End of Life (above, note 4), pp. 49-50; and idem, Joy of Life (above, note 3), pp. 26, 30.
3. On the ritual activities of leading the bride and kneading the henna, see Amdor, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), pp. 60-61; Kafii), Halikhot Teman (above, note 5), pp. 125-126; Klein, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), pp. 82-83; Nahum­ Levy, Secrets (above, note 6); Pardess, "Motion Rituals" (above, note 6), pp. 22-23; and Ruth Yaari, "Bride Candles in the Yemenite community," Rimonim, 6-7 (1999),

p. 131.

1. Klein, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), pp. 80, 83; Westermarck, Short His­ tory (above, note 7). For an extensive discussion of the egg and its symbolic meaning in different cultures, see Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper, "Symbolic Decoration for a Woman after Childbirth in San'a," Israel Museum Journal, 7 (1988), pp. 68-69.
2. Muchawsky-Schnapper, "Symbolic Decoration" (above, note 25), p. 63; Tscher­ nowitz, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), pp. 196-198; Yaari, "Bride Candles" (above, note 24).

27. Turner, Ritual Process (above, note 4), pp. 93-111; see also Rubin, End of Life

(above, note 4), pp. 49-50; idem, Joy of Life (above, note 3), pp. 26, 30.

28. Amdor, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), p. 60.

1. /bid., p. 62; Muller-Lancet, "Marriages in Yemen" (above, note 5), p. 412; Yehuda Ratzaby, "Wedding Songs in Radda, Yemen," Mal:,,anaim, 83 (1963), p. 53; Shai, "Women's Songs" (above, note 9), p. 157.

30. Dori, The Gem and the Ransom (above, note 6), pp. 45-46; Kafii), Halikhot Teman

(above, note 5), pp. 127-128; Nahum-Levy, Secrets (above, note 6), pp. 155-156.

1. On the art of embroidery in Yemen, with diagrams, see Aviva Muller-Lancet,"On Jewish Embroidery in San'a, Yemen," in Grossman Cohen, Jews of Yemen (above, note 14), pp. 21-27; and Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11),

pp. 68-73.

1. Carmela Abdar, "The External Appearance of the Woman from Zaram Al-Od," in Seri, Daughter of Yemen (above, note 9), p. 307 (Hebrew); Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11), pp. 64-65.
2. Tschemowitz, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5), p. 191.
3. Yael Fleshner, "The Traditional Song Repertoire of Yemenite Women in the Henna Ritual Today" (Hebrew; M.A. Thesis, Bar-Han University, 2001), pp. 130-137.
4. On the women's songs, see, e.g., Amdor, "Wedding Customs" (above, note 5),

pp. 61-62; Lea Avraham and Naomi Bahat-Ratzon, "Singing and Dancing as a Means

for Expression of the Internal World of the Jewish Woman in Yemen," in Seri, Daugh­ ter of Yemen (above, note 9), pp. 175-192 (Hebrew); Mishael Caspi-Masouri, "The Songs of Jewish Women in Yemen as a Literary Genre," Yeda Am, 23/53-54 (1986),

pp. 16-23 (Hebrew); Nissim Gamlieli Binyamin, The Love of Yemen: The Singing of Women (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Afikim, 1975); Shalom Seri, "The Pain of Separation in Women's Songs," in idem, Daughter of Yemen (above, note 9), pp. 165-174 (Hebrew); and Shai, "Women's Songs" (above, note 9), pp. 155-164.

1. Ratzaby, "Wedding Songs" (above, note 29), p. 54.
2. Shlomo Barad, On Eagles' Wings (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Massada; 1956), pp. 179- 190; Tudor Parfitt, The Road to Redemption (Leiden: Brill, 1996), pp. 159-164; Haim Saadon (ed.), Yemen (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi-lsrael Ministry of Education, 2002), pp. 115-125.
3. See Moshe Lissak, The Great Immigration during the I950s: The Failure of the Melting Pot (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1999), pp. 33-39; Haim Zadok, The Yoke of Yemen (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: E'eleh Betamar, 1985), pp. 159-184.
4. Baruch Kimmerling, Immigrants, Settlers, Natives (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Am Oved­ Alma, 2004) pp. 282-292; Moshe Lissak, "Images of Immigrants: Stereotypes and Stigmas during the Period of the Great Immigration in the 1950s," Katedra, 43 (1987),

pp. 125-144 (Hebrew).

1. Abdar, "Head Decorations" (above, note 5), pp. 112-123; Nitza Druyan, "Yemenite Jews on the Zionist Altar," in Laura Zittrain Eisenberg and Neil Caplan (eds.), Review Essays in Israel Studies, V (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000),

pp. 155-170.

1. Kafib and Lancet, "Wedding Dress" (above, note 9), pp. 25-26; Aviva Lancet, "Tishbuk lu'lu ': The Crown of the Jewish bride in San'a," in Yehuda Ratzaby and Yit­ zhak Shivtiel (eds.), Hare/: Memorial Collection for Rabbi Raphael A/sheikh (Hebrew; Tel Aviv: He'asor, 1962), pp. 179-187; Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11), pp. 128-129, 146-147; idem, Jews of Yemen (above, note 13), pp. 86, 104.

Muller-Lancet, "Marriages in Yemen" (above, note 5), p. 414.

1. See my book, Syncretism and Adjustment: The Encounter between a Traditional Community and a Socialist Community (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Cherikover, 2002), pp. 17- 22; Charles Stewart and Rosalind Shaw (eds.), Syncretism!Anti-Syncretism (London: Routledge, 1994), and their Introduction on pp. 1-26.
2. On the henna ritual of the Haban bride in Israel during the 1950s and 1960s, see Abdar, "External Appearance" (above, note 32).
3. Ora Terry, "Changes in the Status of the Yemenite Woman upon Immigration to Israel," in Seri, Daughter of Yemen (above, note 9), pp. 311-322 (Hebrew).
4. Compare Dan Havivi, Yona Soen and Dhalia Pal, "Cultural Confrontation of Six Families Originating from the Yemen with Israeli Reality and Its Effects on Their

Social Adjustment," ITCC Review, 4/36 (1980), pp. 34-44; Yael Katzir, "Women from Yemen as Agents of Change in the Moshav," in Shlomo Deshen and Moshe Shoked (eds.), The Jews of the East (Tel-Aviv: Shocken, 1984), pp. 221-230 (Hebrew).

1. Lisa Gilad, Ginger and Salt: Yemenite Jewish Women in an Israeli Town (Boul­ der-San Francisco-London: Westview Press, 1989), pp. 88-91; Herbert Lewis, After the Eagles Landed: The Yemenites of Israel (Prospect Heights: Waveland, 1994),

pp. 114-119.

1. Ada Avraham and Shoshana Shami, "Women of Moroccan Origin Compared to Women of Yemenite Origin: Focused Comparison on the Subject of the Self," Megamot, 24 (1976), pp. 424-448 (Hebrew).
2. Cf. Aziza Khazzoum, "To Turn into a Minority, to Examine Genderedness: Jewish Iraqi Women during the 1950s," in Hanan Heveret al. (eds.), Mizrahim in Israel (Jeru­ salem: Hakibbutz Hameuchad-Van Leer Institute, 2002), pp. 212-243 (Hebrew); Judy Yung, Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
3. Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11), pp. 60-61; Tuvia Sulami, "Changes in the Image of the Yemenite Woman in Poetry," in Seri, Daughter of Yemen (above, note 9), pp. 205-214 (Hebrew).
4. See Gideon Shimoni, "Reexamination of the 'Negation of the Diaspora' as a Con­ cept and in Practice," in Anita Shapira et al. (eds.), The Age of Zionism (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2000), pp. 45-63 (Hebrew).

Gilad, Ginger and Salt (above, note 47), pp. 128-131.

1. Moshe Shoked, "Commandments versus Tradition: Trends in Religiosity in the Oriental Communities," Megamot, 28 (1984), pp. 250-264 (Hebrew).
2. Shlomo Deshen, "Concepts in the Study of Religious Change," in Moshe Shoked and Shlomo Deshen (eds.), The Generation of Change (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 1977), pp. 43-54 (Hebrew)

Gilad, Ginger and Salt (above, note 47), pp. 158-162.

Avraham and Shami, "Women of Moroccan Origin" (above, note 48).

1. Haim Gamliel, "Change and Continuity in Family Relations among Yemenite Jews in Israel," in Gamliel, Ways of Yemen (above, note 5), p. 200 (Hebrew)
2. Lewis, After the Eagles Landed (above, note 47), pp. 248-252; Sara Nussboim, "Continuity and Change in a Yemenite Town (Rosh Ha'ayin) (Hebrew; M.A. Thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 1986).

See also Gonen, "Sign of Henna" (above, note 6), pp. 61-63.

1. See "Integration of the Ethnic Holiday in Israeli Culture," discussion led by Moshe Bar-Giora, in Rina Sharet, The Ethnic Holiday in Israel (Tel-Aviv: Israel Federation of Labor-Ministry of Education, 1990), pp. 24-32 (Hebrew); Yoram Bilu, Holy Brides­ maids (Hebrew; Haifa: Haifa University, 2004), pp. 43-49. On music as an arena

for pluralism see Motti Regev, "Introduction to Israeli Culture," in Efraim Yaar and Zeev Shavit (eds.), Trends in Israeli Society, II (Tel-Aviv: Open University, 2003),

pp. 823-898 (Hebrew).

1. Moshe Lissak, "Employment, Education, and Political Activity: Patterns of Mobil­ ity among the Mizrahim," in Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt et al. (eds.), Ethnic Groups in Israel and their Social Position (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1993), p. 150 (Hebrew).
2. Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, Changes in Israeli Society (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 2004), pp. 9-13; Anita Shapira, "Where Did the 'Negation of the Diaspora' Go," Alpayim, 25 (2003), pp. 9-54 (Hebrew); Sammy Shalom Shitrit, The Mizrahi Struggle in Israel (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Am Oved-SifriyatAfikim, 2004); Efraim Yaar and Zeev Shavit, "Processes and Trends in the Collective Identity," in idem, Trends in Israeli Society (above, note 60), pp. 1197-1269 (Hebrew).
3. See, for example, Elihu Katz et al., Culture of Leisure in Israel (Hebrew; Jeru­ salem: Guttman Institute, 1992), pp. 7-20; Jacob Yadgar and Yeshayahu (Charles) Liebman, "Jewish Traditionalism and Popular Culture in Israel," Iyyunim bitkumat Yisrael, 13 (2003), pp. 163-180 (Hebrew).
4. See also Lissak, Great Immigration (above, note 38), pp. 66-74.

65. Moshe Sikron, Demography in Israel (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Carmeli, 2004), p. 63.

1. See, for example, Thomas Bamat, "Popular Catholicism: Global Paradox and Promise," America, 180 (1999), pp. 6-9.
2. See also Rubin, End of Life (above, note 4), p. 28.
3. Terry, "Changes in the Status" (above, note 45), p. 320.
4. Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11), pp. 146-147.
5. Gonen, "Sign of Henna" (above, note 6), pp. 61-63.
6. Muchawsky-Schnapper, "Use of Perfume" (above, note 16), pp. 141-142.
7. On the groom's wedding-day garments in Yemen, see Kafil), Halikhot Teman

(above, note 5), pp. 22-26.

1. Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11), pp. 60-63.
2. Kafil), Halikhot Teman (above, note 5), p. 250; Muchawsky-Schnapper, The Yemenites (above, note 11), pp. 60-63.
3. See above, note 25.
4. See also Gonen, "Sign of Henna" (above, note 6), p. 63.
5. On the multiple and hybrid musical styles that characterize Israeli and Mizrahi music today, see also Regev, "Introduction to Israeli Culture" (above, note 60); and idem,, "To Have a Culture of Our Own: On Israeliness and Its Variants," Ethnic and Racial Studies, 23 (2000), pp. 223-247.
6. For an analysis of the ritual activity and musical repertoire see Fleshner, "Traditional Repertoire" (above, note 34), esp. pp. 16-25, 123-137.

On the Haban community in Israel, see Abdar, "Head Decorations" (above, note 5),

pp. 121-123; Yael Shai, "Processes of Change in the Traditional Musical Repertoire of the Wedding among the Haban Jews" (Hebrew; Ph.D. Dissertation, Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1997).