Jewish Legal Interpretations of Female Homoeroticism

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Discussing Jewish legal interpretations of female homoeroticism, it should be pointed out that lesbian sexuality, as it has been understood since the second half of the 20th century, did not exist in ancient biblical or rabbinic texts. In the Hebrew Bible there is no prohibition of female homoeroticism. In the Mishnah and the Tosefta legal interpretations of it cannot be found either. In other halakhic texts of later Judaism, statements against female homoeroticism are subsequently deduced from the biblical book of Leviticus by associating sexual pleasure or even marriage between women with the “way of life of the land of Egypt”, which, according to the parenesis in Lev 18:3, the Israelites should not imitate. Those halakhic texts are read from a queer perspective in order to sustain Jewish lesbian women and other queer persons of today. In Sifra, a halakhic midrash on Leviticus from antiquity, the idea of same-sex marriages between men or women conceptualised in a parallel way is found as an exception within Jewish literature. Not sex between women but the marriages between women and between men are rejected in Sifra Acharei Mot (“After Death”) 9:8 (85c–d) on Lev 18:3 as well as special kinds of polygamy. By implication this means that the marriage between a man and a woman and in principle also polygyny, where a man has several wives, was the norm in Sifra. But Talmudic texts exist which are traditionally used as sources for female desire between women. According to the Palestinian Talmud Gittin (“Divorce Certificates”) 8:10,49c, the House of Hillel considers – contrary to the House of Shammai – that the “sporting” of women with each other does not constitute a sexual offense. The crucial point for this view may presumably be that women are thereby not penetrated by a male penis. In the Babylonian Talmud Yebamoth (“Sisters-in-law”) 76a, a rather similar opinion is attributed to Rabbi Eleazar, who implicitly claims that a woman having sex with another woman does not render her a harlot. From a present-day queer point of view same-sex activities between women are not indecent as lesbophobic people possibly still might think today following Rabbi Eleazarʼs saying. In the Babylonian Talmud Shabbath (“Sabbath”) 65a, there are reservations about sisters sleeping together. In the tractates Yebamoth 76a and Shabbath 65a of the Babylonian Talmud, it is argued that women who “are fulfilled with sexual pleasure of each other” are excluded from the priestly community. This could have meant loss of a priestly privilege (namely being disqualified from participating in the meal of the gifts to the priests) or prohibition to marry a Jewish priest. Both things are no longer relevant today. In the High Middle Ages, the Jewish legal scholar Maimonides commented in various ways on female homoeroticism. With his demand for male control of female sexuality in Mishneh Torah (“Repetition of the Torah”), Hilkhot Issurei Biah (“Laws concerning Forbidden Sexual Relationships”) 21:8 he is, on the one hand, a representative of typical patriarchal ideas. On the other hand, even he states in his Commentary on the Mishnah Sanhedrin (“Lawcourt”) 7:4 that neither biblical law (that is the Torah) nor rabbinic law (that is the Mishnah and the Tosefta) stipulates a punishment for female homoeroticism.

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